Cash vs. Credit Card Online Check In

[justme0729]

I am currently doing online check-in and I am deciding whether I should say I am paying cash or with a credit card. If I plan to use a Disney gift card for most of my purchases, should I put cash and I can pay for things with the Disney gift card on the ship? Or, do I put credit card on and then when I check out, I have them put all of the things I bought on my gift card instead? I don't really want to be restricted to $300 at a time or go to the desk during the cruise.

Thank you!

 

[cmph]

I am currently doing online check-in and I am deciding whether I should say I am paying cash or with a credit card. If I plan to use a Disney gift card for most of my purchases, should I put cash and I can pay for things with the Disney gift card on the ship? Or, do I put credit card on and then when I check out, I have them put all of the things I bought on my gift card instead? I don't really want to be restricted to $300 at a time or go to the desk during the cruise.

Thank you!

FYI - you can always go back and change it before your cruise, whichever you choose. I did the online check-in for my family and for my parents, and I didn't know their credit card number so put cash temporarily until I talked to my mom.

What I did (and what I think a lot of people probably do, for simplicity's sake) is put my credit card info during online check-in, then go to guest relations on-board to apply gift cards to our room account. I did that maybe the 3rd day, doesn't have to be immediately. On-board charges are against your room account, not against a credit card, if that makes sense? They won't be charging your credit card on a daily basis, but whatever balance you have beyond the amount of the gift cards would be the amount charged to your credit card. If you don't spend the entire amount of your gift cards, then they'll credit those back (so keep the cards) and your credit card will never be charged for anything. Having the gift cards applied to your room account means you don't have to carry them around in addition to your keycard; plus we ran into an issue once where a gift shop wasn't able to take the gift cards, only charge to rooms. So we then applied my 11yo's gift card to the room as well, since she was trustworthy enough to keep within her spending limit.

Hope that helps!

 

[clten]

Here's one thing you should know if you are putting down credit card as your form of payment -- they do not hold all charges to the end and then process one credit card payment. Just like they have a limit for cash charges before you have to go to guest services and make a payment on your account, they will charge your credit card when it gets to the same amounts (the amount varies based on the length of the cruise but for example on a 7 day cruise, they may charge your credit card every time you hit $400 or more in charges to your room). So if you wait to the end of the cruise to apply gift cards, you may be surprised that charges have already been made to your credit card.

If you are planning on using gift cards onboard, the only place that takes them as a direct form of payment is the gift shops. Everywhere else onboard - bars, Palo/Remy, etc. . will only take your KTTW card. You have to apply your gift cards to your onboard account to use them to cover those charges. (Excursions and gratuities are charged directly to your onboard account. Our pre-booked excursions are usually on our account on day one. Gratuities don't get charged until near the end of the cruise.)

We generally apply some gift cards but know we will spend more than our gift cards cover so what we do is register with credit card as our form of payment. Very early in the cruise (when you can just step up to Guest Services with no waiting) we apply our gift cards. That way we have the credit to cover some of the charges before things roll to our credit card but we don't have to go back to Guest Services later in the cruise when it might be busy. We just find this to be the easiest way for us.

 

[cmph]

Here's one thing you should know if you are putting down credit card as your form of payment -- they do not hold all charges to the end and then process one credit card payment. Just like they have a limit for cash charges before you have to go to guest services and make a payment on your account, they will charge your credit card when it gets to the same amounts (the amount varies based on the length of the cruise but for example on a 7 day cruise, they may charge your credit card every time you hit $400 or more in charges to your room). So if you wait to the end of the cruise to apply gift cards, you may be surprised that charges have already been made to your credit card.

If you are planning on using gift cards onboard, the only place that takes them as a direct form of payment is the gift shops. Everywhere else onboard - bars, Palo/Remy, etc. . will only take your KTTW card. You have to apply your gift cards to your onboard account to use them to cover those charges. (Excursions and gratuities are charged directly to your onboard account. Our pre-booked excursions are usually on our account on day one. Gratuities don't get charged until near the end of the cruise.)

We generally apply some gift cards but know we will spend more than our gift cards cover so what we do is register with credit card as our form of payment. Very early in the cruise (when you can just step up to Guest Services with no waiting) we apply our gift cards. That way we have the credit to cover some of the charges before things roll to our credit card but we don't have to go back to Guest Services later in the cruise when it might be busy. We just find this to be the easiest way for us.

That's interesting about the credit card charge logistics! I guess we had enough onboard credit to cover charges prior to when I added gift cards, bc we only had a single charge to the cc. And it was way over $400 ha!

 

[clten]

I think the last charge is typically the big one. I don't think they stick to their rules once they add the gratuities to the room account. (As they allow people to change gratuities and even remove them entirely, it would get sticky if they already charged them to the credit card - especially if it was a non-US card where there could be all sorts of fees.) But we are well acquainted with the intermediate charges as we get several of them before we are even halfway through a cruise!

 

[Keira1387]

What I like to do is select cash account at online check in. Then on the first day, I find a time guest services isn't busy, and go and give them all the gift cards. At the end of Cruise, if I'm due a refund it will go right back on the cards!

 

[Pens Fan]

You can also call DCL and use the gift cards to purchase OBC before the cruise. This is what I always do as it saves me from having to make a trip to guest services on board. Anything over and above the OBC goes onto the credit card I selected at check in.

 

[Msmit002]

You can also call DCL and use the gift cards to purchase OBC before the cruise. This is what I always do as it saves me from having to make a trip to guest services on board. Anything over and above the OBC goes onto the credit card I selected at check in.

Winner winner, chicken dinner! This is, IMHO the easiest of the options. I 'conservatively' estimate what I figure I will spend and pre-pay that amount. I usually come within about ~150 when all is said and done and that's what goes on the card at the end.

 

[justme0729]

So I could put cash for no

You can also call DCL and use the gift cards to purchase OBC before the cruise. This is what I always do as it saves me from having to make a trip to guest services on board. Anything over and above the OBC goes onto the credit card I selected at check in.

Can you get a refund if you don't use all of your onboard credit? Maybe I'll do that for just excursions or what I know I'll spend for sure.


Also... does anyone know if the concierge will handle putting our gift cards on our account when we check-in so we don't have to go to guest services? We will be sailing concierge level.

Thanks, everyone!!

 

[Pens Fan]

So I could put cash for no


Can you get a refund if you don't use all of your onboard credit? Maybe I'll do that for just excursions or what I know I'll spend for sure.


Also... does anyone know if the concierge will handle putting our gift cards on our account when we check-in so we don't have to go to guest services? We will be sailing concierge level.

Thanks, everyone!!

If you don't use all of the OBC, it will be refunded back to the original form of payment ( in this case, the gift cards). So be sure and keep the gift cards in case this happens. Though I will have to admit, not once have we had any OBC left over !!!

We have never sailed concierge, but I would imagine that handling the gift cards is something they would do for you. Hopefully someone who has sailed in concierge can chime in and confirm.

 

[justme0729]

If you don't use all of the OBC, it will be refunded back to the original form of payment ( in this case, the gift cards). So be sure and keep the gift cards in case this happens. Though I will have to admit, not once have we had any OBC left over !!!

We have never sailed concierge, but I would imagine that handling the gift cards is something they would do for you. Hopefully someone who has sailed in concierge can chime in and confirm.

Thank you I'll plan to do this!!