Beware of prepaying gratuities before the cruise

[aloha43]

I prepaid my gratuities when I booked my cruise, back 13 months ago.

 

Please beware......this is how they handled it....

 

Royal Caribbean gave us a "Special Occasion Gift" (Exactly what they called it.) when we arrived in our Grande Suite on the Radiance. (Our special occasion was our 20th anniversary.) We didn't have any idea of what they might have done for a special occasian, so we thought this was absolutely great to us.....yes, this was our first cruise. :))

 

What happened, was that we thought we had something special, and spent every dime on of the credit. Money we really didn't have to blow, but we thought it was a gift. I realize that they credited it, so in the long run, I did receive it back, and they did get their tips. But because Royal Caribbean made this mistake, we had to come up with almost $200 more than we had expected to pay.

 

On the last morning of our cruise, (because I had inquired about it) Royal Caribbean informed us that we didn't prepay our gratuities.

 

So basically, they gifted it back to us without telling us, let us spend the whole thing, and informed us that we didn't prepay. So we had to come up with the gratuity again. If we had not found this out the last morning, no one would have been given their well deserved tips, and we would have felt awful.

 

By the way, we had a WONDERFUL time on the Radiance. She is a very beautiful ship! We definitely have the cruising bug now! :) If anyone wants any info on the Radiance, we did a lot of exploring and learned a lot if you have any questions.

 

I just wanted to share this story, so others don't make the same mistake.

 

Beware of those credits if you don't know why you got them...

 

 

Debbie

[Alexis]

I prepaid my gratuities when I booked my cruise, back 13 months ago.

 

Please beware......this is how they handled it....

 

Royal Caribbean gave us a "Special Occasion Gift" (Exactly what they called it.) when we arrived in our Grande Suite on the Radiance. (Our special occasion was our 20th anniversary.) We didn't have any idea of what they might have done for a special occasian, so we thought this was absolutely great to us.....yes, this was our first cruise. :))

 

What happened, was that we thought we had something special, and spent every dime on of the credit. Money we really didn't have to blow, but we thought it was a gift. I realize that they credited it, so in the long run, I did receive it back, and they did get their tips. But because Royal Caribbean made this mistake, we had to come up with almost $200 more than we had expected to pay.

 

On the last morning of our cruise, (because I had inquired about it) Royal Caribbean informed us that we didn't prepay our gratuities.

 

So basically, they gifted it back to us without telling us, let us spend the whole thing, and informed us that we didn't prepay. So we had to come up with the gratuity again. If we had not found this out the last morning, no one would have been given their well deserved tips, and we would have felt awful.

By the way, we had a WONDERFUL time on the Radiance. She is a very beautiful ship! We definitely have the cruising bug now! :) If anyone wants any info on the Radiance, we did a lot of exploring and learned a lot if you have any questions.

 

I just wanted to share this story, so others don't make the same mistake.

 

Beware of those credits if you don't know why you got them...

 

 

Debbie

 

Hi, Could you explain?

If you prepaid your own gratuities 13 months ago, how could you have spent it? It would have been added on to your total balance for the cruise.

That would not be an OBC. RCCL does not give it back to you in cash. You get a paper voucher to put in an envelope to give the staff. RCCL gives them the money that you paid them in advance.

If you have your invoices from your payments to RCCL it should say whether you pre paid your tips. If it is on there I would send it to RCCL and ask for your tip money to be returned as proof that you paid in advance..

It seems what you received was a $200 On Board Credit. OBC is very common and if it is on your account, it is yours to spend.

I have never heard of a "Special Occasion Gift" but maybe because I have never been in a Grande Suite.

[Cruise Cat]

I think they are very clear that they debit your account with the pre-paid gratuities at check-in. You should be able to view them (and all charges) on the interactive TV in your stateroom at any time.

 

????????

[GrayeeB]

I prepaid our gratuities through my travel agent and its on my paperwork and also show on RCCL website in my itinerary.

[Would_rather_b_cruising]

You say you are a travel agent, but I can't understand most of what you're saying. What do you mean they are made for set amounts? You most definitely CAN prepay your gratuities with RCCL, as I and many others have done it. How was booking through the cruiseline a mistake for the OP?

I think your post is going to get pulled, as you are soliciting business which is against CC rules, whether you provide the name of your agency or not.

