Using a Pre-Paid Visa?

[francina]

I really donot think they will deny you. I do not think they could force you to buy anything on the ship. I remember I board Carnival without putting any money down.

[garycarla]

Dear Tilly:

 

You mention that you have a credit card, but do not want to use it. Understood.

 

BUT - you can put down the credit card upon boarding. That opens your account. Then may run it, but will NOT charge your card anything until they settle your final bill. Then, as you get near the end of the cruise, you go to the front desk and PAY OFF your balance in cash. Also, if you pay down the balance and then charge another $10 for drinks on the last night, you can just leave that on the credit card if you want without going back to the front desk. Problem solved - I think.

 

As to how much cash - there are stories about folks putting only a few hundred and sometimes thousand +. You will not get a straight story. The credit card solution above solves that problem anyways.

[LaceyLooLooWho1978]

You can use you onboard credit! I just do not think you can use it to pay your gratuities but you should be able to use it to purchase things on the boat like drinks and stuff :)

 

 

:)

 

Thank you thank you thank you, I wasn't sure, and I've read multiple places it's this way vs. that way vs the other way and I just got so turned around. It sounded like as long as I gave them at least $100 for each of us ($200 total) that it'd be fine as long as we didn't spend below that. Now I'm not sure how the onboard credit stuff works that we got for booking when we did...$270 does that mean I can't use that either?

[fergusonvt]

Buying property - assume you mean a house.

 

Anyway, lack of credit will hurt your more than having credit. We have many, many credit cards and are in the top 5% on credit score. Have zero credit is scary to the banks.

 

I hear often about people that REDUCE their line of credit, and their score goes down.

 

 

Yes, and closing out credit cards whether they be bank or store can ding your credit also as well as signing up for every one that is offered to get 10% off here and 5% off there.

[DevCruise]

Dear Tilly:

 

You mention that you have a credit card, but do not want to use it. Understood.

 

BUT - you can put down the credit card upon boarding. That opens your account. Then may run it, but will NOT charge your card anything until they settle your final bill. Then, as you get near the end of the cruise, you go to the front desk and PAY OFF your balance in cash. Also, if you pay down the balance and then charge another $10 for drinks on the last night, you can just leave that on the credit card if you want without going back to the front desk. Problem solved - I think.

 

The problem is the OP admitted they have no self control when it comes to controlling their spending. So attaching their onboard account to a CC with the intent to pay it in cash only works if the OP were capable of controlling their spending and not spending more than the amount of cash that they had on hand.

[Tilly84]

After careful consideration, I've chosen to take the risk of putting it on one of my zero-balance credit cards, which has a max that I can handle. It'll all be good and no I'm not closing cards etc. so that's a moot point, but thanks again!