Cash account or credit

[coolio111]

What is the best option to have a cash account or credit account on the ship, and is it best to setup now online, or when I check in at the port?

[Clarea]

There is no universal "best".  It's a person preference.

 

A cash account avoids the 5% fee on cash advances at the casino  but requires a trip to Guest Services to close out the account.

 

A credit card account is more convenient, but is changed the 5% fee on cash advances at the casino.  You can also be charged by mistake after the cruise ends, which will cost you time on the phone with RC customer support to get that fixed.

[Iamcruzin]

Credit is best because they will call you to replenish cash when the balance is low.  I registered my card online but they still asked for it at check in.  Towards the end I paid off my balance with the cash I brought with me. It wasn't much of a balance since I had OBC from the my TA and Royal Caribbean plus I pre purchased the drink packages and an excursion. 

[Tee & Chilli]

I always do cash. Prior bad experience with multiple holds on my card. Also, most people who report false charges put down a credit card.

[Magicat]

Credit for more points for that next vacation.

[CruiseBride926]

We did cash on our first RC cruise and it was kind of a pain. At that point we’d only sailed carnival who has kiosks where you can add cash. We got sick of having to go back and forth to guest services so next time we just did credit.

[3monkeys4me]

We also had an issue with a hold on our credit card last cruise. We always travel with at least two credit cards, so it wasn't a huge issue but the card we used for the cruise is the one we prefer to use since it has a lower limit, the larger limit card we tend to keep for emergency use only. We had a double hold from Royal, along with a charge, plus a hold and charge from an 8 day pre cruise hotel stay. So, most of the available credit was used and we had to use the other card at the next hotel. It is probably one of those fairly rare things, just all the circumstances lined up just right. In any case going forward we will likely just do a cash account since we prepay for almost everything I doubt we would even get close to the $500 limit before needing to pay. 

[Ourusualbeach]

1 hour ago, Host Clarea said:

There is no universal "best".  It's a person preference.

 

A cash account avoids the 5% fee on cash advances at the casino  but requires a trip to Guest Services to close out the account.

 

A credit card account is more convenient, but is changed the 5% fee on cash advances at the casino.  You can also be charged by mistake after the cruise ends, which will cost you time on the phone with RC customer support to get that fixed.

Bob, on ships where you access your casino account via your seapass in the slot machine you are not charged the 5% fee even with a credit card account.  You can simply add money to the machine and then immediately get a cash out ticket. Not sure which other ships are set up for this but Harmony and Oasis are.  They actually refused to give me cash at the cashiers cage and told me to go to the slots and get it from my account.

[Clarea]

11 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Bob, on ships where you access your casino account via your seapass in the slot machine you are not charged the 5% fee even with a credit card account.  You can simply add money to the machine and then immediately get a cash out ticket. Not sure which other ships are set up for this but Harmony and Oasis are.  They actually refused to give me cash at the cashiers cage and told me to go to the slots and get it from my account.

 

Thanks for the clarification Ken.

[Ourusualbeach]

2 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Thanks for the clarification Ken.

So many differences between the different ships as they rollout different programs over an extended period to the ships. Hard to keep up. 

[johnjen]

Ever since a credit account snafu on one of our earlier cruises, we've rolled with cash account ONLY and never had any issues. All we do with a cash account is close it out at Guest Services prior to departure. I am reminded of going there to close on our last cruise, he gave us the $1.58 left on the account, we had a good laugh over that with the agent.

[Hogbay]

We always do cash account and pay cash , credit or debit never ever put card on file do one only payments .

[ladysail2]

22 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Bob, on ships where you access your casino account via your seapass in the slot machine you are not charged the 5% fee even with a credit card account.  You can simply add money to the machine and then immediately get a cash out ticket. Not sure which other ships are set up for this but Harmony and Oasis are.  They actually refused to give me cash at the cashiers cage and told me to go to the slots and get it from my account.

Explorer does not give cash at the cage...one has to do it via the machines like you said with a cash out ticket. This was my experience last month. I have a cash account so wouldn't need to worry about any 5% charge.

[Johnamac123]

A couple of trips ago I used cash to board, then keep getting messages to come to Guest Services. The Hotel Manager told me the port check-in person screwed up. Now I use cash to book, cash to board making sure the port check-in knows what's up, then switch to a credit card with 2 days to go. I'm a night owl, Guest Services is vacant late.......