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Alaska Cruise - money to bring


GwenA
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Since this is our first cruise I have no idea. We will have our credit card with us, and plan on using that. But how much CASH USD and Canadian should we bring and in what denominations, I am thinking some small for tipping, and is that OK to be in USD?

Thanks for the help.

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On the ship, everything will be charged to your on board account which will be tied to your credit card. You may want a few dollars for tips for any special services. US$ are fine for this.

 

Ashore it really depends on wheat you will do. private tours, meals ashore, purchases for gifts, etc.

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Tipping on board the ship should be in USD, although the crew will accept anything happily.

 

Credit cards are good. We have no idea what your shopping, tipping or spending habits are, so no way to tell you how much to bring. The vast majority of what you spend will be on your credit card.

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Remember that your Alaska ports are US ports, and if you are running short of cash, there will be ATMs that don't charge hefty fees like the one onboard. Just make sure to bring along your debit card just in case... EM

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We usually take about $1500 in cash for almost any trip we take....better to have it, than not! There's a safe in the cabin to store your valuables. You can redeposit any unused cash back into your account when you get home. Larger bills are easier to carry than wads of small bills. The ship can break down larger bills into smaller denominations for you.

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We usually take about $1500 in cash for almost any trip we take....better to have it, than not! There's a safe in the cabin to store your valuables. You can redeposit any unused cash back into your account when you get home. Larger bills are easier to carry than wads of small bills. The ship can break down larger bills into smaller denominations for you.

 

And, if you are not comfortable in leaving valuables and cash in your cabin's safe, the ship's Front Office/Purser's Desk ought to have safe deposit type boxes that you may use at no cost to you.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A small amount of cash is all that is needed. All the US ports will have ATM machines if you want to pick up extra. For your one stop in Canada, they are happy to take USD as the value i much better. One of the things I do on most cruises is the coins I pick up in ports, some countries have larger 10 (Hong Kong) to 500 (Japan) I leave as a added tip for the cabin steward, with some small paper money thrown in. better than a packet full of coins and small paper money I will not use.

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Depends on the port. On my Alaska cruise, Juneau and Ketchican all had major financial institutions, albiet with a middle-sized town feel to them. Icy Strait Point (Hoonah)... not so much. I survived Vancouver and Alaska with $100 and my VISA card. But, the only souvenirs that I took were a ton of photographs.

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We typically only have about $20-50 cash on hand.

 

We don't do room service typically or gamble at the casino. So, we basically don't run into a situation where we would need cash on a ship.

 

If it's Alaska, credit cards work fine. We're not huge tourist trap souvenir buyers so we generally don't need cash on ports in places like Mexico or the Caribbean. We do bring some if I know we'll use the local bus or taxi, along with some small tips while ashore. For many cruises, we've gotten away with no cash at all.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Do you usually call your cc company and let them know you will be on a cruise even if it is the US?

We call anytime we are going out of the country but never thought about on a ship!

 

Yes because depending upon the ship the ATM and payments can be outside the United States. FYI I do not call just go to website and add the information, so very easy to do. Is it 100% required on a US Cruise not really but I like to cover all options.

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Since this is our first cruise I have no idea. We will have our credit card with us, and plan on using that. But how much CASH USD and Canadian should we bring and in what denominations, I am thinking some small for tipping, and is that OK to be in USD?

Thanks for the help.

 

In all of our cruises (CAN, Bahamas, Western Caribbean) USD has been accepted in ports. We only spent exact cash in Bahamas and WC so I don't know how change would be handled, but Canada would only give change in CAD (not a problem, planning a Niagara Falls trip next year so can use it then). We didn't use a CC in Bahamas, but there was a conversion charge in Mexico and probably Canada too.

 

tl;dr - USD should be fine:D

 

Do you usually call your cc company and let them know you will be on a cruise even if it is the US?

We call anytime we are going out of the country but never thought about on a ship!

 

We let our bank know when we will be traveling out of state, even when we went to DC for a week. They are looking for suspicious activity, so if we go to Alaska those charges would be abnormal for someone living in PA and we would notify in advance.

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My credit card doesn't care if we travel elsewhere. There is no mechanism in place to let them know about travel. However, within maybe 30 seconds or so of using the card I get a notice on my phone letting me know it was used, where it was used, and how much was charged. When it's someplace such as Barbados I may also get a note with the same information and the option to "do nothing" if it's a legitimate charge or to contact them immediately if it's not a valid charge. I was leary of this at first but it seems to work quite well. When I purchased 2 FCD each on our last cruise they asked if the two $200 charges were legitimate or a double charge.

 

We don't carry a lot of cash when traveling. I tend to tip the steward at the end of the cruise and I did manage to go through a crazy large number of $1 bills on a recent cruise but those all went to bartenders and waiters who served us drinks. :o

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