Are credit/debit cards accepted at bars?

[Raynedown]

We will be paying for our young adult children’s staterooms during trip but I would rather not have alcoholic beverages charged to the family stateroom bill. Are credit/debit cards allowed to be used at point of sale or do they have to be charged to room? If they are not allowed can they purchase a gift card onboard to use? Any other options?

Thanks!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We will be paying for our young adult children’s staterooms during trip but I would rather not have alcoholic beverages charged to the family stateroom bill. Are credit/debit cards allowed to be used at point of sale or do they have to be charged to room? If they are not allowed can they purchase a gift card onboard to use? Any other options?

Thanks!

All transactions are charged to your onboard account.

 

[Raynedown]

All transactions are charged to your onboard account

All transactions are charged to your onboard account.

So they do not accept any pos payment whether credit, debit or gift card? Can an individual set up their own onboard account?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

So they do not accept any pos payment whether credit, debit or gift card? Can an individual set up their own onboard account?

When you do your online check in, you select how you want to pay the account on each reservation (room). You could select one credit card for your room, and cash (or a different credit card) for the other.

 

[Flcruising]

Princess Shmoo is correct. Put your credit card on your room. Do not mark that they have charging privileges on your card. Then since they are adults tell them they need to figure out how they are going to buy their alcohol. Suggest they research on line or call the cruise line and work it out with guest services. Personally I wouldn't spend my time figuring out how another adult should pay for their alcohol, adult kids or anyone.

 

[Flying Fish]

Personally I wouldn't spend my time figuring out how another adult should pay for their alcohol, adult kids or anyone.

Yes, this! Unfortunately, you are in the extreme minority in this regard. If I know the answer, I will gladly help. I will even suggest where they might get an answer, but there is no way I am going to spend too much of my time or energy worrying about this. I know too many people who still do too much for their kids and then don't understand why they are still incapable of so much in their 30s. If they want to drink, they'll figure it out pretty fast.

 

[Raynedown]

Removed

 

[Flossbolna]

It’s quite easy: for every passenger during check in there will be a place where you choose the choice of payment for onboard charges. So there is no rule that the person paying for the cruise fare assumes all onboard charges by everyone on the reservation.

Online check-in requires also pictures of the person as well as of their travel documents. There is a great thread about online check in and how it works on the top of the first page.

It sounds like the adult kids are in a separate room anyway which you paid for? You can easily tell them to take care of their own check in. If it’s important to you that you all get the same port arrival time and you aren’t sure how on top they would be (port arrival times are distributed by first come first served within you loyalty status with DCL), you can do it for everyone.

There are three options on how to pay for onboard charges: you put down a credit card, you choose cash payment or someone else in the room takes care of your charges. So, the only thing you need to do is not choose the charges paid by someone else option. If you are in separate rooms, I think this would not be an option anyway.

For online check in it’s actually easiest to choose cash as this makes the check in process quicker. You can go back and edit it later. Or they can edit their own payment. They all should get the DCL app before they cruise anyway. It can easily be gone in there.

Hope this helps!

 

[ArielRae]

When my mother and I shared a stateroom we were able to have our charges put on our own individual credit cards. When we boarded we went to guest serves and had them put her credit card linked to her room card so all her purchases went only to her card. My purchases only went on my card. They should have no problem linking his credit card to his card so you won’t pay. At online check in I did say I would cover her charges and then just did the change on the ship at guest services.

 

[Dug720]

They can put a gift card on their account to cover their purchases. I've done that plenty of times.

Keep in mind though, that gratuities (if not pre-paid) and any excursions will also be taken out of their account, so if you are covering those, you'd need to provide them with gift cards in the amount to cover them. Unfortunately there's no way to say "this credit card is only for gratuities and excursions". It's all or nothing if a card is put on the stateroom.

 

[lanejudy]

All charges go to the stateroom account. Each individual can set up their own payment method (credit card, debit card, gift card or cash). As PP mentioned, the standard gratuities (dining team and stateroom host), port excursions and adult dining will go to the individual — so you could “pre purchase” an amount to cover those items for which you plan to pay, or you can stop at Guest Services onboard to pay it. The young adults can set up their own payment method without involving you.

As a note, any account set as “cash” will have charging capability shut off at a certain point ($500?) until they go to Guest Services to pay it down.

 

[tinkerone]

We just went through this. We took our adult children and their families, we had 3 cabins in total. I had originally set all cabins up connected to my CC. We were paying for excursions so it seemed easiest. I just told each of them that anything else, they would be responsible for, make sure they stopped at the desk and made a payment every few days if needed. They took control and did just that, I didn't worry past that point. I was able to stop at the customer service desk and get copies of room charges when I wanted to check up, since my CC was linked to the cabins they never questioned it.
As mentioned above, you could also set the accounts to cash and just apply funds from your CC to cover things you wish to pay for like excursions. It's all about what's easiest for you.
Just enjoy your cruise. When they are adults, having the family with you is the best! It doesn't happen all that often, they all have 'better' things to do.

 

[OpieDoodle]

Wow. Y'all are opinionated. Is this a forum to ask questions or get opinions?!? Am I on Nextdoor?!? Thanks. I think I got it.. call the number…. If anyone has actual factual “what is the process and policy” related advice happy to hear it.

Its a great place to get both depending on the question. Those opinions were a little unhelpful where others, again question dependent can really give some food for thought.

As someone who had planned a big family trip, (cancelled due to COVID), my parents were going to pay for the rooms and things in Castaway Cay we were going to do as a family. There were 4 rooms booked for our party, one for my parents, one for my family, one for my older brother's family, and the last for my younger brother and his girlfriend. It was never left to oh they'll figure it out. It was planned and a discussion was had about how to do it and what to expect. No need to purposely cause stress at the beginning of an amazing trip right?!

My parents told us we needed to add our own payment method to our rooms as well as pay for any additional excursions and activities we wanted to do, it could be each adult in the room has their own payment method OR one card for the whole room. My parents telling us how to do it (well my brothers, this was going to be my second disney cruise so I knew what to expect) really helped in our situation. Well it would have if COVID wouldn't have canceled the trip....

 

[Kel101]

We have the same situation. I paid for our adult daughters cruise, but I told her she had to pay for everything else. As others have said set a different form of payment for the adult kids at online check in. BTW- there are more positive answers on this board than negative. Enjoy your cruise!

 

[Raynedown]

Yes there are and I appreciated all of them!
I removed my negative post as well. Thanks for your responses.

 

[Erica1016]

Yes there are and I appreciated all of them!
I removed my negative post as well. Thanks for your responses.

I'm glad you got some helpful answers. I saw this early this morning, and knew the answers were somewhere on the forum, but didn't have time to find it for you. I can see why you were a bit frustrated to start, based on what the responses were. I'm glad it got better! And have a great trip!