Hi there!
The only way to do this type of “future cruise deposit” is during your Princess cruise.
If you absolutely know that you will be booking another Princess cruise within a year, then there is really no reason not to get it.
By paying upfront $100 in the form of a future cruise deposit, you will get some sort of onboard credit for your next cruise.
What is the benefit of buying a future cruise deposit?
The benefit of buying a future cruise deposit is the extra spending money you get on the next cruise you book.
If you know that you will be spending money on the cruise ship, well then this is basically free money.
👆 How Princess describes the future cruise deposit in the Princess app: With a $100 fully-refundable deposit of $100 per person, you have one year to book your next cruise to receive up to $150 free onboard spending money. This says to book your cruise with your “travel advisor or cruise vacation planner,” but I booked my cruise through princess.com using the future cruise deposit and successfully received the onboard spending credit.
If you know with certainty that you will be booking more than one cruise within a year, then you can buy more than one future cruise deposit.
👆 When you go to buy your future cruise deposit, you have the option to buy more than 1 future cruise deposit.
How much onboard credit do you get with the future cruise deposit?
When you book a cruise using your future cruise deposit, you will get onboard credit for that cruise.
The amount of onboard credit you will get will depend on the length of the cruise and the type of cabin you get.
For example, if you book a 14-day cruise in a balcony cabin, you will get $100 of onboard credit.
👆 This is from the Princess app during a cruise in May 2023. If you buy future cruise deposit and book a cruise within a year that is 11 to 16 days long, you will receive $100 of onboard spending credit if you book a balcony room and $75 if you book an inside cabin.
If your future cruise is 17 to 44 days long, the onboard credit you will receive is $150 or $125.
If your future cruise is 11 to 16 days long, the onboard credit you will receive is $100 or $75.
If your future cruise is 7 to 10 days long, the onboard credit you will receive is $50 or $25.
If your future cruise is 3 to 6 days long, the onboard credit you will receive it $25 or $15.
You will receive the higher amount if you book a balcony, mini-suite, or suite.
You will receive the lower amount if you book an inside cabin or oceanview cabin.
You are basically paying a “deposit” on a future cruise that has yet to be decided.
It’s a “future cruise deposit” because you are paying $100 now, for a cruise you will take later.
You will pay $100 while on your cruise, and the next cruise you book will be $100 less.
You are basically buying a $100 future cruise credit.
You don’t need to decide on a destination, and you don’t need to decide how many days you want your next cruise to be.
You DO need to know that you want to book your cruise within a year of buying your future cruise deposit, though!
But, you do not need to actually book any cruise while on the cruise ship in order to get the future cruise deposit.
They do say the $100 is refundable, although I’m not sure what the process is like for getting it back.
Princess does say if you don’t use the deposit that they will give it back to you if you don’t book a cruise within a year:
If you don’t book during that time, we’ll automatically refund the future cruise deposit to the credit card used to purchase the deposit.
More below about how the future cruise deposit worked for me!
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So…
How does the future cruise deposit work in reality?
You pay $100 for future cruise deposit while on a Princess cruise.
Then you later book a Princess cruise within a year, at which time it costs $100 less since you will use the future cruise deposit.
Then, you will soon see $75 (in my case) of onboard spending credit added to your account.
You can use this $75 to pay for shore excursions before you even board the cruise ship.
So by paying $100 in advance that I was going to pay anyway, I received an extra $75.
Here is more about my experience with the future cruise deposit.
So I went on a Princess cruise in May 2023.
I was nearly certain I was going to be booking another Princess cruise, so I got the “future cruise deposit.”
It’s very easy to buy, and you can do it on your own through the Princess app once you are on the ship.
There is a “future cruise consultant” onboard all Princess cruise ships, but if the future cruise deposit is all you want, then there’s no reason to go see them.
Well, I actually did go see them because I just wanted to confirm how it works. 😂
But now I can tell you there is no reason to go see them about the future cruise deposit.
It was like a one-minute conversation.
👆 You can go see a future cruise consultant when you are onboard a Princess cruise ship. This is the future cruise consultant location on the Majestic Princess.
The future cruise consultant has their own desk space, and you can go see them any time during the cruise during their “office hours.” This will be listed on the back side of the daily schedule of activities that you will receive every day in your stateroom aka the Princess Patter. During one of their onboard talks they also said that the last sea day tends to be the busiest for them. So if you want to talk to them, it’s best to see them earlier in the cruise when not everyone else is thinking about their next cruise! Although my one-minute conversation for which I just showed up and immediately was able to talk to someone did happen on the last sea day, so it all depends on your timing and what everyone else happens to be doing!
