Cruise lines seem to be getting more and more greedy. They want you to prepay months in advance for dining, gratuities, and even shore excursions… why?
It used to be that you reserved your shore excursions and got the tickets in the cabin when you arrived. You would settle up and pay for them when settling your shipboard account. Not so anymore! To reserve these online they now expect you to pay in full on booking.
Well quite by accident we discovered that if you call (on NCL at least) instead of booking online you could in fact get it to work the old way. Since our itinerary was changed, our prepaid excursions were no longer valid and we had a credit we wanted to use on our new excursions. The system didn’t know how to do that online, so we called in. Turns out that the helpful operator was able to reserve all of our new excursions and did not ask for any down payment whatsoever. Basically reserve, and pay once you settle the bill on the ship. Well there you have it, it’s not always better to book online! Sometimes dealing with a real live person still works better and has its advantages!
Related post:
Are Ship Shore Excursions Worth It or Are You Better off on Your Own?