Canadian cruisers!!

[lettienets]

Ken, you have no idea what I went through with this! :eek: I put a courtesy hold (on the website at 4:00 a.m. this morning) on an eastbound TA for April 2017. Great.. it showed under "my cruises" (correctly priced) and I was going to call them later with my credit card info. Before calling, I went to pull up our booking dashboard which lists all our cruises and when I went into it, the cruise was priced at $1,000 more! :confused: Got on the phone (on hold most of the time) and was on for a solid hour trying to straighten it out and get it back to what it was priced at when I booked it earlier. I had an email confirmation about the courtesy hold but no price shown. Like I said, an hour later I had it straightened out and it was back to the correct price.

 

This afternoon, I was going to call and give them my credit card so I pulled up the booking again and believe it or not, under "our cruises" it had doubled in price!! :eek: I didn't want to put the deposit down this morning till I got the prices sorted out. On the phone again..this time for 45 minutes! Of course, by this time the prices on the RCI website were up and clerk #2 was trying to tell me I was wrong.. I was spitting nails when I was on the phone. Finally...finally..finally got it straightened out again for the second time. This time I took a screen shot and also printed out my booking confirmation. I'm done with RCI today!![emoji14]

 

The first rep I talked to had no clue about the 35% off for the Canadian residents sale so, of course, she had to check it out. She said the website was working fine for her,:confused: Ummm....no, it certainly is not working fine!! :rolleyes: She also had no idea about balcony discounts. I have my eye on a European cruise to add on to our transatlantic but there's just no way I want to go through any more of that "crap" today! lol My husband said to leave it till tomorrow.. even he doesn't want to call. The things we do to save money!

 

One thing I noticed on the website is that when you enter the province to see if there's any special prices, it doesn't retain "Ontario" so that's likely part of the reason nobody is getting the extra 5% for the Canadian residents discount. Both times I called they asked me where I lived after inquiring about getting the extra 5%. Yes, you certainly do have to call to get it...just hope you get an agent who knows what you're talking about!

I had this problem too with the extra 5% Canadian booking. Took agent awhile to figure it out. I told her I had an email about it. I said a friend of mine already booked and got it and she looked it up to see how. She forgot to put the province in.

Anyway I asked the agent where she was - a call center in Guatemala where there are 200 of them. I said how did you get a name like Brenda and she said her father named her. Asked if she had ever been on a cruise - no.

 

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[lettienets]

If you book on Canadian dollars and just wait till you get onboard and then excursions, on board expenses etc are in US on your account? Or will they also be billed in Canadian on your onboard account? Could I just give them US or Canadian cash to pay rather than a credit card?

 

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[A&L_Ont]

Dollar has gone up some again today.

Edited March 5, 2016 by A&L_Ont

[moopetguy]

If you book on Canadian dollars and just wait till you get onboard and then excursions, on board expenses etc are in US on your account? Or will they also be billed in Canadian on your onboard account? Could I just give them US or Canadian cash to pay rather than a credit card?

 

Your SeaPass onboard account is always in USD regardless of booking currency. You can choose to run a cash account during online check-in when your SetSail Pass is printed. That way you can square up your account in USD bills if you prefer.

 

You can add a credit card to your cash account on board if you want. You can choose to have RCI to convert to your credit card's currency such as CAD (I wouldn't do this, I'm sure their rate is higher) or bill your credit card in USD (and if it's not a USD credit card, obviously your card issuer's exchange rate and foreign currency conversion fee, if any, will apply).

[Magicat]

Moopetguy is right, pay your account in USD as Royal's exchange is always higher than what your credit card would charge.

When we booked our cruise the other day the exchange for purchasing OBC was 1.4.

[robtulipe]

This morning, the exchange rate is around 1.35. Is this Royal Caribbean's new business model? To tack a 15% commission onto exchange rate? And then try to convince the customer that is what the exchange rate really was?

 

RCI is just trying to recover all the money they loss last year selling $US OBC at 1.10 exchange when the actual exchange was 1.30 to 1.40 .

It's great that we still have most of those $US I got last year in cash from the OBC we bought then to use on my Anthem cruise we leave for tomorrow. :D

Edited March 5, 2016 by robtulipe

[rance]

On the RCCL website my cruise on HOS for 3 priced out at $2800 USD.

When I called them to book the total was $3500 CDN...so that's an exchange rate of 1.24.

 

seems like your mileage may vary.

[southnam]

Have they changed the rules on prepaid gratiuities? On my 2014 cruise I was able to prepay gratuities in Cad through my travel agent as supposed to paying it in usd onboard.

I was going to do the same this time again to save on exchange and paying $12.95 used instead of $12.95 cdn

[Host Jacquelyn]

Have they changed the rules on prepaid gratiuities? On my 2014 cruise I was able to prepay gratuities in Cad through my travel agent as supposed to paying it in usd onboard.

I was going to do the same this time again to save on exchange and paying $12.95 used instead of $12.95 cdn

 

Yes. If you booked your cruise in Canadian dollars you can prepay the tips in Canadian as well. The rate they use is 1.23, so it is better than waiting until you are on board

[KiwiGal117]

Just noticed an ad in The Globe this morning whereby Norwegian is offering cruises Canadian dollars at par! RCL?? Hello???

