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Do you have any questions for me?


Osnab

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I'm leaving soon (yippee!) for my river cruise on Viking. Will be on Embla. (Budapest - Bucharest sailing, Passage to Eastern Europe)

 

If anyone has anything they want me to specially note for them while I'm gone, let me know and I'll do my best.

Felicia

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Hi Felicia --

We'll be on the same cruise in 3 weeks. Can't wait to hear about your experience!

 

I'll be interested to hear how you make out with all of the different currencies. I admit that's been my main concern and even after reading other's advice (franski was very helpful) I'm a little worried about how that will play out. We plan to get euros at the airport in Frankfurt and then use them for tipping local guides/bus drivers if we don't get currency from an ATM in each country. Let me know how you handle that if you don't mind.

 

I hope you have an amazing adventure!! :)

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Hi Felicia --

 

I'll be interested to hear how you make out with all of the different currencies. I admit that's been my main concern and even after reading other's advice (franski was very helpful) I'm a little worried about how that will play out. We plan to get euros at the airport in Frankfurt and then use them for tipping local guides/bus drivers if we don't get currency from an ATM in each country. Let me know how you handle that if you don't mind.

 

In June we went from Bucharest to Budapest. I was also concerned about the different currencies. Quite frankly, we spent very little money because we had very little free time after the included tours. What I did was change either $10 or $20 in US currency at an exchange kiosk. I wanted some currency from each country to bring home. That worked fine for me. I knew I wasn't getting the best rate, but it was only a small amount of money. I gave the extra as a tip to either the local guide or the bus driver.

 

We also tipped the local guides and bus drivers in US dollars.

 

The only place that I used an ATM was in Budapest, and we were there for three nights.

 

Don't fret over the different currencies, it will all work out.

Have a wonderful trip.

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Thanks H2Otstr. I'm not planning on doing a bunch of shopping so I wouldn't even exchange money or go to an ATM knowing I can use euros or US$ to tip.

 

I, too have wondered how the situation is going to work out when it comes to tipping. I don't think that it will be a problem, but I will let you know!

Felicia

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I, too have wondered how the situation is going to work out when it comes to tipping. I don't think that it will be a problem, but I will let you know!

Felicia

I get the bank to order some euros in for me before I go an cruise to Europe.

 

For tipping on Viking you can put it on your credit card at the end of the cruise.

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The only non-Euro country on our recent Rhine cruise was Switzerland, but maybe this experience will prove true for you too: Euros were accepted universally there. We never felt the need to get Swiss francs.

 

Also the tour guides were clear that they and the bus drivers are quite happy with US dollars as tips!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Haven't hit other countries yet, but in Hungary, they took forints of course and I noticed some people tipped the guide yesterday and today in dollars. They seemed ok with that.

I noticed some places had the prices in forints and euro. Personally, I'd carry a small amount of forints but mostly euro. And an ATM card

Felicia

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Now I fully realise that this is going to offend our American posters BUT why do you think it is Ok to tip or buy in your currency in a foreign country. We travelled on the Amsterdam/Budapest trip in 2011 and we saw first hand Europeans refusing to accept U.S. Dollars in any form of transaction. They politely explained that it cost them money for their bank to exchange the currency. It may come as a shock but if I tried to tip a NY cabbie with Australian dollars he'd not only refuse them but probably give me an earful - correctly so.

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Hi Osnab, we will be doing this same trip as you get off, leaving in a few days for Bucharest. Is there anything you think we should know, be it about the ship, Embla or anything on your trip? How's the weather, especially temp wise? I hope you're enjoying the cruise. We're looking forward to it. Thanks for any insight.

Susan

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Ozjohnno- I totally get that and I've always thought that too. It's the height of arrogance to think you can go around the world using dollars everywhere. BUT, several people on this itinerary have mentioned guides and bus drivers being happy (I don't know if that's just happiness for any tip vs. no tip at all) to have dollars. So I wanted to get more feedback from Felicia on her trip.

 

If possible, yeah, we definitely will get local currency - I'm just worried if we're on a tour for one day where there's not an ATM available, etc., having a backup plan will be better than no plan. I did say "so we don't need to visit ATMs everywhere" in my earlier post -- my meaning is more that we'll have an option if we can't.

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Hi Felicia --

We'll be on the same cruise in 3 weeks. Can't wait to hear about your experience!

 

I'll be interested to hear how you make out with all of the different currencies. I admit that's been my main concern and even after reading other's advice (franski was very helpful) I'm a little worried about how that will play out. We plan to get euros at the airport in Frankfurt and then use them for tipping local guides/bus drivers if we don't get currency from an ATM in each country. Let me know how you handle that if you don't mind.

 

I hope you have an amazing adventure!! :)

 

August last year we went from Budapest to Amsterdam, we took mainly euros, but did get about $500 in florints as were in Budapest for 3 days prior ot the cruise, plus the cruise had a full day in Budapest too.

