Local Currency When Cruising? Help!
 

We will be going on our FIRST European cruise this summer and will be stoping at the following ports: Copenhagen,Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Gdansk and Oslo. We are a bit confused as to how much foreign currency, if any, we should bring with us. Should we buy it from a FX dealer in the States, or can you purchase it aboard the ship? I know credit cards can be used but if cash is needed I believe each of the countries we will be visiting has its own currency.

Your advise/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You!

I did this same cruise and in the same Port order as you are going to do.

I did a trip report , port by port.

I had euros and US$ and that is all.

I never converted to local currency in any of the ports.

Where you may need some local currency, which you can get easily ,is in St. Petersburg,...for example in some places you will want lunch and the lady may very well require Rubles.

I had lunch and the local beer ( beer in every port !) and used either euros or US$.

Now the cruise director may very well tell you that in some places local currency is a must....like in

Gdansk Poland and Oslo...... don't listen to him!!!

When I got off the cruise ship in Oslo , there were no taxi's around...this is because the cruise ship parks 3-4 blocks from downtown !!!

Anyway the evening before the Cruise Director said "you will need local currency tomorrow in Oslo."

I got off the cruise ship and walked over to a Van and asked the driver if he was a taxi.

He said "No ,but I can call one for you" !On his cell phone he called a taxi... 5 minutes later one came and I said to the driver

" Sir I want to go to Vigeland Park but I have only euros and US$."
He smiled at me and said "Get In" !

And we were off seeing Oslo.

Oh yes I also used either Visa or Mastercard in places.

I have agree with Percy. When we did our Baltic cruise last summer, we did get some local currency in St. Petersburg to have for lunches and aside from that Euros or credit cards worked for us.

But don't get your euros on the ship. You'll pay a huge fee to either take them from an ATM or exchange money. Get euros from an ATM in the port.

Euros and USD. That's all you need. Get your Euros at currency exhange at home or at airport.

As a general rule, I do not use my credit card at foreign ports and never ATM. For safety and security reasons. Credit card and ATM fraud are rampart. Plus the service fee charge by everyone is worst than highway robbery.

A friend of mine paid $6.00 servce fee for a withdrawal ($3.50 by the ATM provider and $2.50 by his bank) plus a 3% premium on the exchange rate.

As a general rule, I always use a credit card and the ATM for local currency. In nearly 300 days of travel over 18 years we have never had a problem with either. Bank related ATMs do not charge a usage fee(I think it is against the law). Only fees added are added by your car issuer, So choice carefully. Capital One credit card and most credit union plus a few other do not charge currency conversion fees. If you use a currency exchange either a shore or on the ship you will poor exchange rate. You can expect to pay a premium of about 8% to obtain Euro in the US. The same thing holds if you use dollars or euro when that is not the local currency. Sure -- they are always glad to accept dollars or euro because they are going to charge a lot more than they would in the local currency.

Have got to learn how to proof my postings. It is the CARD issuer who determines fees beyond the network fee added by Plus or Cirrus. A privately owned ATM could charge fees and some currency exchange bureaus have dressed up their ATMs so that the will look like bank ATMs to the very casual observer. Credit card and ATM fraud is no more rampart in Europe than in the US. We are just back from 33 days in Europe when we used our ATM almost exclusively and paid for nearly everything in cash because you will often receive a discount for cash.