Currency on board thomson celebration

[baz383]

Hi.

I am going on a cruise and stay on thomson celebration in the caribean leaving from barbados on Sunday. I have got £1000 worth of US dollars. Can I use these on board to purchase drinks etc or will I have to change these back to uk pounds to use on board. And do they have currency exchange on the ship ? And if they do are the rates favourable.

Many thanks

[Keith1010]

For all your Thomson questions I would ask them on the Thomson Cruise Line Board.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=497

 

With that said all of your on board purchases will be charged to your ship board account.

 

Keith

[John Bull]

Ship's currency is sterling.

 

Yes, there's currency exchange on-board but, as on all cruise ships, exchange rates are dire. :(

So if you want to use some of that cash to pay your on-board account, change it back to sterling at the best rate you can find amongst the usual suspects - M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury, Post Office, etc. - before you go.

 

But bear in mind that you don't pay on the ship each time you purchase - like on all ships you sign for all your drinks & other purchases & they're charged to your on-board account.

Most cruisers register a credit or debit card when they join the ship, & that card then settles the account at the end of the cruise.

But instead of registering a card, you can set up your on-board account by depositing cash. If you spend more than you've deposited you'll be asked to top up the on-board account. At the end of the cruise you go along to the purser's office ("Guest Services") to "check out" and sort out who owes who and how much. Those who've registered a card don't have to do that - they check that they've been correctly charged (check the on-board statement against copies of what they've signed for) and assuming it's all correct (mistakes are rare) they don't have to "check-out" cos their card will automatically be charged. To repeat, don't use US dollars to set up your on-board account, because you'll get an awful exchange rate.

 

US dollars are the accepted currency in Barbados and in all your ports (if Cuba is on your itinerary you can change either sterling or US dollars into Cuban convertible pesos at the cruise terminal).

 

So use your US dollars for shore spending, and for spending on the ship either change US dollars before you go & deposit sterling, or use a debit card (Thomson are unusual in that they charge about 2% to use a credit card) and hang on to those US dollars for some future occasion.

 

JB :)

Edited February 11, 2016 by John Bull