Carnival Billing

Hi all,

I'm going on my first cruise in a weeks time and wanted to ask if anyone knew about Carnival's billing system?

I called Carnival and the lady on the phone said they would take $200usd off my credit card as a hold when checking in, which is completely fine.

My concern is the cruise is a 10 day cruise, she says they put more holds on my account every 2 days which could be a few hundred $ each. Now, my credit card limit is very low ($2k) so I can avoid overspending normally. I know $2k will cover off my expenses but I'm worried about the hold. Do they really take an extra few hundred $ off each few days? I'm going on a 10 day cruise and my concern is with these holds on the account it won't leave me with enough money on my CC to actually be able to pay for the shore trips and what I buy onboard.

To say i'm becoming increasingly worried about this is an understatement.

Can someone who is seasoned in this please offer some advice?

Thank you very much in advance

They will only put more holds on your card if you are spending what they have held. One thing you could do to minimize that is to have pre-paid your gratuities, and bought yourself some onboard credit. You might also take some cash and go to guest services and put it on your account. You can monitor your account daily and see how your spending is going. You might also ask your credit card company to increase your credit limit. EM

Thanks for the reply, it's handy info. What happens if say they hold $500. Do they then charge me $500 at the end of the cruise then release the held funds? or do they just turn the $500 into a bill?

You are not actually charged anything until the cruise line files the final bill. It is up to the bank that issued the card when the holds are released. I think it is only a problem if you are using a debit card instead of a credit card. But you might ask again on the Carnival board here, under Cruise Lines A-O. EM

Fantastic, thank you so much :)

You can go to Guest Services at ANY time during your cruise and they will print out exactly what you have spent so far. We haven't done ship's tours in years but Carnival will match the price of any tour you can book with local tours. But it must be same tour- going to same place, etc. You just have to prove the price, you can't just tell them. Show Carnival the printed price you find on the internet. (Ship's tours are usually a lot more than the same local ones.)

We just give them a credit card. You will find the final bill under your door or in your mailbox out side your door on the very last morning. Last week it was under our door at 4am when I made a trip to the bathroom.

I tell 1st time cruisers to sit down before you look at it because they'll fall over when they see how high the bill is. It is easy to lose track of your spending!