Advantages of booking future cruise while onboard

[pcur]

Thanks for this!:)

 

You are more than welcome! Not only am I helping you, but since you are the resident encyclopedia along with Patti, I feel like I'm helping a whole bunch more people (virtually speaking...:D).

[frank808]

One note on the reduced deposit, if you use a travel agent, and I do and always do, when you get back and talk to them they don't recognize the reduced deposit. You have to send them the difference between the reduced deposit and the regular deposit. I think its worth it we pay on our cruise throughout the year anyway. We also get prepaid gratuities and free specialty restaurants.

Have not had a problem with booking onboard and then moving to costco travel. Did book 8 cruises onboard this past june and had not had to pay any additional deposits. Even moved a couple of deposits to different ships a month ago.

 

Why not book ahead was my thinking. I got instant obc of $1000 that paid for most of my ship charges that i would have to pay anyway. And if i cancelled i would have paid that much for my onboard charges anyway so have not spent any extra. I think of it as a discount of $100 - $150 on the future cruise that i booked.

[goodycruising]

Our experience in Australia has been that we have the reduced deposit - per person, so we have to pay $200 for 2 pax.

 

We do not get an immediate OBC - as of last time we booked it which was a couple of years ago. Maybe that has changed?

 

We also purchased the open booking certificates that time. Never again. It is not combinable with some things. I know others here may have a better idea, but I know we had hassles with the specials. So no incentive there as you usually get more OBC on a special.

 

You have to ring them to lock in the open booking to a trip, and that is where much of the hassle starts. Because you have a booking technically, they are sometimes ok with giving you the current special, and sometimes not. Then if you dare to be so rude as to have received a credit note for some snaffu on another trip, you have to ring to get them to put the credit on, which should be no problem, but it seems to be a problem more often than not. Repricing happens, discounts and OBC disappear.

 

We spent many many many hours on the phone last time and we ended up to version 15 on our booking invoice. To the person that says their time is worth more than the credit. Yep! And your blood pressure.

 

If you go on board knowing your prices, and have a printout in hand, and you feel you got a good deal, book on board. If you think you are going to be helped with finding a nice special, these consultants are very much under the pump, with very short time allowed for your booking with them, on a very slow internet, and in our experience we got given an out dated book to go and look through it ourselves. Even the cruise we were on was incorrect in the book! We were sailing the opposite direction to what the book said our trip was.

 

It is not a relaxing & fun experience, and we felt very rushed, and there were plenty of people waiting to get in to see the consultants. (We have tried this a couple of times. Yes, stupid to keep doing something and expecting a better result!)

 

If you book and can transfer to your TA that you are happy with, then that sounds like something that works for others here.

 

We find we like to take the time to research at home, book online, and then we can do cancellations or final payment online with no hassle of ringing the call centre.

 

Oh yes, that is another benefit of living in Australia, you can ring between 9am and 6pm, even though you are getting transferred to Guatamala (or where ever the call centre is). When you work 9 to 5 that really is fun trying to get onto them at lunch time or after work.

 

I hadn't heard the open certificates were no longer happening. It sounds like a good thing. They were not good for the company image. We still have one booking that we used which we will sail with next February. I am dreading ringing to make final payment already! It is up to version 8 already, and still we haven't had any OBC put on. It will go on a few weeks before we sail they tell us. OMG I know we are going to give up on the OBC, as our time really is worth more than an amount I can't even remember! This one goes back to Jan 2014.

[pcur]

Our experience in Australia has been that we have the reduced deposit - per person, so we have to pay $200 for 2 pax.

 

We do not get an immediate OBC - as of last time we booked it which was a couple of years ago. Maybe that has changed?

 

I just talked to RCCL Crown and Anchor, and things have changed since I last booked onboard.

 

Now, the deposit for the future cruise is dependent upon the cabin you book and the length of the cruise (I'm sorry if this has already been posted here).

 

The cabin categories are:

INTERIOR/OCEANVIEW

BALCONY/JUNIOR SUITE

GRAND SUITE AND ABOVE

 

The obc is:

5-7 Nights $50 $100 $200

8-10 Nights $100 $150 $300

11-14 Nights $150 $200 $400

15 Nights or longer $200 $250 $500

 

The amount of your deposit is the same as your obc, and you have the choice of taking it immediately on the current cruise, or waiting and taking it on the future cruise you are booking.

 

Deposits for a "named" cruise are refundable if you take the obc on the future cruise. Deposits for the obc taken on the current cruise are non-refundable.

 

Open bookings (no date for the future cruise) have a maximum of $100 obc, and the $100 per person deposit.

[BobbyD]

Same here. My TA has never asked for additional deposit.

 

I usually book a cruise on board. No downsides from what I can see. Reservation always gets transferred to my TA. The only time my TA ever made me pay a full deposit was when they wanted to include me on a group and give me extra OBC. They made me pay full deposit to give me the extra OBC. I had to pay it eventually, so no problem.

