Cruise card is so confusing

[Matre]

Hi everyone. This is my first post on the forum. I am a little confused as to how things are paid on board. I did a cruise in 2003 on the Pacific Sky with hubby and two boys and we were allowed to put set amounts of money on our cards via our credit card. Say we put $300 on each card and when we ran out we would go to the purser's desk and top it up again using our credit card. This way we could keep our budget in check. From what I have read on the forums we now just link our cards and whatever is spent is charged. If that is correct I am not too happy about it as I have a 16 year old and 14 year old who will have their own cards on our next cruise (5th April 2007 - Pacific Star) and they are terrific and depleting my money pile. Does anyone know if you can "cap" the cruise card at all? If not I may need to take large sums of cash which is no better really. They love to make it hard don't they??

 

Thanks in advance....have enjoyed reading the threads so far.:cool: :cool:

[aussiedisneyfan]

Hi.

 

I don't believe that you can cap the spending if it is linked to a credit card. What you can do is not link your kids cruisecards to your credit card and just put on cash once you board like the old system, that way you can control/restrict their spending.

[Matre]

Thanks aussiedisneyfan....I am very impressed...3 cruises so far this year. I love cruising and can't wait until Easter....

[karmac]

Hi Matre & welcome to CC. You'll find these boards very helpful.

agree about the cruise card being comfusing. When we cruised in April it was the same as when you were on the Sky but they've now changed the system.

Actually I have a question in regards to the cruise card (sorry if it's been asked before). I don't have a credit card as such but have a St George Visa cad which is atually a debit card. Can I put money onto the cruise card using that (as opposed to using cash)? If so, then it really is no different to what we did on the Sun, apart from the fact that you don't get a runnng total of what you have left, but that's not a drama.

 

Karen

[suey]

Welcome to the boards Matre. I am also travelling next Easter with a group of 44 friends and family to clebrate my 50th Birthday. Please join our roll call on the P & O roll call board. :)

[Matre]

Welcome to the boards Matre. I am also travelling next Easter with a group of 44 friends and family to clebrate my 50th Birthday. Please join our roll call on the P & O roll call board. :)

 

It would be funny if we were at the same sitting as we are travelling with 47 adults and teenagers.....we are a group of friends that have been friends since primary school!!!!!!!!! We made a pact when we all were newlyweds that we would one day travel together with our kids (who are also good friends) and we decided a cruise would be the perfect venue for it. I hope to celebrate my 50th on a Canada/Alaska holiday which includes a 7 night cruise.

 

Cheers & hope to speak to you over the next few months.

[Skyrules]

Hi Matre & welcome to CC. You'll find these boards very helpful.

agree about the cruise card being comfusing. When we cruised in April it was the same as when you were on the Sky but they've now changed the system.

Actually I have a question in regards to the cruise card (sorry if it's been asked before). I don't have a credit card as such but have a St George Visa cad which is atually a debit card. Can I put money onto the cruise card using that (as opposed to using cash)? If so, then it really is no different to what we did on the Sun, apart from the fact that you don't get a runnng total of what you have left, but that's not a drama.

 

Karen

 

The big difference between the new system and the old is that you don't "put money on" the cruise cards, so no more quieing at the pursers desk in the first couple of days to "cash up" the cards - and no "cashing out" the cards at the end of the cruise. Instead you charge to the cruise card and then at the end of the cruise, the final amount is charged to the nominated card in one transaction. There is no longer any need for the $300 "advance" or credit that used to be on the card at the start of the cruise.

 

Karen - I have a VISA Debit card and used it on Pacific Star. You use it as if it is a standard credit card. At the start of the cruise you nominate the card, and at the end of the cruise the total of your cruise card is charged to the VISA card as if it were a credit card.

 

A word of warning about the VISA Debit card though (and possibly all credit cards) periodically throughout the cruise they may put a "stop" on a certain amount of money, this to secure funds (a bit like a hotel taking a swipe of your card and holding money as 'security'). When they make the final transaction at the end of the cruise they are supposed to reverse these stop or hold transactions - but they don't always do this. I had my final balance charged to my card twice - once as the final transaction and once as a series of these "hold" transactions, and had to wait two weeks as these hold transations progressively dropped off because they weren't followed through by the bank. Neither P&O or my bank were very helpful in fixing this problem - each blaming the other. There was also no uniformity - my parents also used a visa debit card (differnent bank) for their transactions and didn't have this problem and my partner used a standard credit card and also didn't have this problem...... Maybe it was only me??

 

 

Remember you can also get other cruise cards (partners/kids) charged to the one credit card. There'll be a form to complete with you travel docs when you receive them.

 

And if you don't have any type of credit card you can still pay with cash, but you need to put money down up front ($300 I believe) and I think make regular payments while on board - as security that you aren't going to overspend and not be able to pay the bill at the end.

 

 

Kym

[chaz cruiser]

It would be funny if we were at the same sitting

 

Hi Matre,

 

I am Suey's daughter. The majority of us are on first sitting. We are really looking forward to this cruise. Should be fantastic. I'm sure with two big groups we will definitely notice each other.

 

Also look forward to "chatting" over the coming months.

 

Cheers,

Chaz:)

[suey]

The big difference between the new system and the old is that you don't "put money on" the cruise cards, so no more quieing at the pursers desk in the first couple of days to "cash up" the cards - and no "cashing out" the cards at the end of the cruise.

 

Kym

 

The best thing for us 'old-fashioned cash' people is that the queues are so much shorter now. I put my first money on my card just after boarding and only had to wait a few minutes for service and never had to queue when I wanted a statement or top-up just picked my times when the pursers desk was not busy. I didn't bother to cash in my card at the end of the last cruise as it only had $3 left but they actually credited that amount to Chaz's credit card bill.:)

[krazy1]

I myself have a credit card but some of my friends dont. Will they need to have a certain amount of money when they board to put onto the cruise card??

