amount of spending money on a cruise

[ELMAJORI]

i am going on a cruise for the first time and am wondering how much spending money to take with me. i know everything on board is bought by credit card. can anyone give me an approximate amount for spending on shore?
thanks

[snowangel_uk]

Hiya Elmajori - what destinations are you cruising to, and how long is your cruise ?

[ELMAJORI]

14 days on the med. leaving palma calling at italy france, spain and quite a few other countries.

[filibuster]

I didn't think money was a problem for you!!

[ELMAJORI]

the problem is how much?

[lilacben]

When we go away we use our bank cards to get money out and visa for big items or meals ect. then at the end of your cruise you can settle your bill up by credit card as well. Then we we get the visa statement we pay it all off.

[ELMAJORI]

hi lilacben
i think we will probably do that. thanks for your suggestion.

[jno]

Ships will offer shore excursions at every port. If you buy these they will go on your onboard bill and you can pay with a credit card at the end. After that you won't need much at all - maybe the odd lunch or souvenir. But it depends exactly where you want to go and what you want to see an do.

However, you'd almost certainly be able to do most of the excursions yourself, probably at about half the price. It's worth looking at websites like
http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/?gclid=CPr93rfn0 5QCFQ1TEAod9Robkg

to see what people suggest. In that case you would probably need money, though you may be able to pay for some things with cards. Also, you'd need to be sure you're back on the wharf on time or the ship might not wait, so don't cut it too fine.

[ELMAJORI]

hi jno,
thanks will check out website which you suggest and believe it or not i have had nightmares about not getting back to the ship on time!!
thanks again.

[jno]

in theory if you take a ship's excursion they guarantee to wait for you. If you do it yourself they don't. But in these days of paranoid security mesures I think they'd be in deep trouble if they allowed a tourist to get left behind, so I don't think you actually have anything to worry about. But they would be announcing your name over and over on the ship asking you to report to the purser and eventually everyone will be staring over the deck rails at you when you do return (one woman did this on my last cruise because she'd got blind drunk), so a bit of peer pressure there!