In 1999, HAL changed ships on us for a Canada/New England cruise. We had booked an A category on the Volendam but they switched to the Maasdam because the Volendam. The Massdam has fewer A category cabins than the Volendam. We got our docs 8 weeks in advance of the cruise. The docs were marked cabin 000. Our TA kept calling HAL and we finally got our cabin about 1 week before we sailed. My husband kept telling everyone that we were probably going to be on the 3rd lifeboat on the port side. So keep checking every couple of days.