Excursion Confusion

i just went to book an excursion for a January cruise and it wanted me to prepay. Are excursions no longer cancellable or refundable? Thanks for clarifying what’s going on.

RB

Princess changed their procedure for excursions a while ago. You now prepay. However if you cancel ahead of time, your cc will be refunded. If you cancel in time aboard ship you will get refundable OBC. Also, if you have any OBC at the time of booking, that will be used first to pay for excursions. The only change is that you now have to prepay and wait for refund if you change your mind.

Pooh

Also had to prepay for ours on Jan.

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Pooh does indeed understand. I agree.

Princess changed their procedure for excursions a while ago. You now prepay. However if you cancel ahead of time, your cc will be refunded. If you cancel in time aboard ship you will get refundable OBC. Also, if you have any OBC at the time of booking, that will be used first to pay for excursions. The only change is that you now have to prepay and wait for refund if you change your mind.

 

Pooh

I have to wonder whether this policy resulted from all those who booked multiple excursions via Princess, only to cancel them when either a) they decided on one only, or b) they booked an independent operator's tour. There certainly were quite a few references here on CC to doing this, and it would really mess up with their accounting and planning.

Now we are in the situation with a cruise that includes one of the first Princess visits to St. Thomas post hurricane whether it is better to pre-book an excursion or wait until onboard and see if there might be a port change.

I have no problem with this policy. Being in the private air charter business, we require full payment upon booking. Cancel less than 72 hours and we keep the money.

I might add a few caveats here. First is that I get considerable more OBC than my DW so I am able to book more excursions with OBC than she can. I could not book DW's excursion against my OBC even though we use my credit card to pay at the end of the cruise.

Second is that you have to have enough OBC to cover the complete cost of the excursion or Princess will want all the money (credit card) up front to book it.

I too much prefered the old method of reserving the excursions ahead of boarding date and pay for all of it at the end of the cruise via my credit card. It made it so much easier and clean.

 

I have to wonder whether this policy resulted from all those who booked multiple excursions via Princess, only to cancel them when either a) they decided on one only, or b) they booked an independent operator's tour. There certainly were quite a few references here on CC to doing this, and it would really mess up with their accounting and planning.

 

I think the reason is different. After all, if you pay ahead, you can still cancel and get a full refund if you do so pre-cruise or on board before the deadline for each port.

I suspect the reason is that the competition makes you pay in advance at the time you book the excursion. So why should Princess stand out as being different and better?

Popular excursions need to be booked far in advance of sailing. I personally object to having to pay in full for excursions months before final payment is due for the cruise itself.

I might add a few caveats here. First is that I get considerable more OBC than my DW so I am able to book more excursions with OBC than she can. I could not book DW's excursion against my OBC even though we use my credit card to pay at the end of the cruise.

We are in exactly the same situation and this has been discussed a number of times on CC.

Princess have not removed the ability to charge your wife's tour to you account, just the ability for you to select the charged account when booking on line.

Princess are well aware of this problem and if you phone them they will book the tours and charge them both to your account, after which, when you visit cruise personaliser, you will be able to see the cost of the tours showing as a charge against your OBC.