Clarification please on future cruise deposits/credits

So many people mention booking future cruises while on their current cruise. I get the general idea but can you explain in more detail how that works?

Does the $100 deposit (I'm assuming that's per person?) get charged to your ship account (or whatever it's called!) with current ship charges?

How are the future shipboard credits determined, and how do you go about redeeming those on your future cruise?

Is it correct that you do not have to know which cruise you want to go on at the time of the deposit? How long is the deposit credit valid?

Also, when you have a future cruise credit and you decide to use it, do you have to book directly with Princess or can you still use a TA?

You guys are a wealth of knowledge - thank you for your help!

To answer you questions..

1. You have to charge to your credit/debit card not your shipboard account.

2. Just give the FCC number to your TA. They will handle everything. Your credits will be as follows:

7 - 9 days: $25 pp for inside room; $50 pp for outside room

10-15 days: $75 pp for inside room; $100 pp for outside room

16 + days: $125 pp for inside room ; $150 pp for outside room

3. You are correct, you do not have to know what cruise you want. They last for 4 years. If you do not use the FCC, your money will be refunded.

4. You can book with whoever you want.

Largin is 100% correct, so no need to add to the response there. The one thing I wanted to clarify for you is that each FCC costs $100. When you book a specific cruise/cabin, your deposit will be $100 per person, so unless you use 2 FCCs, you will need to pay an additional $100 at the time you book. I just did this using 1 FCC for the Coral next year and had to give them an extra $100 deposit to cover the 2nd person. And we did this all through my TA, getting her pricing. Just gave her the FCC number as Largin said, she did the rest.

You can book more than one future cruise. You can put down $300 pp and have 3 furture cruise credits on the books, just in case something comes up you werenl't planning. This happened to us, a cruise came up that we wanted to go on and we had used up our a cruise credit, but my TA had a deal so we were able to get a cruise for $100 pp deposit

Redundant post.