Prepaid excursion

[CM Dad]

I have never had to prepay for a DCL excursion before. My wife and I are doing the first Bermuda cruise, and one of our daughters and her family are supposed to join us. The wanted to do the Private Pontoon Rental with Captain - Per Boat (BR18). I sent an email to DCL.SHORE.EXCURSIONS@disney.com asking about it before our booking window opened up. When our platinum window opened, this was not one of the excursions listed, so I booked some others. Today I got and email from DCL saying that they had booked the excursion for me and that I need to contact my TA to prepay the $949 reservation. I don't even know which of the two days in Bermuda that they booked this excursion, and I can't login and try to book my activities, since I am no longer paid in full with this new charge. In the "Know before you go" section, it does say "All private boat bookings are nonrefundable." There is a chance that my daughter and family will not be able to cruise with use. Also, I am not sure it we can't do the excursion if there is any refund.

I am used to the ability to cancel up to 3 days before the cruise. Has anyone ever done an excursion like this, and if so, have you had any issues?

 

[olafLover]

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[Dug720]

You are renting a boat that is someone’s livelihood. By renting it this far in advance, you are eliminating the operator’s ability to make another reservation that someone knows they want to take because you think you want to. The boat’s owner and captain would be counting on that income. So yes, it does make sense that prepayment would be required and it would be non-refundable IMHO.

 

[clten]

Yes. We booked a private car excursion through DCL on a Northern Europe cruise last year. We had to pre-pay and it did not follow the same cancellation terms as other "group" excursions. (If we missed the port, we could get a refund and I believe we had some date that the payment for the tour guide was refundable until but generally much tighter terms than "3 days before the cruise".) If you aren't sure you are going on that because you don't know for sure that your daughter's family is going on the cruise, I would wait to book a private excursion.

 

[CM Dad]

Yes. We booked a private car excursion through DCL on a Northern Europe cruise last year. We had to pre-pay and it did not follow the same cancellation terms as other "group" excursions. (If we missed the port, we could get a refund and I believe we had some date that the payment for the tour guide was refundable until but generally much tighter terms than "3 days before the cruise".) If you aren't sure you are going on that because you don't know for sure that your daughter's family is going on the cruise, I would wait to book a private excursion.

I had contacted DCL Shore excursion and said that my wife and I were interested in the excursion. The DCL description of the excursion said:

If you're already booked on a Disney Cruise Line Bermuda sailing and would like to learn more about this excursion or reserve this private vessel in Bermuda, fill out a request as follows:
1. Download our Request Form
2. Fill out the form on your computer
3. Save the completed form to your desktop
4. Email it to: DCL.SHORE.EXCURSIONS@disney.com

After your request form is received, a Disney Cruise Line Cast Member will contact you to confirm your request. Please allow up to 7 days for confirmation.
​

I could not find any form to download, so my email was asking about that. The next thing I know, they had booked the excursion and charged my account the full amount. I was expecting to get some more information and to be asked when/if we actually wanted to book this.

 

[clten]

Yes, there was definitely a form we had to fill out. Whoever got your initial question jumped the gun. I'd go back and ask for the excursion to be removed at this time (so you are back to being paid in full) and for them to send the form. That may be where all the cancellation terms are spelled out clearly. Sorry I am blocking a lot of the details - we were so disappointed by how DCL ran that "excursion" that we didn't think we'd be doing any other private excursions with them again.