Small US Bills

[john2003]

Will the front desk exchange a larger bill for small bills. It has been a while since we were on O and I can't remember. Otherwise I need to go to a bank before we leave.

[GeorgesGal]

Yes, John2003, the front desk will exchange larger bills for smaller.

[LHT28]

I have also changed bills at the casino

[sitraveler]

All US currency bills are the same size.

[sitraveler]

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

[john2003]

Same colour too!!!

[Tansy Mews]

We did have a problem in one country with older US dollar bills. The merchants were reluctant to take them. I believe it is due to the lack of security features in the older (but still legal) currency.

[LHT28]

Same colour too!!!

 

A pain to have to put on my glasses to see the denomination :D

[no fuss travel]

If you are doing an Asian cruise, you need crisp, not torn, not folded US bills to pay for your goods on land. In Europe, no problem with older bills.

[potterhill]

I always preorder a pack of 1's, $100, to have available. Now giving multiples. New crisp bills. I guess soon will be a bundle of 5's. [emoji848]

 

I should say, we use them for room service, sometimes guides etc. Just nice to have small bills at the ready. On our last cruise, Lisbon to Cape Town, they ran out of change.

 

Mo

 

 

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Edited August 13, 2016 by potterhill

[Glenndale]

I suppose it depends on how many you think you will need, if everyone on the ship decided to try and change $100 for $1 bills I doubt they could meet the demand.

Why not just visit the bank before you go? :confused:

[john2003]

Because I have sufficient US currency but as I got it from a bank ATM it is in $20 denominations. I would like a few $1 bills

[john2003]

Just to clarify I can't just hand a US $20 to a Canadian bank and get 20 $1 bills back.

[LHT28]

Just to clarify I can't just hand a US $20 to a Canadian bank and get 20 $1 bills back.

 

Why not?

I go to my local bank & ask for USD in the denominations I want

I get $1 bills if they have them on hand

I do not ask for $100 worth but can get $20-30 in $1

[john2003]

I have only tried once to break foreign currency into smaller bills at a bank. They would gladly do it by buying my larger bill and converting to Canadian at a fee then sell me the smaller bills also at a fee. I have never tried again.

I agree it is no problem to buy $1 bills with C$ but I am trying to avoid that.

I have only once had a problem breaking bills down on HAL and that was because they ran out of small bills. I was just trying to find out if I can on O and I think the answer is yes as long as they havent run out.

[LHT28]

I have only tried once to break foreign currency into smaller bills at a bank. They would gladly do it by buying my larger bill and converting to Canadian at a fee then sell me the smaller bills also at a fee. I have never tried again.

You live near the US border... surely a local bank would have some USD on hand ??? :eek:

I understand about other foreign currency but most banks carry USD so exchanging a $20 USD for 20 $1 USD should not be a big issue

 

We do not live close to the US border & the local TD bank has US cash I often change some larger bills to smaller ones

[no fuss travel]

If you give your bank at least a weeks notice they can arrange to have the US money for you in the denominations that you require. I found on the ship that they were willing to give me 10 US $1 bills at a time.

[john2003]

Our banks have lots of US dollars but i got it in the evening from the ATM so I just got $20 bills.

[travelglobetrotter]

It works both ways, too. We're just off 40 days on Nautica, and I guess this time we did a poor job of figuring what we needed in small bills, and those singles are really thick when stacked up. We checked with Reception first, then turned in our ones, fives and tens for several hundreds, reducing the bulk of taking home our excess dollars. They were happy to get the smaller bills, and we were happy to take home fewer bills.