Red October Questions

[Marytutor]

We are using RO on May 22 Sailing of the Constellation. We have altered the schedule somewhat so that we are visiting the Red October Store on the first morning. I think that I read somewhere in the last five months that their prices might be high compared to other places. Does anyone have any comments on this? Also, if a credit card is used for purchases and/or the tours, what is the extra % that is charged?

Thanks, Mary

[Bev]

Hi

When we toured with RO, it was cheaper to pay cash. There were various surcharges totalling 8 - 9% depending on which credit card you used. RO does not accept traveler's cheques.

Bev

[joan24]

We're on the Regatta on June 15. Compared to the ship's tours, RO is very reasonable. The museums in St.Petersburg raised their prices quite a bit, thus the increase in RO's prices. We booked them in Sept. and they held to the original price. I had heard that they only charge an extra 3% for credit cards. Check with them about this though. I don't know which monetary unit they use when you charge with a credit card. If it's euro's, you're much better off paying with cash.
Joan [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[juliejoe]

I believe RO has reduced the surcharge to 3% if you use Visa or Mastercard. You might want to confirm this with them.

We will probably take cash for the tips but pay the approx. $300 a day per person with our Mastercard. We'll avoid having to carry so much cash - and get miles, for approx. $18.

Deuteronomy 4:29
<')))><
Grand Princess 8/17/04 Baltic B2B with 8/27/04 Transatlantic & 11/27/04 Western Caribbean

[FLJudi]

We were on Connie last year in the Baltic and were able to solve the problem of carrying so much money and not paying the credit card surcharge with RO by getting our US dollars from the casino - putting the charge on our room account. No fee for the money transaction and since we used an affinity account, we got frequent flyer credit too. Just plan to pay off your credit card in full when the bill comes arrives.

We found that the RO store had excellent quality goods and still for reasonable prices. For example, our nesting boxes were artist signed and well finished, while some others bought on the streets were like cheap "knock offs."

Constellation British Isles/Norwegian Fjords
[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=00ff00&cdt=2004;07;17;17;00;00&timezone=GMT+0000[/img]