How much cash did you take with you at port?

[Florida_cruisers]

We would prefer to use our American Express everywhere we could if possible and minimize our cash handling. We only need enough cash to pay for meals at port and souvenirs. I guess we can take money from ATM machines as we need. But the ATM fees will surely add up.

[jhannah]

We use our credit card for most every purchase except the truly little stuff ... candy bar, postcard, soda, etc. For that, we don't need much local currency. Since we have an exchange here in Las Vegas, I always get currencies ahead of time. I don't like to carry much money on my person at any time ... and especially in a foreign port. For our upcoming Med trip, I'll probably take no more than 100 Euros for general spending with me when I go ashore. If you want to wait until you get to your destination to get funds, then plan out what you think you'll need and just use the ATM one time for the full amount. There will be fees associated with each transaction, so keep that in mind.

[grabbit97]

We would prefer to use our American Express everywhere we could if possible and minimize our cash handling. We only need enough cash to pay for meals at port and souvenirs. I guess we can take money from ATM machines as we need. But the ATM fees will surely add up.

WE USED OUR CREDIT CARDS FOR MOST THINGS, BUT DID BRING ABOUT 200 EURO WITH US OFF THE SHIP EACH TIME WE WENT, AS SOME OF THE LOCAL SMALLER MERCHANTS WANTED CASH ONLY.

[mikemary945]

We would prefer to use our American Express everywhere we could if possible and minimize our cash handling. We only need enough cash to pay for meals at port and souvenirs. I guess we can take money from ATM machines as we need. But the ATM fees will surely add up.

On the Millie, Venice to Barcelona, this past Summer, we used our ATM card everwhere. The only fees we paid were a $2 foreign ATM fee that our bank used every time we got Euros from a machine. We took a few hundred dollars American with us, so we would have it for the Casino, but even that wasn't necessary, as we were able to get cash from the ATM card at the Casino cage. Next time, we'll take an even smaller amount of dollars with us, and head for the ATM machine as soon as we get off the plane.

[JNLROSE]

OK, am I to understand the ATM's on the ship only charges you $2 per transaction??? Or are you saying there are many ATM's all over Europe that you can use for nominal fees??? I know on the Summit in March, we were able to get dollars up to $2000 per day for no fee from the casino--they would like for you to use it in the casino, but you didn't have to.

 

Can you get Euros from the ships bank??? I know I changed some 20's for 1's down there & they had a regular "bank" thing happening. All of the tours we have booked request Euros, traveler's cheques or cash, so I would like to know how to handle it all. Seems like the Master Card will work for most everything else.

[Jules1]

When you get off the ship there are currency exchanges everywhere. We just changed traveler's checks into euros at the exchanges for a lesser exchange fee.

[JNLROSE]

Can you use a credit card to exchange for Euros or can you use dollars? I would much prefer to exchange on the ship if possible, seems like it would be easier????!!

[mikemary945]

Sorry if I was confusing:

 

1. You can use your credit or ATM card in the ships casino to get dollars. You are supposed to gamble with it, but everyone knows what's up.

 

2. The ships ATM has a high transaction fee, and it's not a good idea to use it. You will be charged this fee in addition to whatever the bank from your ATM card charges. In addition, it gives you dollars which you must then exchange.

 

3. In the case of our bank, using an ATM machine that was not their's cost us $2/transaction. There were no other fees charged by the ATM we used. Thus, if we use our ATM card to get 250 Euros, we only paid a $2 fee out of our checking account for using an ATM machine that was not their's. We always got the interbank exchange rate when the transaction was processed, which is better than any rate you can get by exchanging.

 

4. The ships bank will exchange Euros for Dollars, but the exchange rate they were charging, plus their fee, made the transaction higher than any other option.

 

5. We had to exchange a few Dollars for Euros at the Venice airport, as one of the couples with our group had sent us a check to pay for their shore excursions, which we had arranged. In order to have the Euros available to pay the drivers, I needed to exchange their dollars. While most of our exchange rates for our ATM transactions were in the range of $1.20 to $1.25, this exchange desk hit us for $1.38! If that happened again, I would just get Euros from my ATM card, and hold onto the dollars they provided for use in the Casino or to pay against our shipboard account. The overnight trip left me thinking less than clearly at the time.

 

Hope all this helps. Using an ATM card is always the best rate.

[cruisintwinsmom]

In June we were on Millie. Found our best exchange rates were at the ATMs. We get so many withdrawals at a "foreign"(not our bank) ATM free, so we only had a $1.00 fee on one withdrawal, all other withdrawals had no fees charged and had a good exchange. The currency exchange places we saw had horrible exchange rates. The ships exchange rate was not very good either. That being said, we did see someone's atm card eaten at a machine.