Currency to take on Panama Canal

[arizonaperson]

What foreign currency if any should we take on our partial Panama Canal cruise. Our stops are Jamaica, Costa Rica, Grand Cayman, of course going through the canal with Tours,  & Columbia. Round trip from Fort Lauderdale.

 just want to see what other people have used and done. We do not plan on making any major purchases and if we did would probably use a credit card. Just wanna know is US cash acceptable or?? 

Julie

[Essiesmom]

$US will be fine everywhere you go.  EM

[arizonaperson]

Reporting back- our partial transit we took small US dollars and were absolutely fine in every port. 

 

[Turtles06]

On 11/4/2019 at 11:08 PM, arizonaperson said:

Reporting back- our partial transit we took small US dollars and were absolutely fine in every port. 

 

 

It was nice of you to report back. Hope you had a great cruise!

[CookieShip]

I concur that USD was fine in all the ports that we visited. I had brought a credit card with no forex fee and most places automatically just charged in USD. 

[Turtles06]

7 hours ago, CookieShip said:

I concur that USD was fine in all the ports that we visited. I had brought a credit card with no forex fee and most places automatically just charged in USD. 

 

When you use a credit card abroad, especially one with no foreign transaction fee, it's best to have the charge made in the local currency, not USD (or whatever your own currency is), because you'll be getting a better exchange rate from your bank when you pay your credit card bill than you get from the merchant who "conveniently" converts the local price into USD.   This is something to watch out for when using a credit card abroad.

[CookieShip]

10 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

 

When you use a credit card abroad, especially one with no foreign transaction fee, it's best to have the charge made in the local currency, not USD (or whatever your own currency is), because you'll be getting a better exchange rate from your bank when you pay your credit card bill than you get from the merchant who "conveniently" converts the local price into USD.   This is something to watch out for when using a credit card abroad.

I would generally agree, most of my purchases were small that I didn't really worry about it. I did check some and they were are spot prices :).