Gratuity Glitch on Royal Website

[WeighAnchor]

Greetings Fellow Cruisers,

 

I am not sure if this has been posted before, but I noted a coding error on the Royal Caribbean website that occurs when you make changes to the Preferences section on your reservation and you have My Time Dining and have not opted for the prepaid gratuities.

 

If you go into this section to update your bed arrangement or any other preference item and have My Time listed as your dining choice without gratuities, it will add in prepaid gratuities when you click save, even if you have made your final payment.

 

This appears to be a relic from the days where MTD required prepaying gratuities. Evidently, someone needs to change the coding on the website. I sent in a note on the contact form, but I am not holding my breath for it to be fixed any time soon. In the mean time, if this happens, you have to call RCL to have the gratuities removed as it will show you with a balance due or add them into your balance.

 

Cheers,

 

Michael

[Clarea]

This behavior has been reported from time to time for the last year or so. I'm sure RC knows about it, but they are not motivated to make any changes that delay cash flow.

[WeighAnchor]

This behavior has been reported from time to time for the last year or so. I'm sure RC knows about it, but they are not motivated to make any changes that delay cash flow.

 

Thanks, I wasn't 100% sure if it was mentioned before. I did a quick search but I guess I didn't look deep enough. It no longer adds the gratuities when booking and choosing MTD. It just happens if you mess around in the Preferences settings after booking.

[kruzerci]

Be careful doing this.

 

I linked our reservations with some friends a few weeks ago and when I added their reservation number in preferences and clicked update, it updated our cruise price to the current rate.

 

Took an hour on the phone to get it sorted out, really annoying!

[reallyitsmema]

Thanks, I wasn't 100% sure if it was mentioned before. I did a quick search but I guess I didn't look deep enough. It no longer adds the gratuities when booking and choosing MTD. It just happens if you mess around in the Preferences settings after booking.

 

Yup, it happened to me. I left it alone though since I read here that if you have the gratuities removed. it also removes all of your MTD reservations. Figured, I am going to pay the gratuities anyway, so decided to leave well enough alone. Cruise is in less than a month, so will be nice when I don't have to worry about this reservation doing weird things.

[artdlee]

I went in to make the last payment on my cruise. I knew I still owed $800 dollars because I purposefully paid it down to $800 last month so I knew how much this month I would need to pay. The amount went up by $283.50 to $1,083.50. I called the resolution center and they said they could find no error on the website. The problem is that I have no proof AND they acted like I was making teh whole thing up. The thing is . . . $283.50 is the exact price of the gratuities. Now that I've found this thread, it explains a LOT! Thank you!

[Milwaukee Eight]

Greetings Fellow Cruisers,

 

I am not sure if this has been posted before, but I noted a coding error on the Royal Caribbean website that occurs when you make changes to the Preferences section on your reservation and you have My Time Dining and have not opted for the prepaid gratuities.

 

If you go into this section to update your bed arrangement or any other preference item and have My Time listed as your dining choice without gratuities, it will add in prepaid gratuities when you click save, even if you have made your final payment.

 

This appears to be a relic from the days where MTD required prepaying gratuities. Evidently, someone needs to change the coding on the website. I sent in a note on the contact form, but I am not holding my breath for it to be fixed any time soon. In the mean time, if this happens, you have to call RCL to have the gratuities removed as it will show you with a balance due or add them into your balance.

 

Cheers,

 

Michael

 

All the more reason to leave prepaid gratuities alone. Why cruisers, and many frequent, choose to remove prepaid gratuities is beyond me.

[goodml]

All the more reason to leave prepaid gratuities alone. Why cruisers, and many frequent, choose to remove prepaid gratuities is beyond me.

 

It's not always that people don't want to pay the gratuities. Maybe they just don't want to give the money to the cruise line at final payment time and would prefer to be billed onboard. I personally see no reason to pay them early but I've never had them removed from my onboard account.

[goodml]

Yup, it happened to me. I left it alone though since I read here that if you have the gratuities removed. it also removes all of your MTD reservations. Figured, I am going to pay the gratuities anyway, so decided to leave well enough alone. Cruise is in less than a month, so will be nice when I don't have to worry about this reservation doing weird things.

 

This exact thing happened to us last year and we were linked with two other cabins for My Time dining. Our reservation was the only one where the gratuities were added to the total. I called in and had them removed and we lost all our MTD reservations but the other two couples kept theirs. By the time I noticed ours were gone we couldn't get the reservations for 6 people again. Someone here gave me a contact to get it resolved and we thought it was and even received confirmations but once on board, every night we had an issue because it was showing as a reservation for 4 instead of 6 and somehow, it couldn't be modified. I actually just noticed the same thing has happened on our next cruise but I'm leaving them alone to avoid the issue again.

[Milwaukee Eight]

It's not always that people don't want to pay the gratuities. Maybe they just don't want to give the money to the cruise line at final payment time and would prefer to be billed onboard. I personally see no reason to pay them early but I've never had them removed from my onboard account.

 

I'll buy that. You really feel that those that insist of removing gratuities will add them back when onboard? I don't......

[molly361]

All the more reason to leave prepaid gratuities alone. Why cruisers, and many frequent, choose to remove prepaid gratuities is beyond me.

 

This just happened to me today. I am going to call them as we have OBC that I want to use to pay for the grats once on board

[goodml]

I'll buy that. You really feel that those that insist of removing gratuities will add them back when onboard? I don't......

 

Well I did....

 

You don't personally add them back on board. They charge you every day. You'd have to go to guest services to remove them. This is just removing the prepaid option which forces you to pay the gratuities at final payment rather than through your onboard account.

[robyn206]

I agree. There's no sense in letting them keep your money for over 3 months. If it wasn't prepaid through the travel agency, I'd wait too. My same money is worth more now than in 3 months time.

 

 

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[cb at sea]

The RCI IT department is NOT the best, apparently. Don't know why they can't seem to get folks to make the website better...Celebrity has issues, too!

[mollyeilis]

All the more reason to leave prepaid gratuities alone. Why cruisers, and many frequent, choose to remove prepaid gratuities is beyond me.

 

 

? You don't have to remove them. You just aren't clicking to include them. Back a year or two ago MTD required prepaid grays but not now.

 

Many people have onboard credit and won't be using it on much, so why not use it on gratuities? We certainly fall

Into that camp.

 

 

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[Miryam1234]

This happened to us just 4 days before our sail date. I had (of course) paid everything full months ago, had printed out all paperwork, and we were already in Fort Lauderdale when I suddenly received an email with attached reservation sheet from Royal letting me know that my balance is overdue. I went to check it online and it showed that I owe 497 EUR which was exactly gratuities for 14 days cruise for 3 people in EUR. I called them and they credited me and send another reservation sheet telling that balance was 0.00 and grats were paid full! So we ended up giving cash to our cabin attendant and our waiter team at MTD, since we knew we hadn't prepaid and nothing was added to our account. I tried to explain the situation to guest relations to get it on my account while onboard, but the assistant could not fully grasp my situation (probably due to my bad English), so we just decided to pay cash. I know some behind the scene crew were left out, but there is not much else I could do in that situation.

[voyager70]

Well I did....

 

You don't personally add them back on board. They charge you every day. You'd have to go to guest services to remove them. This is just removing the prepaid option which forces you to pay the gratuities at final payment rather than through your onboard account.

 

This, exactly. I never prepay gratuities, nor would I ever think about removing them once onboard.