ATM's - How many Euros per day?

[dilacruiser]

Our family of five will be going on a 12 day Mediterranean cruise next summer. I was planning to do private tours, but I am wondering about the legistics of paying for them. Each one would cost at least 600E for our family. Will ATM's usually allow that large of a daily withdrawal?

We will be doing some ports on our own, but there are at least 4 that we think we should get a private guide or take the ship's tour. With the ship's tour, at least it would be paid upfront, before we ever leave.

 

Thanks for any insight.

[Keith1010]

In terms of the ATM contact your bank to verify how much money you can take out on each day.

 

If you are concerned about having enough cash you can consider paying for your excursions with a credit card. Of course any you book through the ship can just go on your shipboard account and the ones you book on your own you can talk with the company that you book with about your payment options.

 

And as a last resort if you only want to pay in cash with private companies and the amount exceed what you can take out of the ATM you can bring US Currency with you and exchange the money for Euros. But I would go with a combination of ATM/Credit Card first do to the favorable exchange rates.

 

Keith

[davejohn]

When we traveled to the Europe in May we had the bank temporarily increase our daily withdrawal limit. It was much more than we anticipated spending, but they suggested it in case of emergency.

 

For our private tours in Naples and Rome (which we never got to do since the cruise was cancelled) we opted to get Travelers Checks in Euros just to pay for the tours. I didn't really want to walk around with €500-600 cash on my person.

Dave

[Liv4cruzin]

Euro travelers checks aren't as easily used abroad as the U.S. version is in America. Temporarily raising your daily withdrawal limit will allow you to make fewer withdrawals & therefore pay less in bank fees. If you are cruising or staying in a hotel, you can always stash the extra cash in the safe.

[cruz1234]

I was worried about the daily limit being low..and with the exchange it made it even lower..(If your limit is $600 then it's only about 440 Euros) I went ahead and dumped some cash into my DD account so we can use both ATM cards :) Well it was 1 way around it..and just incase 1 card won't work we'll have a back up. I think I will call the bank and ask them to up the limit also..just in case..since we do have several private tours we'll need the Euro's for.

[Hlitner]

What a great question. We have our ATM card set at a $500 daily limit which would normally allow about 360 or so Euros per day. However, we have sometimes run into European banks that have their own limits (the lowest we have encountered is 200 Euros). This can be difficult to determine since it simply will reject your attempts at getting higher amounts with no explanation...and its not wise to keep trying different amounts since ATMs have been known to "eat" cards after 3 failed attempts. Since we do a lot of travel, my DW and I carry separate ATM cards that are drawn on different accounts in different banks. This gives us a little more security.

 

Hank

[maylee]

We just came back and the first time i tried to use my ATM in Italy, it spat it out and told me to return my card to my bank. I was so worried about it being eaten that I didnt know what to do. I then found out that most banks in Italy only allow 250E at one time, I tried again and had no problems, you can also do multiple withdrawals on one day as long as you dont request more than about 250 each time..I wish I had known this before I left.

 

At the end of the cruise on our last port day...again in Italy, we couldn't get any money at all, after 3 days of trying in Florence, Rome and then Sorrento, I finally had to ring my bank. In Australia we have 3 options CHEQUE, SAVINGS and CREDIT. My account is a savings account but at home I use the Cheque button, in the US on the same account I have to get it out of Credit. In Europe there is no option and sometimes the banks go to the wrong account, I had to get my bank to fix this, and then it worked fine. Hope this helps someone as I had been reading thise boards for months before and had never found this info.