My prepaid gratuities have worked the exact way that Alexis has explained it. Cruisecat, I was never given a credit or debit on my seapass card after I prepaid the gratuities that showed up on my account on the TV.

OP, what happened to you is not making sense. Does your invoice from RCCL show the prepaid gratuities? Did you receive vouchers to hand out?

 

I am not trying to talk about my company. If I were, I would say the name. The point of this is NOT to flame, but to assist. I have had problems with some cruise lines in the booking process. I am simply saying that when you prepay your tips, it goes in the books as 50 dollars. (idk the real price off the top of my head, but lets say it is 50 for the cruise)

 

If you add a dollar, they are going to say "HEY... YOU NEED TO PAY THIS, IT WASNT COVERD IN YOUR HIDDEN CREDIT"

 

 

From your standpoint, I see what you are saying, but the other side says makes sense if you live in the business.

 

Don't flame, it is not the purpose of this post.

 

I would recommend leaving tips onboard as needed.

[iheartbda]

I'm in total agreement with Alexis and KelJ and am also confused with the OP's post.

[Alexis]

tenrten

That information you are giving is not correct. :rolleyes:

If I pre pay my tips, it is going on my cruise balance, my invoices and it will be paid by me before my final payment to RCCL if I choose to do it that way. ;)

I don't know where you are a travel agent, but this is why I do my own bookings.

I fear you might be my old one. :D

[tbear2762]

Hi, Could you explain?

If you prepaid your own gratuities 13 months ago, how could you have spent it? It would have been added on to your total balance for the cruise.

That would not be an OBC. RCCL does not give it back to you in cash. You get a paper voucher to put in an envelope to give the staff. RCCL gives them the money that you paid them in advance.

If you have your invoices from your payments to RCCL it should say whether you pre paid your tips. If it is on there I would send it to RCCL and ask for your tip money to be returned as proof that you paid in advance..

It seems what you received was a $200 On Board Credit. OBC is very common and if it is on your account, it is yours to spend.

I have never heard of a "Special Occasion Gift" but maybe because I have never been in a Grande Suite.

 

As an example this is what my account shows on Royal Caribbean.com

Cruise Fare*

 

Guest 1 $1,089.00 USD

Guest 2 $1,089.00 USD

Guest 3 $899.00 USD

Subtotal $3,077.00 USD

 

Optional Items*

 

Prepaid Gratuities $204.75 USD

CruiseCare Insurance $217.00 USD

Fuel Supplement $70.00 USD

Total $491.75 USD

 

 

Payment History*

 

24-Feb-2008 $750.00 USD

 

Balance Due* $3,007.72 USD

[Cruise Cat]

Kelly - Thanks for the response I saw in a quote:D . Looking at my detailed invoice, it is clear I did not pre-pay tips at time of booking (that line shows zeros). I know that when I check in I can pre-pay or wait till the end. I have gotten used to prepaying at check-in where it immediately shows as a debit to my seapass account. So, now I see I was talking about one type of prepay and others were talking about another. As to what several of the others are saying, I haven't a clue as I can't understand it and have never heard of a 'Hidden Credit':confused:

 

FROM THE RCCL FAQ:

"Envelopes for gratuities will be provided in your stateroom on the last night of the cruise. Gratuities may be paid in the following ways:

Pre paid by having them added to your reservation by your booking agent.Added to your onboard SeaPass account.Paid in cash at the end of the cruise"

[Alexis]

iheartbda-

:

Originally Posted by kingsgirl

I have no idea what this thread is about so I'll just post that I don't understand it, and make it worse by doing so.

 

Join the crowd...that seems to be getting bigger.:D

 

Unfortunately, Aloha 43 doesn't seem to be logged in to help clear up anything.

 

It was their first cruise and I think if they check their invoices it will clear up a lot of the mystery. ;)

I tried checking back posts to help clear it up earlier and it seems someone else took over their total booking from RCCL. It is possible something may have happened there in the transfer?

With luck, they find the invoices they get their money back maybe. ;)

[iheartbda]

[

iheartbda-

 

It was their first cruise and I think if they check their invoices it will clear up a lot of the mystery. ;)

 

Hope they show up again. Maybe some of the responses will help clear up things for them.:)

[MBeamTX]

I prepaid my gratuities when I booked my cruise, back 13 months ago.

 

Please beware......this is how they handled it....

