Prepaying Excursions

[Friscoonetwo]

Looked for this on the Princess website and guess I just did not know what to search for.

DW and I would like to prepay for our booked excursions as well as the daily gratuity charge that is added to your account. How do we go about doing this? We would prefer not to use our credit card if possible. Would rather do it with our debit card. Does anyone know if Princess will take a check for the amount on the first day of the cruise to add to our shipboard account?

Thanks in advance.

[Loonbeam]

Not sure about checks, but you can prepay on board credit in any amount and just register a credit card for any on board purchases. You can then pay off the charges with a debit card if you wish prior to disembarkation.

 

I do not recommend using a debit card for your shipboard account, because of the significantly lesser protections offered. It wasn't a Disney cruise but on a recent voyage a friend had to go the med center for something minor. Charge was about $40. But it was miskeyed at $400. The line caught it the next day before she did but they had already put a hold for $400 on her card reducing actual cash. With a CC it would have just reduced available credit.

 

 

Looked for this on the Princess website and guess I just did not know what to search for.

DW and I would like to prepay for our booked excursions as well as the daily gratuity charge that is added to your account. How do we go about doing this? We would prefer not to use our credit card if possible. Would rather do it with our debit card. Does anyone know if Princess will take a check for the amount on the first day of the cruise to add to our shipboard account?

Thanks in advance.

[Pam in CA]

Looked for this on the Princess website and guess I just did not know what to search for.

DW and I would like to prepay for our booked excursions as well as the daily gratuity charge that is added to your account. How do we go about doing this? We would prefer not to use our credit card if possible. Would rather do it with our debit card. Does anyone know if Princess will take a check for the amount on the first day of the cruise to add to our shipboard account?

Thanks in advance.

Very easy to do. Go to http://www.princess.com/learn/onboard/gifts_services/onboard_credit/Index.jsp Fill out the form and send yourself as much onboard credit as you want, whenever you want, with your debit card. A suggestion is to go to your Personalizer to double-check that the OBC has been applied to your booking before sending more. There's a link on the right side to "Onboard Credits."

 

Don't bother with the pre-paid gratuities as all that does is give you OBC in the amount of your hotel service charge. You'll still be charged daily but you'd have the credit to off-set. Just as easy to send yourself OBC to cover the cost of tours, tips, drinks, etc. It's refundable if you don't spend it all.

 

They don't accept personal checks onboard unless they are traveler's checks.

 

If you own 100 shares of CCL stock, you can apply for onboard credit for each Princess cruise. I've got $50 for my upcoming 4-day cruise. If you are or were military, you can apply for a military credit. Hopefully, your TA gave you a nice OBC. It's all combinable on Princess.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Pam in CA

[thinfool]

Looked for this on the Princess website and guess I just did not know what to search for.

DW and I would like to prepay for our booked excursions as well as the daily gratuity charge that is added to your account. How do we go about doing this? We would prefer not to use our credit card if possible. Would rather do it with our debit card. Does anyone know if Princess will take a check for the amount on the first day of the cruise to add to our shipboard account?

Thanks in advance.

 

As for excursions, you can reserve them online or onboard but Princess does not charge them to your account until you actually take the excursion. If you have a reservation and change your mind, I think (please verify) you can cancel up to 24 hrs prior with no problem.

[eandj]

I agree the easiest would be to gift yourself some amount now in onboard credits. Take along cash for all the stops.

[donaldsc]

I do not recommend using a debit card for your shipboard account, because of the significantly lesser protections offered. It wasn't a Disney cruise but on a recent voyage a friend had to go the med center for something minor. Charge was about $40. But it was miskeyed at $400. The line caught it the next day before she did but they had already put a hold for $400 on her card reducing actual cash. With a CC it would have just reduced available credit.

 

The same thing can happen with regular credit card. It happened to me but even worse.

