Forgive me for my rant, I looked to see if this has been previously discussed and found nothing.
Joy>Bermuda 5/14
First night on board, everything was copacetic. Beautiful ship, good vibes. Happy as a clam. Room card worked as its supposed to, used it throughout the ship.
Next morning, go to Starbucks, card declined. Go to bar at observation lounge. Card declined.
Goto Guest Services, wait in line for 45 minutes, sorry sir, your card is now active. No explanation given for the issue.
Next day, Specialty restaurant, food brought to the table, "sorry sir, card declined, but my manager out of the kindness of her heart is covering it". Crowded restaurant, mortified. Goto guest services. "Oh, here's the problem sir. (Not using my real name obviously here)----On the credit card assigned to your room key, it says Ed Smith, but on your room key it says Edward Smith". I explained to them that I paid for the entire cruise using the "Ed Smith" credit card. Produce another credit card with "Edward" on the card, to match the room key. Card works for another day.
Next evening, Observation Lounge Bar, sorry sir, card declined. THIRD TIME MORTIFIED in front of everyone. Back to the sixth deck. I was FUMING.
Guest services says, sorry sir, the problem is that you have "Edward Smith Jr" on the credit card assigned to your room key, and your room key does not have the JR displayed. The staff could not understand or wrap their heads around the fact that;
Ed and Edward are one in the same, as is
Jim/James
Joe/Joseph
Rob/Bob/Robert
Al/Albert
Steve/Stephen, etc, etc, etc.
He says sorry sir, unless you can produce a credit card WITHOUT the JR designation, there is nothing we can do. He went back and forth with finance which went on for 30 minutes. Nothing we can do. I said, "you mean to tell me I have to go the next 2.5 days aboard this ship and not be able to make ANY purchases?"--- "Thats correct sir, we do not accept any other forms of payment" (meanwhile there were no issues with either one of the before mentioned credit card accounts).......I said you better get a white shirt down here right now. I go through the same thing with the officer as described above for the next 15 minutes. Luckily, I went through all of my credit cards which were fanned out all over the counter and found a Best Buy and Macy's card with "Edward Smith Jr" on it. The officer comes back 10 minutes later and says, "good thing you found those two cards.....we will go back to square one with the original card you paid for the cruise on" (Ed Smith).
I have been on multiple cruises and paid the exact same way for each cruise (1 other with Norwegian) and NEVER had this problem.
I STRONGLY encourage you to use a credit card with the EXACT name on the credit card assigned to your room key as what is displayed on your passport.
Made what was a perfect cruise into an unenjoyable experience. Well, the disembarking in NYC was a whole other story, for another day.
/End Rant