[rudeney]

I just talked to RCCL Crown and Anchor, and things have changed since I last booked onboard.

 

Now, the deposit for the future cruise is dependent upon the cabin you book and the length of the cruise (I'm sorry if this has already been posted here).

 

The cabin categories are:

INTERIOR/OCEANVIEW

BALCONY/JUNIOR SUITE

GRAND SUITE AND ABOVE

 

The obc is:

5-7 Nights $50 $100 $200

8-10 Nights $100 $150 $300

11-14 Nights $150 $200 $400

15 Nights or longer $200 $250 $500

 

The amount of your deposit is the same as your obc, and you have the choice of taking it immediately on the current cruise, or waiting and taking it on the future cruise you are booking.

 

Deposits for a "named" cruise are refundable if you take the obc on the future cruise. Deposits for the obc taken on the current cruise are non-refundable.

 

Open bookings (no date for the future cruise) have a maximum of $100 obc, and the $100 per person deposit.

 

Well, it sounds like you have nothing to lose. If you take the OBC on the current cruise, and you decide to cancel the OBB cruise, then you are out nothing. But if you decide to keep the OBB cruise, then you got some free OBC on the current cruise.

[goodycruising]

Pcur - thanks for the info. Sounds like they are continually changing the way it works.

Edited August 28, 2015 by goodycruising

[gw2fll]

Same here. My TA has never asked for additional deposit.

 

Same here as well. Our TA has always recognized the reduced deposit.

[gw2fll]

I just talked to RCCL Crown and Anchor, and things have changed since I last booked onboard.

 

Now, the deposit for the future cruise is dependent upon the cabin you book and the length of the cruise (I'm sorry if this has already been posted here).

 

The cabin categories are:

INTERIOR/OCEANVIEW

BALCONY/JUNIOR SUITE

GRAND SUITE AND ABOVE

 

The obc is:

5-7 Nights $50 $100 $200

8-10 Nights $100 $150 $300

11-14 Nights $150 $200 $400

15 Nights or longer $200 $250 $500

 

The amount of your deposit is the same as your obc, and you have the choice of taking it immediately on the current cruise, or waiting and taking it on the future cruise you are booking.

 

Deposits for a "named" cruise are refundable if you take the obc on the future cruise. Deposits for the obc taken on the current cruise are non-refundable.

 

Open bookings (no date for the future cruise) have a maximum of $100 obc, and the $100 per person deposit.

 

Thanks for the info Peggy. We are still using Next Cruise Certificates from several years ago - good to know the program has changed - will keep that in mind.

 

Also, one item to help keep the deposit cost down is to only have one name on the reservation so you are only putting out $100. Then around final payment you can add the additional name and "settle-up".

[pcur]

Thanks for the info Peggy. We are still using Next Cruise Certificates from several years ago - good to know the program has changed - will keep that in mind.

 

Also, one item to help keep the deposit cost down is to only have one name on the reservation so you are only putting out $100. Then around final payment you can add the additional name and "settle-up".

 

Here's the latest flyer. Don't let the title mislead you: it's really dated this month. You can always see the date at the very bottom in the fine print.

 

http://dnj7zc2awgt21.cloudfront.net/content/assets/2015/05/Aug-17-Oct-11-IOBC-promo.pdf

 

The deposit doesn't really go up that much for a balcony. It's $125 per person, so an extra $50 for two people. BUT, the obc goes from the old $100 to the new $250, so that's an improvement.

[jticarruthers]

Thanks for the info Peggy. We are still using Next Cruise Certificates from several years ago - good to know the program has changed - will keep that in mind.

 

Also, one item to help keep the deposit cost down is to only have one name on the reservation so you are only putting out $100. Then around final payment you can add the additional name and "settle-up".

 

This is no longer needed with the new book on board.

 

My deposit for 3 people in a balcony was $100 total.

 

The deposit and OBC are per cabin not per person.

[pcur]

This is no longer needed with the new book on board.

 

My deposit for 3 people in a balcony was $100 total.

 

The deposit and OBC are per cabin not per person.

 

You are correct above for a 5-7 night cruise. I was looking at a 15+ night cruise amount for a balcony, which is the highest you would pay. It used to be $100 per person, so I was comparing the most you would deposit for a balcony to what you would pay now, and it's $50 more.

 

But, for a 7 night cruise it's $100 for the whole cabin, so that's LESS than before, but the obc is the same.

 

The next cruise we are looking at is actually a b2b, and each cruise is more than 15 nights. So, the amount of deposit I will pay is $500 for 2 people for 2 cruises of 15+ nights each. The obc I will get is $500 also, and that's $300 more than I would have gotten under the old policy.

 

This new policy actually is better than the old one, IMO. However, I'm not familiar with what it used to be for suites, so it might not be better for them.

Edited August 28, 2015 by pcur