 

When we were in England and stayed at a B&B, the innkeeper accidentally keyed in 4000 pounds instead of the correct 400 pounds for our stay. He caught the mistake immediately, canceled (so he thought) the charge and charged us the correct amount. For several days afterward, I could not figure out why the card was constantly being denied at gas stations, small restaurants, etc.. Because I did not use my pin and chip card for the B&B but a non-chipped Capitol One card, I assumed that for some reason it was because it was not a pin and chip card.

 

Turned out that Capitol One had not only NOT cancelled the incorrect charge but had double charged me the 4000 pounds for the room plus the correct charge of 400 pounds so I had an outstanding bill of 8400 pounds on the credit card.

 

Did you ever try to get a credit card customer support number when you are overseas. Nothing I tried worked. I ended up having to call the Capitol One 800 US number using Skype on my computer. It was eventually sorted out after making several calls to the US and having the innkeeper also make calls to this local billing service and to Capitol One in the US.

 

Luckily we had another credit card so all was OK. My point is that problems can occur with all types of credit cards, not just debit cards.

 

DON

[JF - retired RRT]

As for excursions, you can reserve them online or onboard but Princess does not charge them to your account until you actually take the excursion. If you have a reservation and change your mind, I think (please verify) you can cancel up to 24 hrs prior with no problem.

 

If memory serves...it is more like 48 or 72 hours to cancel.:confused:

[Loonbeam]

This is the one reason I will always carry at least one Amex. I have a lot of quibbles with them, but overseas support is the absolute best.

 

The same thing can happen with regular credit card. It happened to me but even worse.

 

When we were in England and stayed at a B&B, the innkeeper accidentally keyed in 4000 pounds instead of the correct 400 pounds for our stay. He caught the mistake immediately, canceled (so he thought) the charge and charged us the correct amount. For several days afterward, I could not figure out why the card was constantly being denied at gas stations, small restaurants, etc.. Because I did not use my pin and chip card for the B&B but a non-chipped Capitol One card, I assumed that for some reason it was because it was not a pin and chip card.

 

Turned out that Capitol One had not only NOT cancelled the incorrect charge but had double charged me the 4000 pounds for the room plus the correct charge of 400 pounds so I had an outstanding bill of 8400 pounds on the credit card.

 

Did you ever try to get a credit card customer support number when you are overseas. Nothing I tried worked. I ended up having to call the Capitol One 800 US number using Skype on my computer. It was eventually sorted out after making several calls to the US and having the innkeeper also make calls to this local billing service and to Capitol One in the US.

 

Luckily we had another credit card so all was OK. My point is that problems can occur with all types of credit cards, not just debit cards.

 

DON

[caribill]

Did you ever try to get a credit card customer support number when you are overseas. Nothing I tried worked. I ended up having to call the Capitol One 800 US number using Skype on my computer.

 

My CapitalOne cards have a non-800 number at the top left on the back. The card says to use this number to call collect when outside the USA and Canada. Had you tried that number?

[MaChere]

Very easy to do. Go to http://www.princess.com/learn/onboard/gifts_services/onboard_credit/Index.jsp Fill out the form and send yourself as much onboard credit as you want, whenever you want, with your debit card. A suggestion is to go to your Personalizer to double-check that the OBC has been applied to your booking before sending more. There's a link on the right side to "Onboard Credits."

 

Don't bother with the pre-paid gratuities as all that does is give you OBC in the amount of your hotel service charge. You'll still be charged daily but you'd have the credit to off-set. Just as easy to send yourself OBC to cover the cost of tours, tips, drinks, etc. It's refundable if you don't spend it all.

 

They don't accept personal checks onboard unless they are traveler's checks.

 

If you own 100 shares of CCL stock, you can apply for onboard credit for each Princess cruise. I've got $50 for my upcoming 4-day cruise. If you are or were military, you can apply for a military credit. Hopefully, your TA gave you a nice OBC. It's all combinable on Princess.

Thanks for the info, Pam! You are so helpful to those of us who are still so new to cruising.