I always like to have some of the local currency when we arrive, nothing worse than not having money to pay for a taxi or even a coffee!!

 

We didnt see any restaurants or tourist attractions etc that took euros in Budapest (but they could have and we just didnt notice), but some souvenir places did have both prices up.

 

I would not think of trying to tip someone in Australian dollars, actually when we were on the free walking tour In Budapest our young guide did ask that if possible could we all tip in florints, but euros were accepted too, he did say that the fees that are charged on US dollars make it so that they barely get anything in return.

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Now I fully realise that this is going to offend our American posters BUT why do you think it is Ok to tip or buy in your currency in a foreign country. We travelled on the Amsterdam/Budapest trip in 2011 and we saw first hand Europeans refusing to accept U.S. Dollars in any form of transaction. They politely explained that it cost them money for their bank to exchange the currency. It may come as a shock but if I tried to tip a NY cabbie with Australian dollars he'd not only refuse them but probably give me an earful - correctly so.

 

I totally agree with this....everything I've read says to tip in local currency.

In the U.S., our guides and bus drivers certainly wouldn't accept euros or any other European currency. I've also been told or read that if we do give U.S. dollars they have to be pristine, not old or wrinkled.

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I wouldn't tip in US dollars in Europe unless I had nothing else (ie had Been robbed since I always get local currency). But I don't necessarily think those who talk about tipping in dollars are being rude or arrogant or even ignorant. There are lots of countries where the local people want dollars. For sure, Peru and Ecuador because I have been both those places. And on this board, people frequently mention getting one dollar bills for tips in Vietnam and Cambodia. One of my sons was in Africa and had me send dollars to him to use.

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Now I fully realise that this is going to offend our American posters BUT why do you think it is Ok to tip or buy in your currency in a foreign country. We travelled on the Amsterdam/Budapest trip in 2011 and we saw first hand Europeans refusing to accept U.S. Dollars in any form of transaction. They politely explained that it cost them money for their bank to exchange the currency. It may come as a shock but if I tried to tip a NY cabbie with Australian dollars he'd not only refuse them but probably give me an earful - correctly so.

 

I would agree with this for countries on the Euro, but for Non-Euro countries I have found they prefer dollars (or Euros)

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Now I fully realise that this is going to offend our American posters BUT why do you think it is Ok to tip or buy in your currency in a foreign country. We travelled on the Amsterdam/Budapest trip in 2011 and we saw first hand Europeans refusing to accept U.S. Dollars in any form of transaction. They politely explained that it cost them money for their bank to exchange the currency. It may come as a shock but if I tried to tip a NY cabbie with Australian dollars he'd not only refuse them but probably give me an earful - correctly so.

 

I don't find that offensive at all (being American) but I also don't ever assume it's ok to tip or buy in USD in a foreign currency. So I can't answer that question. It's also not related to the original question, which is what does anyone need to know before (or now during) the trip?

 

I have heard from 2 members of the Viking staff that it is OK to tip in USD. We stopped yesterday at a store that would accept either Kuna (Croatian currency) OR USD OR Euro.

 

I hope that answers the question about what type of currency has been accepted thus far.

 

Felicia

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Hi Felicia -

If you see this post can you give me an idea of what time you had to board the ship in Budapest the day you sailed away? Trying to plan our afternoon and not sure how much time we'll have.

 

Also, if you can give me an idea of how long the Viking tour in Budapest was that would be very helpful. Did it go from 9am - 1pm for example? I think I read that in some post a while ago.

 

Thanks!

Leslie

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I always felt that it was OK to tip in US dollars because the European people can go to almost any bank and exchange their money from dollars to local currency (except possibly in the small towns). Whereas in the US there are very few banks that have foreign currency exchanges, if foreign money was ever given to anyone here.

 

This is just my opinion, so no bashing, please :D.

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I thought this was odd - just called my bank to set up travel notifications for credit and ATM card and they said Croatia and Serbia are sanctioned and our cards will not work there. :confused: I know we used both in Croatia a couple of years ago so I'm not sure what to make of that. Will have dollars and euros as a backup/last resort for tipping.

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Sparky333.... Not sure if this info will help but we will be doing this trip in a few days and I too called to set travel notifications with our credit cards. One if my CC said if we are somewhere where they use the chip or pin and our credit card won't work, ask the merchant to manually enter the card # and expiration date. We'll see how that goes. Usually we do not use our CC but get local currency with our ATM debit card. Last year we traveled to Poland, Bratislava, CZ and Germany and had no problems getting cash from ATM's. Hope this helps.

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

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suspaul -- I do have a chip & pin c/c so I don't think that's what the rep was talking about -- he mentioned international sanctions from uprisings years ago. I really don't think he understood completely what he was talking about. I'm pretty sure we won't have a problem due to the Kosovo conflict in 1999!

Thanks for the heads up, though, a lot of folks don't know about the need for chip & pin cards in some countries.

 

Have a great trip! :)

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