Currencies

We will be on a two week MSC cruise this summer. Our ports include St. Petersburg, Kiel, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Flam, Geiranger, Bergen and Tallinn. What kind of currency will we need?

Sweden - SEK

Denmark - DKK

Norway - NOK

Germany and Tallinn - Euros

Russia - Rubles + USD?

A credit card

Primarily a credit card, never bought a ruble but brought some home as change. Did a land tour of Sweden and Norway 2 years ago and found it hard to spend NOK and especially SEK. Sweden aims to be a cashless society. If I were to get any currency it might be Euros as you could drop them as tips, etc. Even small purchases use CC in most of Scandinavia .

In Russia any cash currencies other than rubles are "illegal". A credit card with no international fees is your best bet. Some tour guides will take USD or euro for cash tips but prefer rubles. Local shops will take credit cards or rubles.

We just got back from a cruise that included Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark, all of which use different currency. I put a free app on my phone that allowed me to calculate the price of each currency to American dollars which was helpful. We only used our credit card which was easy and accepted at everywhere we went, even if we were only buying a couple water bottles. They all use the chip credit cards. None of them asked for my PIN number but make sure you know it just in case.