Budapest - Black Sea: Currency question

[dixieagle]

We are taking the March 20 Eastern European Odyssey cruise on Viking Europe, and are at a loss as to how to address currency issues. We'll have some Hungarian currency, as we are in Budapest a few days before the cruise. Should we just rely on ATM's? Other than Austria, few, if any, of the countries we'll visit (Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Serbia/Montenegro) use euros, which would make it so much easier! I'm not a huge shopper, but we will pick up a few things, I'm sure. I know there are limited (and expensive, I hear) onboard currency changing opportunities. Thanks for any input.

[MichaelB]

Hi there ,

 

I am a Hotel Manager on one of the European ships and i can definately recommend atm's it is the cheapeast way of getting money in Budapest for sure there are Plenty of atms forget about traveler cheques and such.

 

Greetings and good sailing ,

 

Michael.

[wander]

This past fall we traveled in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Croatia. ATM's were prevelent in all of these countries in cities of all sizes and most towns and villages. The exchange rates were generally better than that offered by banks, currency exchanges, etc. All those we used had a screen option for English instructions. Our guides did recommend that we only use machines that were with a bank - inside or outside the bank itself. It worked well every time we tried.