How to buy the future cruise deposit on the cruise ship
In short, here is how to buy future cruise deposit:
- Once you are on the cruise ship, open up the Princess app
- Look for “Journeyview – plan your vacation” on the main screen (not the little icon at the bottom of the screen)
- Look for “Future Cruise Planning”!
- Buy future cruise deposit!
The Princess app has many purposes (selecting embarkation day arrival time, dining room reservations, schedule of onboard entertainment, etc!), and one of those purposes is to buy future cruise deposit.
You will buy the future cruise deposit through the Princess app.
You don’t need to have purchased wifi in order to buy the future cruise deposit through the app.
When using the Princess app, the wifi is free.
I did not buy wifi during this cruise, and I was able to buy the future cruise deposit on a sea day.
This is how it looked in the app for me when I bought future cruise deposit in May 2023! The Princess app, and how you buy future cruise deposit, can change!
👆 To buy future cruise deposit, you will open up the app and scroll to look for “Future Cruise Planning” once you are on the ship.
👆 Next screen: You can see the current offer and how much onboard spending credit you will get if you book using the future cruise deposit.
👆 Next screen: Choose how many future cruise deposits you want to buy. You will pay with the credit card that is on file. This is not something you charge to your onboard account.
👆 And, you have bought a future cruise deposit!
The email confirmation was not immediate, but it did come.
Then, when you log into your account at princess.com and go to “my account,” you will see that you have $100 in “cruise credits” and $15 in “onboard credits.”
It might take a few days for this to show up. I did not check it immediately after to see how long it takes.
But don’t worry, the $15 in onboard credit that you see is not the final amount you will actually get in onboard credit!
Unless you book a 3 to 6 day cruise in an inside cabin or oceanview cabin, that is!
The $15 of onboard credit is basically just a placeholder.
When you book your cruise, you will get the onboard credit that matches the length of cruise and type of cabin you booked.
How to use the future cruise deposit to book your next cruise (and get onboard credit!)
This is how to use the future cruise deposit if you book your cruise on your own through princess.com.
When you are ready to book your next cruise, you will log into your account at princess.com.
In the payment section, there will be a section that will allow you to apply the $100 future cruise deposit to the current cruise you are booking.
This also means that you can save the future cruise deposit for another cruise.
I booked a 14-day cruise in an oceanview cabin, so the onboard credit I received from the future cruise deposit was $75.
There was also apparently another promo going on which gave me an extra $25 as well.
So at the end of the booking process, it showed that I would be receiving $100 in onboard credit from booking this cruise.
👆 You can also see the onboard credits you received form your future cruise deposit by going into the “payments” section of your account at princess.com, after you book your cruise.
After you have booked the cruise using the future cruise deposit, when you look at the “dashboard” of your account at princess.com, it will now show that you have $0 of cruise credits and $0 of onboard credits.
👆 After booking the cruise with the future cruise deposit, my account dashboard showed $0 future cruise credits and $0 onboard credits.
But once again, don’t worry about the $0 in onboard credits!
I went through the process of making a booking for a Princess excursion, and I was given the option to apply the $100 of onboard credit that I just received.
👆 A $150 excursion becomes a $50 excursion! The White Pass train is one of the best excursions in Skagway cruise port! I received $75 in onboard spending credit from making a “future cruise deposit” which I could apply to shore excursions for the cruise. The other $25 was from an “onboard credit promotion” that was happening at the time I booked the cruise.
I did have another cruise already booked, and I did try it out to see if I could apply the $100 onboard credit to a cruise different from the one I used the future cruise deposit on.
It did not give me the option to apply the $100 onboard credit.
So the credit you receive from the future cruise deposit can only be used on the cruise that you used the future cruise deposit on.
How to see how much onboard spending credit you received from your future cruise deposit
In short, how to see how much onboard spending credit you have:
- log into princess.com
- go to “my account”
- go to “manage this booking” for the cruise you booked using your future cruise deposit
- go to “payments”
- scroll to the bottom to see “credits”!
- you will see how much onboard spending credit you have for your future cruise!
If you want to confirm that you did receive the onboard spending credit after booking your cruise with the future cruise deposit, you can see this is by going to the “payments” section of your account.
👆 Once you log into princess.com > my account > manage this booking > payments > scroll to bottom to see “credits”
HAPPY FUTURE CRUISE PLANNING!
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