 

Royal Caribbean gave us a "Special Occasion Gift" (Exactly what they called it.) when we arrived in our Grande Suite on the Radiance. (Our special occasion was our 20th anniversary.) We didn't have any idea of what they might have done for a special occasian, so we thought this was absolutely great to us.....yes, this was our first cruise. :))

 

What happened, was that we thought we had something special, and spent every dime on of the credit. Money we really didn't have to blow, but we thought it was a gift. I realize that they credited it, so in the long run, I did receive it back, and they did get their tips. But because Royal Caribbean made this mistake, we had to come up with almost $200 more than we had expected to pay.

 

On the last morning of our cruise, (because I had inquired about it) Royal Caribbean informed us that we didn't prepay our gratuities.

 

So basically, they gifted it back to us without telling us, let us spend the whole thing, and informed us that we didn't prepay. So we had to come up with the gratuity again. If we had not found this out the last morning, no one would have been given their well deserved tips, and we would have felt awful.

 

By the way, we had a WONDERFUL time on the Radiance. She is a very beautiful ship! We definitely have the cruising bug now! :) If anyone wants any info on the Radiance, we did a lot of exploring and learned a lot if you have any questions.

 

I just wanted to share this story, so others don't make the same mistake.

 

Beware of those credits if you don't know why you got them...

 

Debbie,

I think that the prepaid gratuitites should have shown up on your shipboard account as a credit - you would start the cruise with a credit balance, since you'd paid for tips that had not yet been posted as a charge to your onboard account.

 

I can guess three possible scenarios here:

(1) You saw the credit balance on your shipboard account and didn't realize it represented the prepaid gratuities, so you spent that amount on other things.

(2) You found some paperwork in your cabin referring to a gift (maybe you got a bottle of wine in your suite?) and assumed it somehow related to the credit balance on your account that really represented the prepaid gratuities? OR

(3) Your TA or RCCL screwed up and posted your prepaid gratuities as a shipboard credit instead. Which you then spent.

 

I hope that you'll stop back and clarify.

 

Happy cruising,

Susan

[Alexis]

Debbie,

I think that the prepaid gratuities should have shown up on your shipboard account as a credit - you would start the cruise with a credit balance, since you'd paid for tips that had not yet been posted as a charge to your onboard account.

 

I can guess three possible scenarios here:

(1) ]You saw the credit balance on your shipboard account and didn't realize it represented the prepaid gratuities, so you spent that amount on other things.(2) You found some paperwork in your cabin referring to a gift (maybe you got a bottle of wine in your suite?) and assumed it somehow related to the credit balance on your account that really represented the prepaid gratuities? OR

(3) Your TA or RCCL screwed up and posted your prepaid gratuities as a shipboard credit instead. Which you then spent.

 

I hope that you'll stop back and clarify.

 

Happy cruising,

Susan

 

A good theory except she posts,

On the last morning of our cruise, (because I had inquired about it) Royal Caribbean informed us that we didn't prepay our gratuities.

 

RCCL didn't say she spent them. They said, "They didn't prepay their gratuities?"

 

I think your number 3 is probably what happened. :) I bet it was put in the wrong place by the TA as credit.

(3) Your TA or RCCL screwed up and posted your prepaid gratuities as a shipboard credit instead. Which you then spent.

[kruznmike]

It is possible the TA listed the prepaid gratuties as OBC, which then could have been used as gratuities(sp). This should have been explained to OP before cuise, by the TA. This seems likes the most likely answer, because I've never seen RCCL give OBC for a special occassn. People would be having "special occassions" all the time.;)

[ehfl]

That's not how it works. I've prepaid tips, and they leave vouchers in the room. I think your TA must have made a mistake...one more reason to go directly through the cruise line...you don't get this type of confustion.

[aqhacruiser]

A good theory except she posts,

 

 

RCCL didn't say she spent them. They said, "They didn't prepay their gratuities?"

 

I think your number 3 is probably what happened. :) I bet it was put in the wrong place by the TA as credit.

(3) Your TA or RCCL screwed up and posted your prepaid gratuities as a shipboard credit instead. Which you then spent.

