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How does a SeaPass work?


Kellicrbc

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Matt is right that the credit card will be charged for the full amount on the last day (unless you request otherwise and pay some or all of your account balance with cash or a different card during the cruise), however they will do periodic (daily?) authorizations for the amounts charged during the cruise. They are authorizations only and will generally fall off automatically after the final charge is done.

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Very interesting. I had no idea how they worked the authorization thing. I guess it makes sense that they can't wait until the very end to find out if you can afford everything that you've charged ! I periodically hear peoples' names being called over the loud speaker to check with Guest Services. I have always imagined that these were people who were having "authorization problems" but I'm sure there are other reasons why these names are called. I'm just glad it's never been me !

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Very interesting. I had no idea how they worked the authorization thing. I guess it makes sense that they can't wait until the very end to find out if you can afford everything that you've charged ! I periodically hear peoples' names being called over the loud speaker to check with Guest Services. I have always imagined that these were people who were having "authorization problems" but I'm sure there are other reasons why these names are called. I'm just glad it's never been me !

My dad's name was called last cruise. His bank put a stop on the credit card because the bank was worried of fraud after seeing irregular spending for him. It hasn't happened to me but maybe next time I'll let my credit card know I'm going on vacation, it wasn't stolen by a Jamaican :).

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I had problems springbreak last year ... kept getting called down to Guest Services (voicemails left on the cabin phone the last few days of the cruise) and every time I went down I would stand in line for 20 minutes then explain to the person behind the desk that I had no idea why I was there, they had called me and told me to come to Guest Services. They would spend 20 minutes looking at the account and tell me everything was fine and send me on my way.

 

Finally disembarkation day the phone rang at 3am, I took it off the hook. Then the voicemail light lit up again .... Ended up going at Guest Services bright and early in a fairly foul mood to be told once again that there was nothing wrong.

 

Had breakfast, packed everything up, went to walk off the ship and security would not let me off because there was a problem and I had to go to Guest Services .... I lost it pretty good with the security guy and debated strongly whether to just blow by him or not, ultimately decided it wasn't worth it and headed off to Guest Services for the 5th or 6th time .... the person I had spoken with a couple of hours earlier was still there and recognized me so she called me out of line to ask what was going on.

 

I ran her through the story, 30 minutes later they finally were able to figure out that my credit card was declining the charge for some reason ... the best part was that it was my Royal Caribbean Visa card declining the charges because they were concerned that the cruise activity might be fraudulent.

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Who would suspect that someone would use a Royal Caribbean credit card on a Royal Caribbean ship? :)

 

On two other lines, I had a similar problem. On one, the agent failed to swipe my card at check in even though I inquired about it. Ended up having charging privileges blocked on the second day and had to stand in line at guest services just so that they could do what should have been done at check in. Another time, we had a lot of onboard credit. Ended with a credit of just under $3. Decided it wasn't worth standing in line for, but got stopped as a result when trying to leave the ship. Luckily, they had a purser at the gangway and they simply handed me the cash owed right there, which I thought was pretty cool.

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Honestly I have never heard of them refunding ANY remaining OBC. We were on one of our very first cruises years ago and made it a SPECIAL point of charging NOTHING - not one single charge the entire cruise. We were so proud of ourselves. Then when we were leaving we went by Guest Services to make SURE nothing had been charged only to find out that we had $50 OBC that we lost b/c we had not charged anything to our SeaPass account. Needless to say that was the last time we worried about charging to our account. We NEVER have any problem not using all of our OBC...not since that first time when we lost it all !

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First time commenting here so if I'm out of line in anyway please let me know. One of the first things I learned about the sea pass card was out first cruise years ago in Cozumel.  We took a small magnet with us to check silver to make sure it was real. Getting back on the ship was delayed because the card was demagnetized.  There are many good uses for magnets on cruise ships but keep them away from your sea pass card!

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First time commenting here so if I'm out of line in anyway please let me know. One of the first things I learned about the sea pass card was out first cruise years ago in Cozumel.  We took a small magnet with us to check silver to make sure it was real. Getting back on the ship was delayed because the card was demagnetized.  There are many good uses for magnets on cruise ships but keep them away from your sea pass card!

Always a good tip.  Keep the SeaPass away from phones/tablets or computers which have magnets as well.

 

Welcome to the boards!

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Honestly I have never heard of them refunding ANY remaining OBC. We were on one of our very first cruises years ago and made it a SPECIAL point of charging NOTHING - not one single charge the entire cruise. We were so proud of ourselves. Then when we were leaving we went by Guest Services to make SURE nothing had been charged only to find out that we had $50 OBC that we lost b/c we had not charged anything to our SeaPass account. Needless to say that was the last time we worried about charging to our account. We NEVER have any problem not using all of our OBC...not since that first time when we lost it all !

This was 2009 on another line before they all moved to non refundable OBC.
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