How much money do you think that we (four of us) should carry while we travel by cruise for a week? or is it enough if we just have credit card? Which currency would be more appropriate, $ or € or other currencies?
To shop during shore excursions, which currency we should be using?
thanks.
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May 14th, 2010 at 9:01 am
You didn’t give us much to go on to help determine what and how much currency. But I have been on a cruise to the Baltic and 3 cruises in the Med stopping in Spain, France, Gibralter, Morocco, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Malta, and the Canary Islands. If you are doing the Baltic, Eastonia, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finalnd, they all use the Euro and will also accept dollars at vendor stands for small purchases. Almost all of those countries use the Euro and in those that do not you can use US dollars if/when you shop at a market, or a credit card for big ticket items.
Everything on ship is cashless; it goes on your onboard tab that you’ll pay by credit card at the end of the trip. My rule of thumb is about $50 Euros per port stop or about $50 US dollars. That’s generally enough to cover small souvenir purchases like caps, magnets, and "T" shirts. You generally don’;t have to worry about buying food as you’ll eat on the ship and if you book a ship’s tour that is all day it will usually include lunch. If you plan to do your own touring, by public bus or taxi, then you’ll need to take a lot more cash, maybe twice as much. Taxi drivers and public buses don’t take US dollars, local currency only.
I have found its best to buy local currency, Euros, before you leave home. Or you can buy them in the airports overseas and also on ship at the purser’s desk. But ships generally have limited supplies. Also you need to be aware that many credit card companies now charge a foreign exchange fee for credit card purchases in other countries. SO if you use your card overseas you’ll likely get hit with a bunch of extra fees. I know I did last time.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:01 am
Sounds like you’re going on one of those cruises that travel between Venice to Greece/Turkey with stops along the way in Croatia and/or the Eastern Italian shores that face the Adriatic. For shore excursions, almost all vendors accepted Euros and we even were able to haggle prices down in dollars. I’d avoid credit cards but you should notify your credit card company of your planned trip so that they don’t freeze transactions that look suspicious just because they were made in a foreign country.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:01 am
If you’re in need of Euro’s, you can get more favorable exchange rate at a local bank versus the Cruise ship or even those monetary exchange kiosks in airports. My experience has been to use my credit card for only ship based transactions (on-board charges from the ships souvenir shops, wine/liquor purchases on board, etc). Bringing Cash is always risky but I’ve found almost all of the vendors on shore in Europe accepted either US dollars or Euros. It was fun just barganing down prices in Euro’s or US dollars.