cruisecritic.com Carnival boards they do this it can be irritating to say the least if CC has a low limit. Contact Carnival for ways around this or use a different CC to book with high or no limit what I do.My American Express has no limit as does my Chase Ink Bold Business. Use my capitalone.com no foreign fee Venture Visa for routine travel works great get double miles on everything.

Does Cap. 1 have an annual fee?

I am Europeon, and I do not own the credit cards you mentioned. Would anyone know approximately how much Carnival blocks for a 12 day cruise for a family of five?

Hi Anna_Galea,

My family is taking our first cruise on Carnival this summer. It is a 7 night though. From my research you tell the cruise line how much you want assigned to your Sign & Sail account for each person. Depending on how much you think you will spend on the ship it can be as little as $50 for the kids and a bit more for the adults. You check your balance from a kiosk or your TV and if you are close to your limit you can have them up it. I believe the original amount is all they authorize until you tell them you want more on your account.

To be sure you can call your TA, or Carnival in the UK I think. Check Cruise Critic as well. I've learned a lot from those folks.

I have not come across "credit hold" (block) on my credit card when I use my credit card for the ship board account, or at least we don't know about it , or affected by it. The ship has the card on file, and I may (or maynot) use my credit card for settlement.

While we cruise, we use the criedt card prior, during and after the cruise and have not come across any problem (i.e. cannot use the card due to credit limit issues or there is a hold or a block)

Our practice is notifing the credit card company where we would be going and when, so that when charges came through from overseas (which is unusual), they would be expecting it.

Thanks so much for your replies. I am unsure about it as I read on Carnival website that they might put on hold some money and release it after cruise, and the money would be put in the card a couple of days later, depending on the bank.

I am a little concerned about this as this blocking of money happened to me quite a few times with car hire companies, even though I still pay for excess insurance for the car, without even them notifying me at the booking office. One car hire company (always in Europe) had blocked for me 1,200 Euros - that amounts to over 1,500 dollars for sure - when I had paid full excess. Then on the last day I was paying and the transaction would not pass through. Luckily we had our laptop with us and we transferred money from our account to the credit card. But it was a bit embarrasing, so nowadays to be on the safe side we use one credit card and leave enough money in it just for the car hire so that they would have to tell us at the booking office if they intend to block extra money. Sometimes I suspect that the car hire company ends up taking the insurance money themselves that I paid for the excess and risk it. Luckily, we have found one car hire company that never blocks us extra money when we pay the full excess. And we always paid quite a lot for this extra insurance, often over 20 Euros daily. I never like to put in too much extra money into the credit account as we do several stops in one holiday, and I like to be extra careful when using the cards.

So, I did wonder if the cruise liner does block money, what the amount would be, and whether it is a certain amount per person. I was concerned that since we are a family of five it would block a substantial amount of money for it. I will certainly ask this question to the cruise line company at time of booking.

Thanks again for all your suggestions and your past experiences.

or you can just deposit cash into your account. I believe it's about $100-200 to start with and then you will be notified if your account is low and have to deposit more. The final bill will be settled on the last evening. Either you give them more money or they return whatever is left in your account.

Just watch the bar bill.....

Have a wonderful cruise!

Are you sure it is a credit card? It is not uncommon a block of money to be held when using a debit card. I have never heard of a credit card block and we have been on 12 cruises and that has never happened to us.

Thanks for your replies. Maybe then I understood wrongly and it is excess money that you put on your on-board account that they credit back to you if not used.

I was afraid that they do like many car hire companies do in Europe, block money on your credit card (of course you would have available money in it) so that they would be well covered.

Allow me to explain my earlier post.

Instead of using a CC you are allowed to deposit cash (~$100-200 to start with) into your account during check-in. No need to use a CC. Then you don't have to worry about the CC block. You can settle the bill on the last evening at the customer service desk with the CC or cash.

Thanks AAFrequentFlyer for your earliest post, then I need not worry about unauthorised block on my credit card, especially since I am not obliged to supply them with my personal card details.