Buying Specialty Dining Upgrade

[laudergayle]

Can you purchase the 2 meal specialty dining upgrade once onboard?  And, if so, is it still $70 pp?

[phillygwm]

I believe that has to be purchased in advance.  Would be nice to purchase onboard so you could apply OBC, but alas...

[laudergayle]

7 minutes ago, phillygwm said:

I believe that has to be purchased in advance.  Would be nice to purchase onboard so you could apply OBC, but alas...

Yes, that is what I was hoping to do.  I’ve found the non-refundable OBC is actually harder to use than one would imagine!  Thanks for your response.

[phillygwm]

1 minute ago, laudergayle said:

Yes, that is what I was hoping to do.  I’ve found the non-refundable OBC is actually harder to use than one would imagine!  Thanks for your response.

I actually CAN imagine.  I got $200 on my last cruise but since I purchased FAS+ up front, there really wasn't much to spend money on while onboard.  Even additional restaurant tips were not applicable toward OBC.  So yeah, I had a couple lunches at American Diner (for the milkshakes, primarily,) a couple different wine tastings, and bought a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.  I still left about $28 on the table.

[laudergayle]

2 minutes ago, phillygwm said:

I actually CAN imagine.  I got $200 on my last cruise but since I purchased FAS+ up front, there really wasn't much to spend money on while onboard.  Even additional restaurant tips were not applicable toward OBC.  

We also did FAS+ on our last cruise, so I know what you mean. The onboard account left me scratching my head as it doesn’t really show you what the balance of your OBC is.  I thought that I had calculated xtra specialty dining tips as being covered by NR OBC…I’ll have to go back and relook at that.  

[phillygwm]

Just now, laudergayle said:

We also did FAS+ on our last cruise, so I know what you mean. The onboard account left me scratching my head as it doesn’t really show you what the balance of your OBC is.  I thought that I had calculated xtra specialty dining tips as being covered by NR OBC…I’ll have to go back and relook at that.  

It's confusing, to be sure.  I had to get pen and paper and write down the expenses then deduct the OBC.  I'd initially thought I'd be extra generous to my specialty waiters but turns out that does NOT count toward OBC.  So I bought 2 cruisenext certs, spent $25 on various tips charged to the room (i.e. not counting cash) and my total charge was $275.  The other stuff listed above DID count toward my OBC so I wound up spending most of it.

 

On a previous cruise, I had earned casino credits and I wound up buying a liter bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.  Sadly, I don't drink Scotch but someone will get a very nice gift 🙂

[laudergayle]

@phillygwmi just looked back at our account and I determined that the extra specialty dining tips were covered by our OBC.  

[phillygwm]

1 minute ago, laudergayle said:

@phillygwmi just looked back at our account and I determined that the extra specialty dining tips were covered by our OBC.  

Was yours refundable?  Mine was non-refundable and, having done the math, I was off by exactly the amount of additional tips I left.  I'm usually inclined to leave cash but I thought it would help me burn OBC.  When I figured that out a few days into my last cruise, I went back to cash.

[laudergayle]

Yes, ours was shareholder NR OBC.  I just used my calculator (so sad) to go through our charges and the dining tips were definitely subtracted from our OBC.  Ours was pretty easy to figure out since we did the tips and $40 in the gift shop, didn’t have any other credits, and the other charges for gaming added up to what they billed our card.

[CaptainBazz]

49 minutes ago, laudergayle said:

I’ve found the non-refundable OBC is actually harder to use than one would imagine!

We had $100 shareholder NR OBC on our recent Bliss cruise. Everything I paid for was deducted from that credit...t-shirts...extra cost drinks...taxes on drinks in port...duty free...Starbucks coffee...the only thing you couldn't use it for was the gratuities. 

[laudergayle]

52 minutes ago, CaptainBazz said:

use it for was the gratuities. 

It is correct that you can’t use it for the Daily Service Charge, but it did work for the extra tip we left at the specialty dining.  At least it worked that way two weeks ago on the Breakaway. 

[soup23]

It has to be purchased in advance.  On board, they will only offer the 2 day specialty dining package at the regular rate.