OBC to pay for excursions?

[FLUFFLULA]

We will be on Adventure OTS in July and have OBC. On our last cruise we waited to book excursions until we were on the ship and missed out on one because it was already totally booked. So we decided to book excursions before this cruise. Now, from reading posts on CC, I wonder if we can use OBC to pay for the excursions if we book them before the cruise? Do the excursions have to be booked after we get on the ship to use OBC?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Can we use OBC to pay for excursions we book

[Clarea]

We will be on Adventure OTS in July and have OBC. On our last cruise we waited to book excursions until we were on the ship and missed out on one because it was already totally booked. So we decided to book excursions before this cruise. Now, from reading posts on CC, I wonder if we can use OBC to pay for the excursions if we book them before the cruise? Do the excursions have to be booked after we get on the ship to use OBC?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Can we use OBC to pay for excursions we book

OBC is for use on board only. Pre-cruise bookings are charged immediately to your credit card.

Edited April 16, 2016 by clarea

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

It's my understanding that OBC can only be used when you are actually ON BOARD, so therefore it could not be used to pre-purchase things.

 

I suppose you *could* book in advance and check on board about cancelling and rebooking, but that sort of defeats the purpose as the money you had paid would be credited back as OBC. And there could be a waiting list making it impossible to rebook immediately.

 

IMHO, if an excursion is make-or-break, just book it up front and find something else to use your OBC on.

[knittinggirl]

We had that problem ourselves. We had something like $550 OBC and waited to book onboard, only to find the ones we wanted were sold out. But we were still able to find a shore excursion we enjoyed. Now, we pre-book the shore excursions, then use our OBC for things like wine and shore excursion purchases. Last cruise we even used our OBC in the infirmary. Not a good way to use it, but it helped keep our bill down.

[BecciBoo]

We're planning on trying it on our upcoming Alaska, will be asking for an adjustment or outright cancellation and rebook.

 

I'll report back.....

[FLUFFLULA]

Thanks for all of your advice. Guess we'll have to decide if we want to take a risk or not!

[LeeW]

Of course there are other cruise lines that don't charge you until 24 hours prior to your excursion and also allow stacking OBC from all sources......VERY useful in Alaska where two excursions for 2 is $800. You would think that if RCI can handle optional prepayment of gratuities they could also do excursions.

 

What was really a pain was when we had to change a B2B to different dates and they couldn't move the excursions. Had to credit back to credit card and rebook/pay again.