[aussiedisneyfan]

The booklet we got with our tickets said CC or $300.

[suey]

Yes a start of $300 and top-ups as you wish or rather spend, as I said before very easy to get a printed statement with balance:) I really prefer to use cash and not my credit card.:rolleyes:

[Matre]

Thank you all for your replies. Doesn't make life easy when you have two kids and you don't want to give them $300 each in one hit. Last cruise we did they only went through $100 each as they only bought drinks, cookies and icecream etc. Knowing they had $300 would make them spend it anyway and linking to my credit card would see them at the internet cafe running up a huge account on msn messenger!!! I much prefer the system on Pacific Sky even though it meant a couple of trips to the Purser's desk to top up. What have others done with their kids cruise cards? Ages are 13 and 16.

[aussiedisneyfan]

I know that we didn't put $300 on our 9 y/o daughters card. I am sure we didn't link it to my cc and once we were settled in onboard we just put $50 on it.

 

I would assume with kids they would be understanding that they don't need a $300 deposit. On the Sun in Feb under the old system we definitely only put on $50.

[kezza]

We just put $100 on our 2 girls cards on both cruises they went on with us (13 & 16 at the time). this lasted them right up until the 2nd last night so just topped up one with $30 for them.

[Kinkacruiser]

Hello Suey and Non CC cruisers,

I also prefer not to use my credit card and was wondering if you can put more than $300 onto the cruise card. Will you also be given receipts so you can keep a running tally and top up your cruise card? Thanks for any insights here.

Kinka

[aussiedisneyfan]

Kinka, you can put more than $300 on the card. If you bring say $1000 put it straight on there and you don't have to worry about it getting lost/stolen (never happend to me).

 

Everytime you buy something you will be given a receipt for it which has the amount charged on it. Keep all those and you can add them up or ask for a statement from the pursers desk and doublecheck all the receipts against your statement.

[Tropicalshowers]

Thank you all for your replies. Doesn't make life easy when you have two kids and you don't want to give them $300 each in one hit. Last cruise we did they only went through $100 each as they only bought drinks, cookies and icecream etc. Knowing they had $300 would make them spend it anyway and linking to my credit card would see them at the internet cafe running up a huge account on msn messenger!!! I much prefer the system on Pacific Sky even though it meant a couple of trips to the Purser's desk to top up. What have others done with their kids cruise cards? Ages are 13 and 16.

 

 

Hi Matre!

I can tell you what we did with our boys aged 12 & 15 on the Star in Sept.

 

We nominated a credit card for hubby & me, & took cash ($200) with us to put on the kids cards..we had no idea how much money to give them & were worried they too would become spend freaks:eek: We had to wait till we were on board to organize the boys cards with the purser. We put $50 on each card & made them aware of the high cost of internet etc. We said if they showed they were using them responsibly, then we would cash them up throughout the cruise. Well our youngest appeared to live on mocktails and icecream and still had $19 left at the end of the cruise. Our oldest had $23 remaining! We were amazed. So all up they spent $58 for the whole week & had a ball! We closed their cards the day before we got back & received cash back.

 

We did however pay for their drinks whenever they dined with us.:)

 

Cheers

[kezza]

Hi Kinka, I have put $1000 on DH and $800 on my card. DH card has paid for the tours (there's been 4 of us to pay for so that added up to quite a bit) and the other has paid for drinks and all the extras. The $200 left from my card is put onto the kids - $100 and that usually did them for most of the cruise.

 

Kerri

[Matre]

Hi Matre!

I can tell you what we did with our boys aged 12 & 15 on the Star in Sept.

 

We nominated a credit card for hubby & me, & took cash ($200) with us to put on the kids cards..we had no idea how much money to give them & were worried they too would become spend freaks:eek: We had to wait till we were on board to organize the boys cards with the purser. We put $50 on each card & made them aware of the high cost of internet etc. We said if they showed they were using them responsibly, then we would cash them up throughout the cruise. Well our youngest appeared to live on mocktails and icecream and still had $19 left at the end of the cruise. Our oldest had $23 remaining! We were amazed. So all up they spent $58 for the whole week & had a ball! We closed their cards the day before we got back & received cash back.

 

We did however pay for their drinks whenever they dined with us.:)

 

Cheers

 

Thank you Narissa. It's good to know that we don't have to link cruise cards to credit cards for the kids. I appreciate your feedback as well as everyone else's. Although it has only been a couple of years since we last cruised so much has changed and is continuing to do so...Cheers:) :) :)

[Kinkacruiser]

Hi Aussie and Kerri,

This is just what I wanted to hear. Now I can make an informed decision knowing where it's all at. Not much longer now, is it.

Cheers,

Kinka

[cheznandy]

Thanks for all the info guys! Wasn't aware the system had changed since we went in March. I guess i have to wait till 2008 for my cruise and it will probably change again by then!!

[aussiedisneyfan]

Kinka, check out our roll-call thread. We are trying to organise a get together.

[Kinkacruiser]

Thanks Jane, I found it. Been busy organising stuff. See ya

Kinka Anna

[aussiedisneyfan]

I know I have read this and should know having been on the Star but for the life of me I can't find where I read it...

 

If you do a cash advance at the casino on the Star what does it cost? Is it 3%? I will be linking my Visa to my cruise card. Also that still is treated as: a either purchase or added to you bill at the end of the cruise; or do they straight away actually cash advance your Visa card. I remember you need your passport.