[Funbobby68]

Just noticed an ad in The Globe this morning whereby Norwegian is offering cruises Canadian dollars at par! RCL?? Hello???

 

 

Ya but its NCL :)

 

 

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[xcell]

Rates vary....my march is at 1.08 and my July 2016 is at 1.11

[CVU]

When I pull up my reservation in cruise planner all the prices are in CAD$.Is there a way to purchase packages in USD?

 

The premium drink package is showing $92 PER DAY CDN...but website shows $59 USD. That is a bad exchange rate.

 

You can change your Country to US- at the top of the page, which is easier as it works!

Or....you can change the currency on the top right of a cruise booking page but sometimes it won't work. It Says US$ currency at the top but still gives you CAN$ price? Hence it is easier to change your Country.

 

It is good to compare the prices booking in US or CAN..........

[beansugar]

Hi all

I have a cruise coming up in 3 weeks. We didn't initially pre-pay our gratuity because we thought we'd get a better deal on board if the rate went back up. Now I'm wondering if we should just prepay. Is it too late to pre-pay the gratuity and get our onboard credits?

 

 

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[Host Jacquelyn]

Hi all

I have a cruise coming up in 3 weeks. We didn't initially pre-pay our gratuity because we thought we'd get a better deal on board if the rate went back up. Now I'm wondering if we should just prepay. Is it too late to pre-pay the gratuity and get our onboard credits?

 

 

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Not sure what you mean about onboard credits, but you can still call up and prepay the gratuities. It should be the same 1.23 exchange rate. Let us know what they say.

[Funbobby68]

Apparently they are offering discounts for the drink packages for platinum crown and anchor and up , from what I read on another thread they don't promote it and you have to ask , and the discount rate varies from ship to ship .......every little bit helps

 

 

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[Virtopia]

Apparently they are offering discounts for the drink packages for platinum crown and anchor and up , from what I read on another thread they don't promote it and you have to ask , and the discount rate varies from ship to ship .......every little bit helps

 

 

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Still considering it but my next cruise will be my first as Diamond so I'll have the 3 free preloaded drinks a day and my 2 bottles of wine that I bring on. I also have a bit of OBC that I currently have no plans for since I've prepaid my gratuities. As I've see others mention that the drink cards are offered later in the sailing, I will probably order one.

[lettienets]

Your SeaPass onboard account is always in USD regardless of booking currency. You can choose to run a cash account during online check-in when your SetSail Pass is printed. That way you can square up your account in USD bills if you prefer.

 

You can add a credit card to your cash account on board if you want. You can choose to have RCI to convert to your credit card's currency such as CAD (I wouldn't do this, I'm sure their rate is higher) or bill your credit card in USD (and if it's not a USD credit card, obviously your card issuer's exchange rate and foreign currency conversion fee, if any, will apply).

I think I will pay for my service charges and excursions in advance in Cdn$. Will check in on ship with credit card but pay cash at end. Thanks

[moopetguy]

We didn't initially pre-pay our gratuity because we thought we'd get a better deal on board if the rate went back up. Now I'm wondering if we should just prepay. Is it too late to pre-pay the gratuity

 

You can opt-in to pre-paid gratuities any time up to 3 days prior to sailing. This is what I've previously been told by RCI reps over the phone. As already discussed earlier in the thread, pre-paying your gratuities in CAD is likely going to be better than the going exchange rate (again, approximately 1.23 vs. approximately 1.36).

[beansugar]

Hi all

Just called to prepay my gratuities....seems the rate is now 1.50.😕 Pretty high I think.

We didn't bother with the onboard credits, at that rate we'll take our chances with paying on our credit cards.

Anyone else experience such a high exchange rate lately?

 

 

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[beansugar]

P.S. To put this into perspective, the gratuities are $12.95 U.S./pp, in CAD they are $15.90.

 

 

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[Ourusualbeach]

P.S. To put this into perspective, the gratuities are $12.95 U.S./pp, in CAD they are $15.90.

 

 

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At US $12.95 US and $15.90 CDN they are using an exchange rate of 1.23 which others have posted.

 

If it was a 1.5 exchange rate then the gratuities in CDN would be about $19.40 CDN.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Ourusualbeach

[retird]

P.S. To put this into perspective, the gratuities are $12.95 U.S./pp, in CAD they are $15.90.

 

 

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I just recently called and prepaid my gratuities for my upcoming cruise at $15.90 CDN That is an exchange rate of 1.23. A good deal in my opinion.

[beach18]

Can you cancel/refund your prepaid gratuities, if you decide to pay on board? (not sure if this has been answered before)

[southnam]

Yes. If you booked your cruise in Canadian dollars you can prepay the tips in Canadian as well. The rate they use is 1.23, so it is better than waiting until you are on board

 

Maybe it was a mistake then but when I cruised in Dec 2014 I had paid $12.95 Cdn, not the Cdn exchange of $12.95. So that's why I jumped at the chance to to prepay in Cdn, to save myself a bit on the exchange.

Maybe it was some sort of promo then?