Must Pre-Pay for Shore Excursions (Back on)

We booked the Sept. 22 Caribbean Princess TA today, and we did not have to pre pay for Amsterdam shore excursion that I reserved.

Based on several other threads, Princess is slowly implementing the use of available OBC to "pay" to pre-book tours before sailing in addition to using a charge card.

Until it's implemented fleetwide experiences will vary...some will have to pay by charge card, some can "pay" by using OBC and some are like me who can pre-reserve & use OBC from my onboard account to pay for tours during my cruise.

Based on several other threads, Princess is slowly implementing the use of available OBC to "pay" to pre-book tours before sailing in addition to using a charge card.

 

Until it's implemented fleetwide experiences will vary...some will have to pay by charge card, some can "pay" by using OBC and some are like me who can pre-reserve & use OBC from my onboard account to pay for tours during my cruise.

I believe Princess currently only has two implementations:

• Advance payment is not required. You may pay in advance (and OBC is not available) or you may pay onboard (with all OBC available). It is your choice. You do not have to pay in advance, but if you do then you cannot use any OBC.
  
• Advance payment is required. You must pay in advance in order to confirm a reservation. You can use any OBC already posted to your account, and you only have to charge to a credit card the excess over your OBC. You can only use OBC already posted to your account. You cannot use loyalty OBC and OBC from a travel agent that is not posted until you are onboard. You cannot use stockholder OBC until it is posted (usually not more than 90 days prior to the cruise).
  

I have cruises booked with each of these implementations. Note that they do not require advance payment without allowing OBC. If OBC is not allowed in advance, then advance payment is optional.

I've read posts stating the 3rd option...pay in full using a credit card.

Since the procedure is in transition then passengers are reporting all 3 experiences.

I've read posts stating the 3rd option...pay in full using a credit card.

 

Since the procedure is in transition then passengers are reporting all 3 experiences.

I haven't read any posts where a passenger was required to pay and could not use OBC. I've read several where people said it required them to pay and they did not proceed.

The Princess webpage says you have to pay in full. It doesn't mention OBC until after you have clicked the selection to pay. I would be very interested if someone who had OBC already posted to their account clicked on the pay selection was then charged the full amount without deducting the OBC - but I haven't seen anyone verify that yet.

They clarified on Facebook the other day that the prepayment requirement is for Fall 2017 voyages onward, which is why people going to Alaska this summer aren't having to prepay.

They clarified on Facebook the other day that the prepayment requirement is for Fall 2017 voyages onward, which is why people going to Alaska this summer aren't having to prepay.

Thanks...even though it could eventually change, my Fall 2017 Med/TA cruise's tours do not require any type of prepayment but it's not unusual for Princess reps to provide us with incorrect information.

The TA is usually considered the last voyage of the previous season, I think. So that would be a summer voyage, the first voyage fully back in the US would be fall.

Yes Pam, I am learning that OBC can be used, but it will not be equalized.

 

I did not try to prepay as I thought that meant paying with money, like everything else you prepay for. So I now I have done so and seen how it works.

 

It does allocate your OBC first, but if one spouse has more OBC than the other (Military, shareholder, good will etc), it does not transfer over. And it will not recognize Travel Agent OBC as that does not show in advance on our cruise personalizer and only shows up when you get onboard.

 

So, although our excursion reservation total is well under the total amount of OBC we have, they still want us to submit partial payment by money (credit card) for my wife because her name has less OBC listed under it than my name does. Not sure what to do about this, but it is definitely better than I first thought.

 

Don

I am also running into this problem. They will not let me use my On Board credit to pay for wife excursions..Before if I booked under my name, I was listed as the payor and my account WAS billed for her excursions. The only way to avoid this was to book one under my name then sign out and sign in as her and book under her sign on. This worked some of the time. Now it does not work at all. Unlikely to pay for anything until a few months before.

I called and they put me on hold for 10 minutes. Came back and gave me useless information. Once again, they are not training their people properly.. Do the training before you implement the changes. The should not have to go ask someone else( who doesn't know anyway) Customer service fail.

Excursions for our March 19, 2018, Hawaii cruise were posted today. I was able to book an excursion, DH and myself, and at the make payment step I could use OBC for each of us.

