Advantage to Booking Onboard?

[richsea]

Is there an advantage to booking onboard vs. just buying a Future Cruise Certificate? Do they offer any exclusive upgrades or extra perks if you book a specific sailing while onboard? In the past, we have just purchased a FCC because the future cruise consultant were always busy and there was always people waiting to be helped whenever I passed by.

[Colo Cruiser]

3 minutes ago, richsea said:

Is there an advantage to booking onboard vs. just buying a Future Cruise Certificate? Do they offer any exclusive upgrades or extra perks if you book a specific sailing while onboard? In the past, we have just purchased a FCC because the future cruise consultant were always busy and there was always people waiting to be helped whenever I passed by.

No advantage that we have ever seen.

We just buy Future Cruise Deposits and book when we get home.

I wouldn't want to wait in the line to see the future cruise consultant.

When we buy them I fill out the form and put it in the drop box and they are credited within a day or 2.

[richsea]

Thanks Keith, that’s kind of what I thought. I’ll just keep buying the FCC.

[paul929207]

No advantage for us. We get the FCDs and they book thru a TA with a nice discount

[Micahs Grandad]

2 hours ago, Colo Cruiser said:

No advantage that we have ever seen.

We just buy Future Cruise Deposits and book when we get home.

I wouldn't want to wait in the line to see the future cruise consultant.

When we buy them I fill out the form and put it in the drop box and they are credited within a day or 2.

Early in a cruise they are quickly credited to us but later on can take much longer up to a week.

[jsiegel]

Sometimes there are extra benefits to booking on board.  I knew that I wanted to cruise on a specific sailing.  A travel agent (I was on a group "escorted" sailing") told me that Princess was offering free gratuities if a sailing was booked on board.  I stood on line to see the Future Cruise Consultant.  She first told me that there were no extra benefits for booking but as I had already waited and was sitting with her I had her go ahead and make the booking and as she did so she discovered that yes, free gratuities were offered.  So, moral of story, if you already know what you want to book and the line isn't too long, it might pay to book on board and insist that the Future Cruise Consultant double check for extra benefits.  BTW, I was impressed that the travel agent on board knew more about Princess' offerings than the Future Cruise Consultant.

 

Jackie

[richsea]

Thanks for the heads up, Jackie. Good to know.

[terrysko2000]

It seems they are always busy! 

[OCruisers]

On 11/26/2018 at 10:08 AM, Colo Cruiser said:

No advantage that we have ever seen.

We just buy Future Cruise Deposits and book when we get home.

I wouldn't want to wait in the line to see the future cruise consultant.

When we buy them I fill out the form and put it in the drop box and they are credited within a day or 2.

 

 That's exactly what we do.  No need to stand in line.  

 

[mtmorrisgirl]

We normally just buy future cruise credits, but two years ago on a Caribbean cruise we received a flyer in our cabin with a great offer on a Northern European cruise for the following summer.  The price was excellent and by booking onboard we each received $400 OBC and a free dinner at a specialty restaurant.  When we added our other OBC (Military and Shareholder) we had over $1000 to use towards our European excursions, so it was well worth the wait to see the cruise consultant onboard.

[Pam in CA]

Only advantage is if a special promotion is being offered and you want to take advantage of it. 

 

Never heard of any specisl “Free gratuities” on any Princess ship if you book onboard. The “3 For Free” promotion, when offered, can be booked onboard or when you get home. 

 

Princess just had a 1-day $1 deposit promotion so it would have made sense to book onboard if you’re on a ship.

 

Every once in a while, I’ve seen a “double OBC” onboard booking promotion but it’s been years since I last saw it.

 

Other than these exceptions, there’s no benefit to actually booking onboard vs. buying an FCC. 

[Denverite]

We were on the Crown TA in November. There was a flyer in the kiosk by the Future Cruise Consultant offering "double spending money" if you booked on board. You had to really read the flyer. It was entitled "Exclusive onboard offer". If you booked 11-16 days, the OBC of $100 pp for balcony, mini-suite or suite was doubled to $200pp. It is the first time I have seen this offer and we took advantage of it. Not all cruises were included, only those listed in the flyer but it did include a variety of TAs, Baltics, Northern Europe, British Isles, Med, Hawaii. This was in addition to the 3-For-Free promotion running at the time.

[caribill]

14 hours ago, Denverite said:

We were on the Crown TA in November. There was a flyer in the kiosk by the Future Cruise Consultant offering "double spending money" if you booked on board. You had to really read the flyer. It was entitled "Exclusive onboard offer". If you booked 11-16 days, the OBC of $100 pp for balcony, mini-suite or suite was doubled to $200pp. It is the first time I have seen this offer and we took advantage of it. Not all cruises were included, only those listed in the flyer but it did include a variety of TAs, Baltics, Northern Europe, British Isles, Med, Hawaii. This was in addition to the 3-For-Free promotion running at the time.

 

The extra OBC is an exception and not the rule. Last year and again now there were extra incentives on board to book cruises in the Caribbean area since bookings were way down due to the destructive hurricanes last year. Since your flyer listed some cruises in other areas of the world I expect that they are trouble filling up those sailings also.

[flamomo]

We were also on the TA on the Crown in November, and because of that flyer advertising incentives for booking some TAs while onboard, did so for a 29 day one, and got and extra $300 apiece in OBC, as well as prepaid gratuities.

 

It was the first time I had ever seen one of these sort of offers.

[Retired_Army]

It all depends.  On almost every cruise we have taken in the last couple of years there has been a potential benefit of booking onboard.  The 2020 Antartica itineraries opened up while we were onboard so we were able to get our desired cabin booked at first chance.  On our last cruise there were a number of itineraries that came with additional OBC if you booked while onboard.  We now have $1,500 OBC for our TA next May.

 

It does pay to check and see what is being offered.  If the specials don't interest you just drop off your FCD form

 

  

[tailspintom]

6 minutes ago, flamomo said:

We were also on the TA on the Crown in November, and because of that flyer advertising incentives for booking some TAs while onboard, did so for a 29 day one, and got and extra $300 apiece in OBC, as well as prepaid gratuities.

 

It was the first time I had ever seen one of these sort of offers.

The Emerald likewise was running a double Future Cruise Credit promo on our cruise.  In as much as we were looking at an April cruise anyway, it was convenient to book.  The Three for free was still on so we got that benefit as well.  Two days ago I sent in the transfer to my TA and yesterday everything rolled over.  It worked pretty well for us.  Interestingly, the Consultant was not able to directly book with the TA I wanted.  The process required me to do the transfer. Lots of bookings were taking place on the ship.  We found the Consultant (Lindsay) to be very knowledgeable.