How do you pay for your casino expenses

I visit the casino nightly when I cruise. I will be travelling alone this next cruise out of NYC. I really do not want to carry a lot of cash but do not want to pay the 3% fee on the ship either to get cash. Adding it to my bill is just too tempting to overspend and I really do not want to see that at the end.

How do you manage your cash for the casino? Will the ship cash a personal check?

I visit the casino nightly when I cruise. I will be travelling alone this next cruise out of NYC. I really do not want to carry a lot of cash but do not want to pay the 3% fee on the ship either to get cash. Adding it to my bill is just too tempting to overspend and I really do not want to see that at the end.

 

How do you manage your cash for the casino? Will the ship cash a personal check?

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOO riddle: How do I manage my cash for the casino? I bring it with me. I may carry money with me, but, it is better than the 3% surcharge to your onboard account.

I visit the casino nightly when I cruise. I will be travelling alone this next cruise out of NYC. I really do not want to carry a lot of cash but do not want to pay the 3% fee on the ship either to get cash. Adding it to my bill is just too tempting to overspend and I really do not want to see that at the end.

 

How do you manage your cash for the casino? Will the ship cash a personal check?

We have a nightly limit and take what we can afford to lose. Don't know what cruise line you'll be on but on RCI ships, they will cash one personal check for up to $200 with an AM X card. The fees to withdraw money from their casinos is 5% now, was 3%. No fee if your a VIP member with their player's club, Club Royale.

Have a great cruise and wishing you good luck in the casino! :)

On NCL I pre-arrange a credit line before departing, then I bring a check and can use whatever I want up to the pre-arranged ammount. When I am done I fill out the ammount needed to cover my credit limit and am done. No extra charges.

On Princess I bought casino cash gifts to myself, a few hundred each month before my cruise. They have the vouchers in your cabin when you board and you just take them to the casino cage to cash them in, no fee. It's good for getting extra cash to use ashore as well.

Sue

On NCL I pre-arrange a credit line before departing, then I bring a check and can use whatever I want up to the pre-arranged ammount. When I am done I fill out the ammount needed to cover my credit limit and am done. No extra charges.

+1 If you have a good sized budget, this is the way to do it.

On Princess I bought casino cash gifts to myself, a few hundred each month before my cruise.

Where do you find this? I wonder if Carnival has something similar.

Where do you find this? I wonder if Carnival has something similar.

Click on the Gifts and Services link then

Onboard gift credits

Then Casino Credit Item #6005 for $100

I think Carnival may have something similar, but I haven't sailed them yet.

Sue

I am not sure CCL does the casino cash thing also. Go to the Carnival website and look under "manage" and "In room gifts and shopping" - they have bar cash and cruise cash but not specific casino cash. I suppose you could do the cruise cash but those are not transferable.. if you don't use it all you can't get it back! I would not recommend that.

But another option if it is just being afraid to carry cash with you is Traveler's Checks. The Casino cage and the Guest Services desk will cash them for you.

But I think the safest way is to do the Line of Credit thing. Call the Carnival Players Club or email them at casino@carnival.com and ask about getting per-approved for a line of credit. You provide them with some banking info and then they allow you to get x dollars at the cage with no fee. Then you have up to 15 days (I think) to settle with them via check or credit card (or you can pay up at the cage at the end of the trip if you want)

Where do you find this? I wonder if Carnival has something similar.

You can also buy Carnival Gift cards to apply to your account. If you don't use it all, you do get it back in the form of a balance on the gift card.

On the Carnival site, scroll to the bottom and just click Gift Card for more info

We always bring travelers checks. They cash them in the casino for no charge. Although we usually get money from our account because we are to lazy to go to the room and get the travelers checks, but at least we have them. :D

I'm a big fan of cash....why do you object to bringing it? Larger bills are easy to carry...the ship can break them down, if you need to. Now, if you're planning on bringing tens of thousands, I can see why you wouldn't want to travel with that! But, a couple thou....easy to carry!

