Setting up onboard account

[dawne577]

According to Passporter's DCL book, $500 is held on your credit card for your onboard expenses. Is this the correct amount?
Is this per stateroom, per person, per reservation? Do they accept debit cards? After the account is payed up do they release the money immediately? My DH and myself are taking my DD and our grandchildren on the cruise and I would like to book another cruise onboard and use this money as the deposit, if possible.

 

[goingbacksoon]

dawne577 -

I don't know all the specifics, but I can tell you my experience. Yes, they accept debit cards with a Visa/MC symbol on it. That's how we paid, and it worked well. They did not, however, charge $500 immediately.

I checked my bank right after they ran my card, and they charged about $277 right away. I don't know how they came up with that number, but that's how it was. There were only two of us, and we had a cat 11 stateroom. I imagine the more people, the more they charge right away.

As far as using that money for a future cruise, I know you need to put a credit card down. The money they charge right away is used for your onboard account, so you don't have to carry cash or card around. If you don't use all they charge, they refund you the difference.

Maybe someone else can shed some light as to how they come up with the deposit amount. My math says it worked out to be 25% of your total reservation amount, but don't hold me on that.

goingbacksoon

 

[kcashner]

What they do when you give them your card at check in is to put a reserve amount on it, the same way a hotel does when you check in there. It is not actually "charged" at that time, but is held in some sort of status so that you can't count that amount in calculating your remaining credit. I have no idea how they arrive at an amount to hold in that status.

I've heard that they actually bill it to your card when you have acrued $400 in charges to your room. However, I can tell you that in 9 cruises, my card was charged once for each cruise, and that was on the day of arrival back at port ....the last day of the cruise.

 

[KimDisFan]

In our past DCL cruises we have paid in cash. We would go down to Guest Services about every other day and pay to our account. They never request funds up front. On RCCL last year we had to place some cash up front on our account. Does anyone know how DCL is doing in now. We plan to sail in July on the Magic.

 

[bemily]

My experience on board the Wonder last year was a bit different. I also use a debit card, and i noticed the charge hit when my account would get up to about $$250-300, then they would charge. On the first day, they did not put a hold on any funds, just took a swipe of the card.

We spent around $850 on the account for that cruise and I did have three seperate charges for around those amounts.

Hope that helps!

Sherry

 

[princssdisnygina]

I was on the 11/29/03 Magic and paid cash on the ship. By choice, we put $500 down when we arrived. But they do not require $$ down. However, they limit your charges if you pay cash. Once you reach $200 you have to pay on your account before you can charge more, which was fine with us.

My parents put theirs on their credit card and they did not charge anything immediately, it was random charges throughout the cruise.

Gina

 

[DreaminDisney]

If I wanted to pay onboard account with disney dollars, how would that work? Would I have to give them dd up front or just pay as we go along? I don't mind using a CC to open up an onboard account I just don't want anything charged to it.

Thanks

 

[princssdisnygina]

Dreamin:

What I would do then is tell DCL you will be paying with cash/check and make stops by the guest services desk every so often and make a payment. If you decide you want to put it on your card you can do that at the end. Just know you only get a $200-$300 leway before you have to pay on it. BUT...if you put the CC on the account they will charge it as you go, so if you don't want that, I would do the cash thing. You can pay with DD like cash, you can pay it upfront or every so often.

Gina

 

[DreaminDisney]

Originally posted by princssdisnygina
Dreamin:

What I would do then is tell DCL you will be paying with cash/check and make stops by the guest services desk every so often and make a payment. If you decide you want to put it on your card you can do that at the end. Just know you only get a $200-$300 leway before you have to pay on it. BUT...if you put the CC on the account they will charge it as you go, so if you don't want that, I would do the cash thing. You can pay with DD like cash, you can pay it upfront or every so often.

Gina

Thanks Gina!

 

[princssdisnygina]

You are very welcome!

 

[maine_jennifer]

So, if you put $500 in cash down, do you have to leave a credit or debit card, too?

Also, will they give you cash back at the end if you didn't use it all?

 

[princssdisnygina]

No, you don't have to leave a credit card/debit card at all. You don't have to put cash down if you don't want to, but like I said, they only allow so much charging until you have to pay on it.

Ans yes, if you don't use it all (you will) they will refund it back to you.

Gina

 

[LAMPSKIES]

On our Dec 02 sailing we used a Debit visa card and various daily limits....our is 1000.00. You can call your bank and have them raised either temporarily or permanetly. When we checked in to the resort our daily max was 1000.00 on our KTTW cards. They billed our card at days end once the charges exceeded 400.00. With our regular gold card they asked us how much of a "daily guarentee" we wanted. They also billed that card once our balance went over 400.00.