Excursions Charges and Tipping in Euros

[Duck In Blue]

Can anybody tell me how quickly excursion charges hit your onboard account? I can't find previous folios and I've done some searching on here but it seems a little unclear. We have a number of excursions booked through Disney on our upcoming Med cruise but I don't really want them charged to the Credit Card on file, as we have transferred the money in advance (on a currency card) to try and get a better exchange rate.

I seem to remember Disney charging the card on file when we hit $500 on our Fantasy cruise so if they do this on the Magic and they charge all the excursions straight away I may not get a chance to pre-pay. My plan would be to go to Guest Services on departure day and pay the money. We have $200 OBC to be applied to if that makes a difference?

Also, do room service tips have to be in US$? We have a number but I am thinking if we go heavy on the room service we may not have enough and wondered if €uros would be acceptable if we did run out to save us transferring more cash in to US$?

Thanks in advance!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Can anybody tell me how quickly excursion charges hit your onboard account? I can't find previous folios and I've done some searching on here but it seems a little unclear. We have a number of excursions booked through Disney on our upcoming Med cruise but I don't really want them charged to the Credit Card on file, as we have transferred the money in advance (on a currency card) to try and get a better exchange rate.

I seem to remember Disney charging the card on file when we hit $500 on our Fantasy cruise so if they do this on the Magic and they charge all the excursions straight away I may not get a chance to pre-pay. My plan would be to go to Guest Services on departure day and pay the money. We have $200 OBC to be applied to if that makes a difference?

Also, do room service tips have to be in US$? We have a number but I am thinking if we go heavy on the room service we may not have enough and wondered if €uros would be acceptable if we did run out to save us transferring more cash in to US$?

Thanks in advance!

In my experience the excursion charge hits the onboard account the first day of the cruise. But not always. Sometimes each excursion is put on the onboard account on the day of the excursion.

The onboard account isn't actually charged to your credit card until you reach a specific limit (that amount/level varies depending on the cruise).

If you have OBC on your account (which would be already added to the onboard account at the beginning of the cruise) that will be charged before a credit card you have on file. You can add additional OBC (by way of your money card) by contacting DCL and having it added before the cruise. You can also change your information on your online check in to say that you are using a cash account, not backing it up with a credit card.

If you are on a European cruise I would think that Euros would be acceptable for room service tips, but, typically, the monetary system onboard the ship is US dollars. But individual CMs may be able to use small amounts of Euros for port stops.

 

[CM Dad]

In my experience the excursion charge hits the onboard account the first day of the cruise. But not always. Sometimes each excursion is put on the onboard account on the day of the excursion.

The onboard account isn't actually charged to your credit card until you reach a specific limit (that amount/level varies depending on the cruise).

If you have OBC on your account (which would be already added to the onboard account at the beginning of the cruise) that will be charged before a credit card you have on file. You can add additional OBC (by way of your money card) by contacting DCL and having it added before the cruise. You can also change your information on your online check in to say that you are using a cash account, not backing it up with a credit card.

If you are on a European cruise I would think that Euros would be acceptable for room service tips, but, typically, the monetary system onboard the ship is US dollars. But individual CMs may be able to use small amounts of Euros for port stops.

We did the 12 night Med cruise this summer. Charges for all excursions we booked before boarding were charged to the stateroom on the first day.

We tipped excursion guides/bus drivers in Euros, but used US$ for the little bit of room service we did use (as well as extra gratuities added to the standard gratuities). I think you can charge gratuities to your stateroom when getting room service if you run out of cash. Guest Services can do some currency conversion, but I don't know the limits, and I suspect that the exchange rate is not the best you can get

 

[Duck In Blue]

In my experience the excursion charge hits the onboard account the first day of the cruise. But not always. Sometimes each excursion is put on the onboard account on the day of the excursion.

The onboard account isn't actually charged to your credit card until you reach a specific limit (that amount/level varies depending on the cruise).

If you have OBC on your account (which would be already added to the onboard account at the beginning of the cruise) that will be charged before a credit card you have on file. You can add additional OBC (by way of your money card) by contacting DCL and having it added before the cruise. You can also change your information on your online check in to say that you are using a cash account, not backing it up with a credit card.

If you are on a European cruise I would think that Euros would be acceptable for room service tips, but, typically, the monetary system onboard the ship is US dollars. But individual CMs may be able to use small amounts of Euros for port stops.

