Currency Exchange

[Shelley G]

Good Morning!

Although I usually buy my foreign currency ahead of time, I was wondering if you can buy (exchange) foreign currency on board ship. We will be travelling to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. We would only want a small amount of each. Thanks for your responses. 

Shelley

[cruisestitch]

The ship does not exchange all currencies -- so the answer is "maybe" -- and because you are from Canada it would probably mean that you would first have to exchange 
Canadian currency to U.S. dollars, and then U.S. dollars to local currency.  You would be better off taking care of it from home rather than waiting until you get on the ship.

[Shelley G]

Thank you. We would have US dollars with us because that’s what I use in the casino. I’ll just order them from the bank before we go. 

[Jim_Iain]

My experience has been that they might have a major currency on board, e.g. Euros on an European cruise but rarely have currencies for local countries like the ones you have listed.   If you can't exchange currency before your cruise you might consider using a ATM from a bank that refund foreign ATM's transaction fees.    We use First Republic and they have advised me that I would get a better exchange rate at an ATM with their rebate of transaction fees than they could get if I ordered the currency state side.

[NantahalaCruiser]

12 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

My experience has been that they might have a major currency on board, e.g. Euros on an European cruise but rarely have currencies for local countries like the ones you have listed.   If you can't exchange currency before your cruise you might consider using a ATM from a bank that refund foreign ATM's transaction fees.    We use First Republic and they have advised me that I would get a better exchange rate at an ATM with their rebate of transaction fees than they could get if I ordered the currency state side.

On our Asian cruise 3 years ago, the Millennium had Japanese and Singapore currency exchange don't remember about the others except definitely not Vietnamese currency - also not available through my bank - but no matter since USD accepted in the major cities.

[Miaminice]

Yes, you can exchange small amounts. Would I recommend doing it on board? NO!
The exchange rate is terrible.

 

We have a credit card without any fee for foreign currencies. On top of that our card refunds any ATM fee. So we simply get currency as we go along. Especially on cruises visiting different countries as the one you mentioned. Did that one on Constellation.

 

[SteveGT3]

We almost always use ATMs in whichever countries we visit to get local currency. The rates are decent and much more convenient. I have yet to use an overseas ATM which did not offer English as one of the languages to use for transactions.