Onboard Booking / Re-booking Questions

[KevieKev05]

I'm looking at booking roughly 5 rooms for a cruise in December 2016. If I book all the rooms when booking opens up later this week, would it be possible to re-book ALL of it when I go on a cruise next week? Or, do I just wait to book all of the rooms while on the cruise? Can you book that many rooms onboard? I understand not all rooms get the onboard booking discount...I'm more interested in the onboard credit for all the rooms I just didn't know if there was a limit to how many staterooms you can book onboard. Thank you!

 

[Quellman]

Unless I remember incorrectly, you can book 2 rooms on board to take advantage of the OBC and % discount on room rate. Book all 5 of your rooms when December 2016 opens if you are concerned about location, room type, connecting rooms, etc. Then reshop them when you get onboard.

 

[dmunsil]

With onboard booking, you can book more than two (up to, AFAIK, as many as you want), but only the first two get the 10% discount and the lower deposit. Any additional rooms get onboard credit only. And they all need to be on the same cruise (or pair of back-to-back cruises).

The OBC for the rooms beyond the first two is an unadvertised benefit and Disney could change it at any time. Of course, they could change any of their benefits pretty much any time, but the rules for the first two rooms are actually written down and disseminated to travel agents, so they're less likely to change without an announcement.

 

[KevieKev05]

Thank you so much for your responses! Definitely helpful!

Now, rebooking onboard classifies as a cancellation and a new booking, correct? Would ALL the information be easily transferred when this happens? Or do we have to have ALL the information readily available for the (new) onboard booking (such as names, addresses, birthdates, etc.)? Also, these rooms would each have their own payments if I book while at home. Would those payments be able to be applied to the new onboard booking? Or do I, personally, have to provide the payment when I (re)book onboard? And would they each have their own reservation numbers? Or would it be tied to my reservation number?

Sorry for all these questions. I've never attempted to book more than two staterooms before.

 

[dmunsil]

Now, rebooking onboard classifies as a cancellation and a new booking, correct?

Correct.

Would ALL the information be easily transferred when this happens?

It would be easier for the agent if you had it all printed out for them, I would think. I don't think there's a special tool the agents have to make reshopping easy; they just have to write it down from the existing booking and retype it in the new booking, I believe.

Or do we have to have ALL the information readily available for the (new) onboard booking (such as names, addresses, birthdates, etc.)?

It isn't required to have all of that information to do an onboard booking. They can book people with just a name. And sometimes they book children as "child 1," "child 2," etc. You just fix the rest of the info later when you get back home.

All that said, I like to have everyone's full name (as on their passport) and birth date. It seems to work best if those pieces are in there right from the beginning. I had a booking where we didn't have my wife's birth date in the booking, and we had to call in to fix it. It wasn't a huge hassle, but it could have been avoided if the birth date had been entered on the initial reservation.

Also, these rooms would each have their own payments if I book while at home. Would those payments be able to be applied to the new onboard booking? Or do I, personally, have to provide the payment when I (re)book onboard? And would they each have their own reservation numbers? Or would it be tied to my reservation number?

I'm not sure I understand. You will need to have a new payment method (your credit card you set up for onboard payments will work fine). Your old booking will be refunded to whatever payment you used for those bookings. You will get new reservation numbers.

The onboard booking will be a new booking, and nothing will be connected, transferred, or otherwise linked to the old bookings, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[KevieKev05]

Thank you so much, dmunsil! That was incredibly helpful. I think our best option is to just wait to book onboard in a couple weeks. I don't imagine the price or room availability being that different to negatively affect our plans.

My payment question was in reference to the fact that I'm not the one paying for all the staterooms. Each stateroom is a separate family with their own payment option unrelated to me. But, I realize that when booking onboard, I'm guessing I can't bring their credit card information with me for the deposit for each stateroom.

Thanks again for your help. I truly appreciate it!

 

[dmunsil]

Thank you so much, dmunsil! That was incredibly helpful. I think our best option is to just wait to book onboard in a couple weeks. I don't imagine the price or room availability being that different to negatively affect our plans.

My payment question was in reference to the fact that I'm not the one paying for all the staterooms. Each stateroom is a separate family with their own payment option unrelated to me. But, I realize that when booking onboard, I'm guessing I can't bring their credit card information with me for the deposit for each stateroom.

Thanks again for your help. I truly appreciate it!

Ah, OK. Yes, you'll probably want to prepare for having to put down the deposits for all the rooms on your credit card. They told us that they couldn't use a credit card from a person who wasn't physically present. OTOH, I think other folks have been able to use someone else's credit card, so it may depend on the specific cruise agent.

When you get home, you can either get the other family/friends to pay you back, or they can call DCL and ask to put the deposit on their credit card and have the existing deposit credited back to your card. DCL does this all the time; we just did it on a recent booking because we were booking a room for some friends.