We always use cash for gambling....bring what you can afford to lose (as that is the usual outcome!) consider it "entertainment expense" and don't worry about it!

CCL does not charge a surcharge fee.

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I'm a big fan of cash....why do you object to bringing it? Larger bills are easy to carry...the ship can break them down, if you need to. Now, if you're planning on bringing tens of thousands, I can see why you wouldn't want to travel with that! But, a couple thou....easy to carry!

 

We always use cash for gambling....bring what you can afford to lose (as that is the usual outcome!) consider it "entertainment expense" and don't worry about it!

It's not that money is so hard to carry, but losing it BEFORE you reach the casino (even if I can "afford" to lose it) is a real risk. It happens. I can lose a couple thou in a casino, but having it fall on the floor somewhere or get lifted has no "entertainment" value at all for me. So, like the OP, I look for some alternative to get money onboard with no risk and no fees.

Using Carnival cash to pay your S&S account will still have you paying the 3% fee. Premier cruises are nice in that they waive the 3% fee. I have used travelers cheques for 2% fee to buy them. Now I'm going with the credit line. I'm going to use a credit card check to pay the line so that I get rewards points, but will have a personal check just in case.

CCL does not charge a surcharge fee.

Carnival does charge a 3% fee if you use your S&S account to buy chips for table games. There is no fee for slot machines.

U can sit at the poker pro table n charge I think it was up to $1,500 a day on your room and then just go to the cashier n cash out how much u want without the 3% fee

CCL does not charge a surcharge fee.

 

 

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Carnival DOES charge a fee for charging funds to your card at the tables. If you do it at the cage for slots, they don't. IF you do this a couple of times and then cash the money in, they will freeze your account.

If you do it at the cage for slots, they don't. IF you do this a couple of times and then cash the money in, they will freeze your account.

Some say they do. Some say they don't. Carnival knows for sure and they ain talkin.

Hopefully the cash I bring will get me through 14 days. If I have to charge my sail and sign, hopefully it won't be very often ;)

We carry lots of cash.

ATM charges maybe $5 to take out a $1000.... that is less than 1%.

Of course, those people that take out $50 at a time are paying heavy.

I buy e-gift cards through Verizon at 10% off. Apply to my room when I get on board then charge everything to the room. Never been charged a fee and always know where I am within my budget.

wow never heard of that. Great info! Thanks

We just carry cash.

DH and I will visit the casino every day, so we have a daily set limit. I place each day's limit in an envelope and label it with the day to use, then all the envelopes go into the safe when we get to the room. We take only the day's money out and gamble with that; whatever is left over at the end of the day goes into the "Pay the Bill" envelope, also in the safe. Toward the end of the week, we take the "Pay the Bill" envelope and apply all the funds inside to our onboard account.

If for some reason we skip a day in the casino, the entire contents of that envelope goes into "Pay the Bill".

So far, on all our cruises, we've always had at least enough to pay off the entire on board bill and often take extra home. Lucky? Maybe so, but we also like to think its because we just don't gamble more than our daily amount, so some days we win and some we may not, but in the end, we usually end up even.

We just charge to our sign and sail and make sure to keep up with what our balance is. Carnival makes it easy because of the kiosks. I print out a balance every night on the way back to the cabin.

It is easy to go over, I will admit, but even if I did bring cash I would still have to have the willpower to not use the sign and sail card once my cash was gone. So I don't see any advantage to bringing my gambling money as all cash. Th sign and sail card will be a temptation no matter what.

I buy e-gift cards through Verizon at 10% off. Apply to my room when I get on board then charge everything to the room. Never been charged a fee and always know where I am within my budget.

I was just looking around in the casino area for info like this.I can get 10% off as well with our citi card and was wondering if they give you a hard time gambling with the e cards ?

We already bought 10 x $100 ecards for $900 and I was going to buy another 10 today, its like having another $200 total in OBC to spend

Has anyone done this and can confirm no problems using in the casino ?

Thanks