Need Advice on Prepaying Dawn Excursions

[mablinki]

I am planning on a Dawn Cruise in August and figured I should prepay the excursions for the Dolphin Swim and Universal Studios. What happens if it rains? Do I get a refund or do I have go suck up the cost? Any guidance would be appreciated. Tks.

[johnql]

You get a full refund if any ship-sponsored excursion is cancelled. I don't think rain would affect an excursion to Universal. I seriously doubt if they would cancel the excursion because of rain, unless it was serious enough that the park was actually closed (more like a hurricane situation). I don't know how rain would affect a Dolphin Swim excursion.

[mom-of-three]

We were cruising last year during the hurricane Francis week with Holland America. We were in Tortola as they were boarding up. The weather was already very rainy with lightning. My daughter had a dolphin swim and it was not cancelled. Because we had paid and because everyone else was going, I let her go (dummy me--if everyone jumps off a bridge will you?). So she swam in lightning. The HA tour desk response to this... the tour operator wouldn't operate if it wasn't safe. HELLO - lightning and swimming - I was there.

Just my experience, it might be different with other lines.

[pgh]

Hi Mom-of-Three!

 

I don't know if this has changed, but up until April '05, NCL's pre-booking of shore excursions is different than HAL's. On HAL your credit card is charged at the time of the pre-request vs. NCL which is charged to your ship board account 24 hours prior to the actual excursion.

 

Should an excursion be cancelled on NCL, your account is never charged. Should weather be a concern, you have until the day before the excursion to cancel.

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

Pam

[shoreguy]

Hi Mom-of-Three!

 

I don't know if this has changed, but up until April '05, NCL's pre-booking of shore excursions is different than HAL's. On HAL your credit card is charged at the time of the pre-request vs. NCL which is charged to your ship board account 24 hours prior to the actual excursion.

 

Should an excursion be cancelled on NCL, your account is never charged. Should weather be a concern, you have until the day before the excursion to cancel.

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

Pam

 

That is correct. You can pre-book your excursions and should do so. They sell out. You can not prepay. The reason is exactly the concerns the OP raised.

[jdr2alaska]

What I have done in order to "pre-pay" my excursions on the 8/28 sun is to purchase $500 of on-board credit certificates through NCL. So my on-board account will start with $500 of credit and when the excursion are charged, they'll be offset by that credit.

 

And if one gets cancelled, then I will have the credit available for something else.

 

I just didn't want to get hit with a big bill at the end of the cruise.

 

JR

 

P.S. When I did this, the NCL agent said that there are many others that do the same thing.

[mom-of-three]

I also will be cruising with the Dawn. I will prebook shore excursions, but due to my previous experience with HAL, I will be more aware that they don't always cancel due to unsafe conditions. Also some times it is very hard to make decisions the day before. Information on weather isn't the easiest to get from the ship (for good reason, they wanted us to have a nice vacation and not worry about hurricane Francis, also they were pretty busy with other more pressing matters).

I think what I will do on NCL is use the internet cafe the day before shore excursions and look up the weather in the ports and make my own decision, esp. if there are any hurricanes out in the Atlantic.