On line booking conflict & cancellation problem

[Suzy D]

What will (could) happen if I book the excursions shown on the RC website & once on the ship we see other things available to do & we want to change our excursion. Is there a cancellation penality if we book thru Royal Caribbean. Same question for booking reservations at the restaurant, only to find a show or something else going on. I want to do the Mystery Dinner thing but I dont want to miss the ice show. Do they schedule things so on a 7 day cruise, you can see it all? (That is SO obviously a 1st timer cruisers question)

[Suzy D]

What will (could) happen if I book the excursions shown on the RC website & once on the ship we see other things available to do & we want to change our excursion. Is there a cancellation penality if we book thru Royal Caribbean. Same question for booking reservations at the restaurant, only to find a show or something else going on. I want to do the Mystery Dinner thing but I dont want to miss the ice show. Do they schedule things so on a 7 day cruise, you can see it all? (That is SO obviously a 1st timer cruisers question)

[LisaP]

Hi Suzy. Click here for Royal Caribbean's Terms and Conditions for shore excursion bookings. I don't see a cancellation penalty mentioned in the language if you should rebook onboard prior to the general deadline established for the tour. I'll leave it to someone who has done this recently (or who has been onboard recently) to confirm.

As for the Mystery Dinner, the cancellation policy is located here. If you cancel onboard (or within 10 days of sailing), the refund will be in the form of a shipboard credit. There's a penalty for cancelling within 24 hours notice.

[spoheat]

Have changed shore tours before on Royal Caribbean--two different ships, and recently as well--and the refund or change was noted on our shipboard account (which you can check on the TV screen on most RCCL ships) the same day. There did not seem to be a problem with this, even though the tickets had been delivered to our room and they clearly said "nonrefundable" on them--no one ever even asked for a reason for the change.

[Nadine]

Suzy, I just booked, online, the excursions we chose for our January cruise on the Jewel. Unlike Princess where the excursions were not charged to our card until after the cruise started, RCCL charges them to your credit card immediately upon booking.

I called RCCL yesterday and was told that if we wanted to cancel an excursion I could just call them and it would be credited back to my account. It appears from the website that the cancellation could also be done online, but the representative didn't mention that.

I like to book the excursions prior to sailing, but several times have changed my mind once we got on the ship and talked to people at the excursion desk. They have always been very helpful and there was no problem with cancelling one excursion and booking another. This being said, it's important to remember that they do have a time frame during which the excursion cannot be cancelled without penalty. This is usually within 24 hours of the excursion, but I suppose that could vary based on the excursion.

Enjoy choosing your excursions! It's part of the pre-planning that builds excitement for your cruise.

Nadine