The shore excursions listed for our January 2018 Caribbean Princess cruise have to be paid in advance ... unfortunately no other option. :(

The shore excursions listed for our January 2018 Caribbean Princess cruise have to be paid in advance ... unfortunately no other option. :(

Until Princess adds the OBC pay option to pre-reserve any tour, they should give us the option to pre-reserve & use OBC to pay on the ship.

I realize they're slowly transitioning to requiring pre-payment (OBC or credit card) however it's not equitable to have some passengers such as you paying by credit card only. My October 2017 cruise still does not require pre-payment & instead to either add the cost to my onboard account to be offset by OBC or to pay in advance using a credit card.

That's how they should be accepting tour reservations until they've added the pre-pay using OBC option to any cruise's tours. You shouldn't be punished because Princess is slowly implementing the new procedure fleetwide resulting in you being required to pre-pay by credit card. :(

The shore excursions listed for our January 2018 Caribbean Princess cruise have to be paid in advance ... unfortunately no other option. :(

Do you allow prepayment using OBC? The only way to find out is to do a trial booking of an excursion and then to go to pay. At that point, it should show you the option to use your OBC - if you have OBC already posted.

Do you allow prepayment using OBC? The only way to find out is to do a trial booking of an excursion and then to go to pay. At that point, it should show you the option to use your OBC - if you have OBC already posted.

Hopefully that works for them & your posting the procedure is helpful during this transition phase to requiring tour pre-payment either by OBC or credit card.

Hopefully that works for them & your posting the procedure is helpful during this transition phase to requiring tour pre-payment either by OBC or credit card.

Unfortunately, Princess is not clear about the use of OBC to reserve excursions. When I go through the booking process, I don't see any mention of OBC until the end. It They state "Items added to the card are not reserved until paid." It is not until you click "Pay Now" that you get the screen with the option to select "Onboard credits applied".

So far, I have not seen anyone post that he had to prepay and could not use OBC - after going through the entire process. Several people have posted that they needed to prepay, but they had not selected "Pay Now" and looked for the "Onboard credits applied" option on the payment screen. This is not a criticism of the posters - it is a criticism of the Princess web site.

Unfortunately, Princess is not clear about the use of OBC to reserve excursions. When I go through the booking process, I don't see any mention of OBC until the end. It They state "Items added to the card are not reserved until paid." It is not until you click "Pay Now" that you get the screen with the option to select "Onboard credits applied".

 

So far, I have not seen anyone post that he had to prepay and could not use OBC - after going through the entire process. Several people have posted that they needed to prepay, but they had not selected "Pay Now" and looked for the "Onboard credits applied" option on the payment screen. This is not a criticism of the posters - it is a criticism of the Princess web site.

That's how I interpreted your post & that Princess needs to be clearer with their explanation of the new tour reservation process.

Late last year their change to only requiring credit card payments resulted in a lot of upset passengers & was rescinded. Then it reverted to the original no pre-payment option & now to require pre-payment including by using OBC. Such changes have resulted in confusion & as you posted with Princess's lack of clear statements it makes it even more confusing.

Some of our shore excursions for our Caribbean Princess January 2018 cruise just became available for booking today. I did a "dummy" booking to check, and for this cruise we can use OBC to pay for excursions. YMMV though. ;)

I checked and our three scheduled cruises for the remainder of this year all require payment to reserve shore excursions. Yes Princess will accept OBC as payment and I assume that goes as far as the OBC will cover when a CC will be required. Personally I don't care much for this new policy and wonder what this may push more pax to book with private excursions where many do not require any or a small reservation fee before the excursion. It would be interesting to see if this new policy results in a reduction in ship excursion sales.

I checked and our three scheduled cruises for the remainder of this year all require payment to reserve shore excursions. Yes Princess will accept OBC as payment and I assume that goes as far as the OBC will cover when a CC will be required. Personally I don't care much for this new policy and wonder what this may push more pax to book with private excursions where many do not require any or a small reservation fee before the excursion. It would be interesting to see if this new policy results in a reduction in ship excursion sales.

All I know is that we are trying a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Galveston (now that Princess has left TX), and they require payment of excursions when you pre-book them.

We have not booked a single excursion for the cruise, and in my upcoming cruise review the prepayment requirement was about to be a major negative.

(Princess, are you listening?)

We sailed on HAL at the end of 2013 and they had prepaid excursions then...