Thanks for answering my questions, I really appreciate it! I will phone DCL this weekend and pre-pay the credit, I read on here that people sailing this week got emails last weekend cancelling some of the excursions so I will just wait a bit longer to try and make sure. If they did cancel and I ended up with too much money on account, do you know if they would they refund any credit to the card I paid with or the card on file?

We did the 12 night Med cruise this summer. Charges for all excursions we booked before boarding were charged to the stateroom on the first day.

We tipped excursion guides/bus drivers in Euros, but used US$ for the little bit of room service we did use (as well as extra gratuities added to the standard gratuities). I think you can charge gratuities to your stateroom when getting room service if you run out of cash. Guest Services can do some currency conversion, but I don't know the limits, and I suspect that the exchange rate is not the best you can get

That is really useful to know, thank you! We were planning to do as you did re: the excursions it was just on board if we run out of US$. I hadn't considered charging it to the stateroom (I don't think I knew that was an option) so that would probably be the way forward - thanks!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Thanks for answering my questions, I really appreciate it! I will phone DCL this weekend and pre-pay the credit, I read on here that people sailing this week got emails last weekend cancelling some of the excursions so I will just wait a bit longer to try and make sure. If they did cancel and I ended up with too much money on account, do you know if they would they refund any credit to the card I paid with or the card on file?


That is really useful to know, thank you! We were planning to do as you did re: the excursions it was just on board if we run out of US$. I hadn't considered charging it to the stateroom (I don't think I knew that was an option) so that would probably be the way forward - thanks!

Any left over OBC will be credited back to the method of payment. Say, you have $200 OBC from a TA, and then you add $1200 OBC via a cash card. The OBC from the TA would be used up first, then the OBC from the cash card. Once that's used up, your credit card (if you have one on file for the account) will be charged. If you switch the credit card on file to a "cash account", they would contact you and have you add more cash to the account before you can charge more stuff to it.

IF (big "if") you have any OBC left at the end of the cruise, it will go back to the cash card first, so be sure to keep hold of it.

 

[Duck In Blue]

Any left over OBC will be credited back to the method of payment. Say, you have $200 OBC from a TA, and then you add $1200 OBC via a cash card. The OBC from the TA would be used up first, then the OBC from the cash card. Once that's used up, your credit card (if you have one on file for the account) will be charged. If you switch the credit card on file to a "cash account", they would contact you and have you add more cash to the account before you can charge more stuff to it.

IF (big "if") you have any OBC left at the end of the cruise, it will go back to the cash card first, so be sure to keep hold of it.

You are right, it is a big if lol! The card is reusable and I would have it for future trips, so that won't be a problem anyway. I will leave a credit card on file so we can still charge, I just wanted to reduce the credit card bill after the cruise by putting some money aside now. It is helpful to know in what order they charge the different sources.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

One thing about pre-paying your excursions. We were told by DCL that if you pre-pay your excursions in advance they become non-refundable immediately. I know some people have gotten refunds for excursions they didn't take, but it is something to consider. We got our trip insurance extended to cover the cost of the excursions (because they become non-refundable 3 days before the trip and we had a chance we might have to cancel at the last minute) so it didn't matter to us.

Just wanted you to be aware of that.

 

[Duck In Blue]

One thing about pre-paying your excursions. We were told by DCL that if you pre-pay your excursions in advance they become non-refundable immediately. I know some people have gotten refunds for excursions they didn't take, but it is something to consider. We got our trip insurance extended to cover the cost of the excursions (because they become non-refundable 3 days before the trip and we had a chance we might have to cancel at the last minute) so it didn't matter to us.

Just wanted you to be aware of that.

Thanks for the information, I wasn't aware of that!

My plan was to do as PrincessShmoo suggested and add additional on board credit to my account as opposed to actually specifying to Disney that I am pre-paying the excursions, is that possible? As they are non-refundable after 3 days anyway and that will be this Wednesday, I could wait until that happens and then add the payment if they want me to specifically pay for the excursions. I take it they will refund the money if they cancel the excursion though?

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

Sure. If they cancel it, you should be fine.

 

[Duck In Blue]

Sure. If they cancel it, you should be fine.

Thanks for the further info.

I called today to add the OBC and it was all going well until it came to actually charging the card when I was told that, as the cruise was booked in £, they would need to charge my card in £ (they did the conversion for me). As it is already sitting on my currency card in $ I would have lost out on this so didn't proceed. The CM said that if mention it at check in or go to Guest Services when I board I should be able to add the credit then, before the excursions are charged (she seemed to think they wouldn't be charged to our stateroom until they happened).

In 6 days I will find out!