How does cancelled excursion get refunded once on the ship?

[palpieha]

I have some excursions reserved and paid with credit card well in advance of the sailing. I might want to cancel one once on the ship (more than 48 hours prior to arriving to the port of the excursion). 

 

Does it get refunded to the original credit card, refundable OBC, or non-refundable OBC?

[JandC_Cruising]

It is refunded onto the on-board account as a Refundable OBC.  Just be sure, as you mentioned, to cancel more than 48hrs in advance.

 

[CaptainBazz]

We cancelled an excursion on our cruise last spring...it came as a refundable OBC and it just got applied to the daily gratuities.

[Oceansaway17]

Just to add something, I was on NCL in July and I chose to not go on my excursion and did not show up.

Much to my surprise I got 70% refund as a no show.  wow no other cruise line would have done this.  

 

[Pablo Diablo]

As others have replied, cancelled excursions are credited to your onboard account as refundable onboard credit. On my Prima sailing last week, our port stop at Great Stirrup Cay was cancelled. My purchased excursion was refunded automatically to my onboard account by next afternoon. Of course, if you choose to cancel you would have to do that at Shore Excursions desk on the ship. Be aware that you need to settle any credit balance at Guest Services/Onboard Credit desk before disembarking. Any credit balance will be refunded to you in cash. I don’t know why they don’t just credit back to your credit card, but they don’t. If you try to disembark without your account being settled, security will pull you out of line and tell you to go to Guest Services. So you’ll want to avoid any potential delays if you have an airport transfer and flight booked on disembarkation day. 

[Shel71]

2 hours ago, Pablo Diablo said:

As others have replied, cancelled excursions are credited to your onboard account as refundable onboard credit. On my Prima sailing last week, our port stop at Great Stirrup Cay was cancelled. My purchased excursion was refunded automatically to my onboard account by next afternoon. Of course, if you choose to cancel you would have to do that at Shore Excursions desk on the ship. Be aware that you need to settle any credit balance at Guest Services/Onboard Credit desk before disembarking. Any credit balance will be refunded to you in cash. I don’t know why they don’t just credit back to your credit card, but they don’t. If you try to disembark without your account being settled, security will pull you out of line and tell you to go to Guest Services. So you’ll want to avoid any potential delays if you have an airport transfer and flight booked on disembarkation day. 

The same happened to me in Alaska with a canceled helicopter/sled dog excursion due to rain/fog. I really wish they could have just refunded the credit card as I really did not want to travel with that much cash (that excursion is $$$). I had one canceled through a HAL cruise and it was an easy credit to my CC. 

[julig22]

There is no connection between the land-based accounting system and onboard systems so they cannot refund to original purchase method.  Can be inconvenient but that's how it works.  And they can't credit your onboard CC if you have a positive balance since they have no way of knowing who made the purchase and how it was made. Banks don't like to see credits over and above expenditures on credit cards.

[Sea saw 56]

We cancelled a pre-booked excursion on our September Alaska cruise.  When I went down to service desk to get my cash refunded, they told me I would have to wait until the last full day of the cruise to get the cash back. 

Best to try to make time the afternoon or evening before disembarkation to go get your $$.

[bluesea777]

15 hours ago, julig22 said:

There is no connection between the land-based accounting system and onboard systems so they cannot refund to original purchase method.  Can be inconvenient but that's how it works.  And they can't credit your onboard CC if you have a positive balance since they have no way of knowing who made the purchase and how it was made. Banks don't like to see credits over and above expenditures on credit cards.

 

^^^ This, and sometimes the credit card itself can get compromised and cancelled during the period between the excursion purchases and the cruise.

 

 

[Markj]

Quick tip as this happened to us last year with a cancelled helicopter trip.

 

The refund put our account into credit and they only pat credit back in cash - which in this day and age is crazy, however - our concierge suggested getting the cash asap as the guest services would be very busy on departure day and then if we spent anything more whilst on board it would just be deducted using our assigned credit card and then no need to stand in line at guest services!!

 

And that's what we did!"!!

[CaptainBazz]

53 minutes ago, Markj said:

The refund put our account into credit and they only pat credit back in cash

This is why we never pre-pay daily gratuities...if we cancel something and get a credit then at least we can put it towards the gratuities.

[julig22]

3 hours ago, CaptainBazz said:

This is why we never pre-pay daily gratuities...if we cancel something and get a credit then at least we can put it towards the gratuities

For those who always accuse NCL of "nickle and diming" (and I hate that phrase!) this allows me to return the favor....

 

 I book in advance and paying old DSC rates, so paying DSC in advance saves me $4 to $4.50/day. On my upcoming 14 day cruise, pre-paying saves me $63.

Then there's the points issue.  Got nearly $300 back on my last cruise.  Since I used my NCL card originally, that gave me 900 points, so I keep $9 in points value if I get the cash onboard. 

But wait, there's more.  I can use points to upgrade my cabin, my average being over $2k in savings per upgrade, making those 900 points worth another $60 or so.

YMMV

[PapaGoose]

On 1/21/2023 at 7:42 AM, Markj said:

Quick tip as this happened to us last year with a cancelled helicopter trip.

 

The refund put our account into credit and they only pat credit back in cash - which in this day and age is crazy, however - our concierge suggested getting the cash asap as the guest services would be very busy on departure day and then if we spent anything more whilst on board it would just be deducted using our assigned credit card and then no need to stand in line at guest services!!

 

And that's what we did!"!!

They let you take the cash ASAP? When during your cruise was this? My understanding is you can’t cash out refundable OBC until the last day or two. 

[Markj]

I think I went to Customer Services the next day, however there were only 2 days of the cruise left so don't know if what you say applies as it didn't affect me.

[lax19]

Interesting topic. There seems to be a loophole here that allows one to turn non-refundable OBC into refundable OBC. I had $250 non refundable shareholder’s OBC on my last 15 day cruise. While on board I booked an excursion through the NCL APP. I had to go to the shore ex desk to get my gold latitudes discount applied and my $50 shore ex credit applied. The $50 shore ex credit appeared after the excursion and was listed as refundable OBC. So the possibility exists to book an excursion on board with non refundable OBC, cancel the excursion and be credited with refundable OBC.

[jazzydiver]

37 minutes ago, lax19 said:

Interesting topic. There seems to be a loophole here that allows one to turn non-refundable OBC into refundable OBC.

Yes, this does seem to be a loophole that perhaps some folks may want to use on purpose.  I just got off the Joy on 1/21 and we had the experience of our non-refundable OBC turning into refundable, although it wasn't on purpose.

 

We had $250 non-refundable OBC (stockholder credit) plus some from the TA.  We had one excursion cancelled by NCL, and another we cancelled by choice as there were openings on the excursion we had originally wanted that previously showed as full.  So two shorex cancelled and two we booked on the ship to replace them.

 

(As a sidebar, the accounting sheet was sort of a nightmare with $50 shore ex credits showing as charges, because the full amount of the refunds were applied, so the $50 "refund" which wasn't a refund was a charge, blah blah blah...)

 

The accounting sheet was weird but all the math added up so I was OK with it.  I then noticed our OBC showed as entirely refundable.  I realized it was because after the shore ex cancellations, the rebooked shore excursions were paid for out of the non-refundable OBC first, hence all credit left was refundable.  (Plus it was even larger, because our replacement excursions happened to be less expensive.)

 

We had already planned to use a lot of the OBC using the Speedway 🙂 so we went ahead and did that even though we didn't "need" to anymore, lol.

 

Regards,

J