Not happy to hear Princess is moving to the same strategy. Just more incentive to research non-ship booked excursions.

I am not a shill for Princess here, but there is some logic to all this. First, Princess needs to have better assurance that a tour will operate and has to pay the tour companies their fees (and don;t want to be stuck with only a couple of paying passengers). Princess is also trying to be more competitive in pricing tours and offering guarantees of best pricing with rebates, etc.

They are allowing us to spend as much of OBC as we want (you can still pay the whole thing with CC). If a tour has a refund policy, you can still refund the cost back to OBC or CC.

I don't see the problem if I want to guarantee to have a place on a popular tour and also lock down my cost. My only concern is not to be stuck with a bunch of OBC to spend and that is resolved pretty satisfactorily IMO.

Doesn't change the landscape either for us to also look at private tour options. For example, we have found a better all-day private tour for a stop in Rio next February we prefer. Also, Princess' offering for Carnival Parade in the Sambadrome is not what I want, so I am getting my own tickets for the next night. But I am sure there will be other Princess tours we will select and spend some of our OBC.

All I know is that we are trying a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Galveston (now that Princess has left TX), and they require payment of excursions when you pre-book them.

 

We have not booked a single excursion for the cruise, and in my upcoming cruise review the prepayment requirement was about to be a major negative.

 

(Princess, are you listening?)

I once cruised on RCCL but left for several reasons and pre-paying excursions was certainly one. So now that Princess has left Galveston again, I have been on a few CCL cruises and they also require pre-payment for excursions. Result is that I just don't book ship excursions with them. Alas at least for me, it looks like what was once a perk with Princess is now gone. Like you I am looking more at private excursions. I wonder how this is playing out for Princess.

I am not a shill for Princess here, but there is some logic to all this. First, Princess needs to have better assurance that a tour will operate and has to pay the tour companies their fees (and don;t want to be stuck with only a couple of paying passengers). With the old policy of reserving pre-cruise without paying Princess had no problem selling out many tours pre-cruise and selling out many of the remaining ones on the ship. If a tour does not meet the required minimum number of participants, then Princess can cancel it with no fees to pay to the vendor. In all the cruises we have taken with Princess, there was only one tour we had booked that was cancelled for lack of participants (an evening tour in St. Petersburg).

 

 

Princess is also trying to be more competitive in pricing tours and offering guarantees of best pricing with rebates, etc. No, they are not trying to be more competitive with pricing. Ship's tours are still priced very high. In a number of ports, the contract with Princess says the vendor cannot sell the same tour directly to a Princess passenger forcing the passengers to either pay the Princess price or not take the tour at all. The best pricing guarantee requires the alternate tour to be exactly what the Princess tour is. If for example, the independent tour by a different vendor does not waste an hour at a gift shop, it is not an identical tour and the guarantee does not apply. Another example is the White Pass RR excursion in Skagway. A family of four can save $32 by booking directly with the RR company, but it is not the identical tour that Princess offers. Why? With the Princess tour you board the train near where the ship docks. With the RR company you must walk five blocks into town to board the train (and usually be in a less crowded RR car).

 

They are allowing us to spend as much of OBC as we want (you can still pay the whole thing with CC). If a tour has a refund policy, you can still refund the cost back to OBC or CC.

 

I don't see the problem if I want to guarantee to have a place on a popular tour and also lock down my cost. Under the previous reserve-but-not pre-pay plan, the cost was locked down at the price on the day you made the reservation, even if Pricness later raised the price for those signing up later. So under the old method you both were guaranteed a place on a tour and locked down the price. My only concern is not to be stuck with a bunch of OBC to spend and that is resolved pretty satisfactorily IMO.

 

Doesn't change the landscape either for us to also look at private tour options. For example, we have found a better all-day private tour for a stop in Rio next February we prefer. Also, Princess' offering for Carnival Parade in the Sambadrome is not what I want, so I am getting my own tickets for the next night. But I am sure there will be other Princess tours we will select and spend some of our OBC.

See my comments in red above.

With many tours available for booking months before final payment date, now you may have to spend thousands of $$$ to pay for tours before you have even paid for the cruise itself.

Many people once they decide to book a cruise start setting aside money to pay for the cruise and then also for excursions and other on-board expenses. Not everyone has the $$$ available to pay for excursions months before the cruise embarkation day.