Excursions with onboard credits

[shoylman]

we are on a med. cruise this fall and have 500.00 in onboard credits to use. We would like to use for excursions, but are worried they will sell out. Has anyone ever booked in advance and once on board cancelled for a credit and rebooked with the ship account?

 

Thanks in advance for help!

[floinnc]

Have been wondering the same thing!

[Lsimon]

First off if an excursion sells out then there will be a waiting list and you'll lose your spot immediately when you cancel and go to the back of the line when you attempt to repurchase.

 

Second, I can't think of anything more infuriating and time wasting to an excursions desk employee than someone coming up to cancel a booked excursion and then immediately re-book it. I'm not sure how they'd handle that - hopefully they'd refuse to do it or at least to do it that day. If I was waiting in line behind you I know I would not be to happy about it.

 

I sure hope you aren't serious about being so disrespectful to people's time and effort. There are plenty of things to spend your on-board credit for on the ship.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Lsimon

[FTLcruisers]

unless you're doing an excursion with a very limited number of people being allowed to participate, I don't think you have to worry too much about them selling out before you get onboard....especially since they do hold some specifically for those who book on board.

 

as for your OBC, it can be used for anything that gets charged to your account - like your tips, drinks, etc. Not sure of the length of your cruise but if it's a 14 day, tips alone would be about $165 per person.

 

Marianne

[gdpups]

I did just that 3 weeks ago on the Summit as there were limited excursions we wanted to do and didn't want to risk them selling out, but we had a ton of OBC. Celebrity said not a problem as long as the excursions has not sold out and you are not within the 24 hour cancellation period. As soon as we had access to our cabin to get our excursion tickets we made a bee line to the excursion desk and it was handled in minutes.

 

In our case the excursions we booked before boarding were $5 - $10 cheaper than they were onboard, but we had so much OBC to use we didn't mind.

[Blue_Flame]

I did just that 3 weeks ago on the Summit as there were limited excursions we wanted to do and didn't want to risk them selling out, but we had a ton of OBC. Celebrity said not a problem as long as the excursions has not sold out and you are not within the 24 hour cancellation period. As soon as we had access to our cabin to get our excursion tickets we made a bee line to the excursion desk and it was handled in minutes.

 

In our case the excursions we booked before boarding were $5 - $10 cheaper than they were onboard, but we had so much OBC to use we didn't mind.

When you cancelled the original reservation, was it refunded immediately back to your credit card or applied to your onboard account, but as REFUNDABLE OBC (which ultimately you got back at the end of the cruise as long as you didn't dip into it)?

[AmberCascades]

We did this on the Infinity a few months ago. I had already booked and paid for our excursion before we knew we'd end up with so much OBC (we got a lot of non-refundable OBC for booking a cruise onboard).

 

We went to the Shorex desk and asked them and they had no problem cancelling and re-booking using the OBC. There was no line up so we didn't offend anyone. I'm guessing there was no waiting list as they did it quickly and easily. I'm also guessing that they've done this before as they seemed quite at ease with the whole process. The original amount was credited back to our credit card.

 

We used the rest of it in the duty free shop.

[AmberCascades]

When you cancelled the original reservation, was it refunded immediately back to your credit card or applied to your onboard account, but as REFUNDABLE OBC (which ultimately you got back at the end of the cruise as long as you didn't dip into it)?

 

Yes, this is what I meant to say. It showed up as refundable OBC onboard and was back on our credit card by the time we got home.

[shoylman]

Thanks a lot for all of the info! Please be assured that it is not my intent to offend anyone or cause a bunch of extra work for the staff.

 

S HOYLMAN