Available versus limited
I recall some discussion here about how many openings there are on tours. FYI, I called today to book a river cruise that was listed as “available”. There were only two cabins to choose from, one each in categories 5 and 6. Once I booked, the cruise was listed as “limited”. So, much less that I thought when listed as “available”. Perhaps it’s different for land tours.
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Folks have been told different things as to how may openings define "available" vs "limited" as old threads will attest. Also, there can be a slight difference in the conditions so it is not a hard and fast number - during one of our early COVID rebookings we could not get a spot on the same departure the following year because it was sold out. We got on a wait list, hoping for a cancellation. In any case, I kept checking the availability regularly. After awhile our desired departure went from "sold out" to "limited" so I called immediately to book. I was told the there was only one (or two?) spots (cabins) for a single so we could not book it. Evidently at least one cabin on J&E was/is reserved for a single. Either that or Tauck has to adhere to an Oberoi imposed hard limit on Tauck passengers. There was no way you could tell that from the website. This happened several times over the next few months. Finally we received a call there was an opening for us. Of course not many months later the entire tour was cancelled.
On the December 2021 Jordan & Egypt Tour, there were 12 guests--4 of which were solo travelers. That was a really special tour and absolutely perfect without the crowds or the heat....of course the flip side of all that perfectness was COVID was still running amuck--thankfully everyone in my small group tested negative -we were all very diligent in wearing our masks
I'm waitlisted for a solo room for the North India-Nepal tour. The website shows it as SOLD OUT; however, when I called, I was told there is one solo room available. The reason I am waitlisted is due to a friend also wanting to join me on the tour as a solo traveler. Tauck indicated there are only 2 rooms allocated for solo travelers for my chosen dates and one room is already reserved. There is a note in the system that the Operations team cannot request additional rooms. There is still availability for double rooms. I've checked-in a few times and one solo room is still available and the website still shows SOLD-OUT
To see what is happening for Cruises you must go to the Pricing and Availability page and click on a departure and go to the next level to see the availability status of individual cabin categories. How they determine the single, overall availability shown on the Pricing and Availability page is a mystery, probably some complex algorithm?
I've seen "Available" on a P&A page even when the next level shows almost every category is "Limited" or "Sold out" like the example below.
The 3 August 2022 Amsterdam to Basel cruise shows it is "Available" overall on the P&A page but when you click on the departure and go to the detailed cabin view, only two cabin categories show "Available" while the remaining six are either "Sold Out" or "limited." Also, on the MS Grace there are only 8 Cat 3 cabins but 16 Category 6 cabins! So the definition of "Available" for each must be different.
I personally think Tauck should do away with the overall rating. In fact, they should go back to the way they displayed cruises on the old website- it was possible to determine the status of every cabin category for every departure for an entire season by looking at one easy-to-read and interpret chart!
You can also search for cabins by changing the default from "Date View" to "Category View". For me I can't do it on my Fire tablet but it's available if I'm on my PC. Just below the words "Pricing & Availability" you can choose which view you want. In Category View it will show you the dates of sailings and all the pricing for each category. Cabins unavailable have the price in red and it's lined out.
Another feature of the website is that you can search and find pricing for cabins other than the standard 1 room/2 guests which is handy for singles or families.
For Small Ship Cruises does anyone know how the Category # in the first photo below correlates to the Cabin Type Name in the second photo below?
If you click on the price the cabin details pop up.
That's precisely what I do, Wayside. There's no need to run "what ifs" by choosing various filters. From the default screen I simply click on the price that corresponds with my preferred date and the available cabin categories appear.
Wayside - Thanks.
Too funny!
Option 1: it appears that the Flagger doesn't like people posting pictures since both AlanS's post above and my post above, included photos to help clarify a response or a question and both got Flagged, while none of the posts that were text only got Flagged.
Option 2: the Flagger just Flags posts by AlanS and myself, just because.
The flagger is someone who still has an AOL account and a dial-up modem, so the images take too long to load.