Charged Before Sailing

[Tejas]

To clarify, this is my first cruise. After my check-in process, I was encouraged to make my dinner reservations in order to secure a dining spot at a specialty restaurant. I made the reservations and it showed me the prices. I assumed that was the price I was going to be charged at the time of actually dining. However, those charges showed up on my CC statement. What if we missed the reservation? What if my friend wanted to pay his way or for me? Just normal stuff that seems to be out of the question now that I was charged. My question: is this a typical procedure? 

[OCSC Mike]

29 minutes ago, Tejas said:

To clarify, this is my first cruise. After my check-in process, I was encouraged to make my dinner reservations in order to secure a dining spot at a specialty restaurant. I made the reservations and it showed me the prices. I assumed that was the price I was going to be charged at the time of actually dining. However, those charges showed up on my CC statement. What if we missed the reservation? What if my friend wanted to pay his way or for me? Just normal stuff that seems to be out of the question now that I was charged. My question: is this a typical procedure? 

Yes, this is normal. You get a discount by booking ahead rather than onboard. You can always cancel and receive a refund but there is a cutoff of something like 48 hours prior to your reserved meal.

[Ryan79]

Paying and being charged at time of booking is 100% perfectly normal. It’s the same as buying a excursion where they do not wait until the day of to charge your card. You have 24 hours before the meal to cancel, otherwise you lose the $$. Ships have limited capacity for speciality dining. If everyone was able to make placeholder free reservations and then no show on a whim, that would prevent more serious purchases from being able to dine there. When you got skin in the game, the show up rate significantly increases.