 

I agree with this as it's the only thing that makes sense. I've prepaid tips, it is in my cruise fare and paid for and I receive vouchers the last night to give to the staff and add extra cash. Pre paid tips never show up on the TV on the account if prepaid only OBC's show up and tips are not OBC's. It sounds like the prepay tips were entered incorectly by the TA to RCCL. Sorry this happened to the OP but this is not how prepaid tips are ever handled so something went wrong on the part of the TA who submitted the info to RCCL with final pmt.

[iheartbda]

I think your number 3 is probably what happened. :) I bet it was put in the wrong place by the TA as credit.

(3) Your TA or RCCL screwed up and posted your prepaid gratuities as a shipboard credit instead. Which you then spent.

 

Sounds good.:)

Now, where does the "Special Occasion Gift" fit into all of this?:confused:

 

Aloha43, please come back.

[MrPete]

IOn the last morning of our cruise, (because I had inquired about it)

 

Your mistake was not asking about it as soon as you "discovered" it.

 

BTW, it always intrigues me how carefree people spend money they think is given to them, different from if they had to earn it.

[aloha43]

Join the crowd...that seems to be getting bigger.:D

 

Unfortunately, Aloha 43 doesn't seem to be logged in to help clear up anything.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

 

I prepaid my gratuities when I booked 13 months ago.

It shows that we paid $192 on our receipt from the travel agent.

Nowhere on our actual cruise documents does it state that the gratuities were paid.

Upon arrival to our room, we had an onboard credit for the exact amount of $192...that said "special occasion gift". We also received a $25 credit that we knew of from the travel agent. It said the same....special occasion gift. How were we to know.

 

On the last morning of our cruise, we heard that we would receive vouchers for prepaid gratuities to place in the envelopes. We never received them, so I contacted guest relations to make sure that they had been paid. They had no record of it. We had two other couples connected with our reservation, and they did the same with theirs. They said we didn't pre-pay.

 

We had NO idea that the "special occasion gift" was the prepaid gratuities.

 

Upon returning home, I called the travel agent, and she said it had to be the "gift", and they must have made a mistake on how they described the credit.

 

Do they normally list the prepaid gratuities on the sea pass account?

[Mark_K]

Sorry for the confusion.

 

I prepaid my gratuities when I booked 13 months ago.

It shows that we paid $192 on our receipt from the travel agent.

Nowhere on our actual cruise documents does it state that the gratuities were paid.

Upon arrival to our room, we had an onboard credit for the exact amount of $192...that said "special occasion gift". We also received a $25 credit that we knew of from the travel agent. It said the same....special occasion gift. How were we to know.

 

On the last morning of our cruise, we heard that we would receive vouchers for prepaid gratuities to place in the envelopes. We never received them, so I contacted guest relations to make sure that they had been paid. They had no record of it. We had two other couples connected with our reservation, and they did the same with theirs. They said we didn't pre-pay.

 

We had NO idea that the "special occasion gift" was the prepaid gratuities.

 

Upon returning home, I called the travel agent, and she said it had to be the "gift", and they must have made a mistake on how they described the credit.

 

Do they normally list the prepaid gratuities on the sea pass account?

If by "they", your TA means her travel agency, I'd say she's right.

[PH8]

Finally something that makes sense. (Maybe tenrten was his TA!)

I BET YOU'RE RIGHT!!:D :D :D

 

 

Do they normally list the prepaid gratuities on the sea pass account?

Nope.........

I have prepaid tips and they dont show up as OBC or gift or anything like that..........that amount is not there for me to spend,even accidentally..

[aloha43]

IF YOU PREPAY (Which I am not going to be technical about), then DO NOT add or subtract the tips from your TV. That is what messes up the system.

 

That is exactly what they did, and it sure messed me up. I am sorry if I confused everyone.

 

Since this was my first cruise, I had no idea of how things worked. I know in the future, I will never prepay again. That way I can budget my money correctly, and there will be no confusion.

[aloha43]

I BET YOU'RE RIGHT!!:D :D :D

 

Nope.........

I have prepaid tips and they dont show up as OBC or gift or anything like that..........that amount is not there for me to spend,even accidentally..

 

Thank you.

 

That is what happened, so that is why it was spent. I'm just glad that I found out at the last minute so we new to compensate for them in the end.

[aloha43]

If by "they", your TA means her travel agency, I'd say she's right.

 

No, actually, when she said "they", she meant Royal Caribbean.

[polodad]

This thread is a lot easier to follow and makes much more sense if you have about 5 foo foo drinks first and then read.

 

Clear like mud.