wildzinnia

Went on a cruise on NCL Gem in November, and had rough seas on our way out of NYC and back. Walking down the hallways was a bit interesting.

We have always been able to ask the room steward to remove the items EXCEPT for once. For some reason (and this wasn't a good room steward all the way around) he refused to remove them from our room (I had already taken everything out and placed it on the vanity in front of the mirror) and said it has to remain in the room. I told him it was in our way and taking up space and he still refused. :(

This happened to us too. Our steward said he didn't want to remove the items from the room because sometimes they go missing (from where ever they keep them) and it's harder to keep track of. He put them on the top shelf. But our steward wasn't the best either. He'd only half make the bed (pull the covers up, but not make up the sheets underneath).

For me, this was my first cruise and I was unsure how it would work with having holds on my cc. Plus I had a major issue with the customer service at my cc the past month or so, and I just didn't want to spend the whole cruise worrying about it.

As far as earning interest on the money, the pennies I would've gotten weren't even worth the worrying I would have done. I was much happier using cash and having a relaxing vacation.

And at the end of my vacation, my DH actually admitted that using a cash account kept him from buying more expensive items from the gift shop, so it helped us stay on budget as well.

Just got off the Gem yesterday from a 9 day cruise. We did not prepay our service charges and only put 400 on our cash account (for my DH and I). They didn't ask for a minimum or question the amount I gave at all.

Just got off the Gem today, so hopefully this info would also apply to the Breakaway. When we checked in and they set up our key cards, we were asked if we wanted to use a credit card. I explained that I would prefer to use a cash account and we were told to see Guest Services to set that up once on board. So we stopped there first after we boarded, waited in line and when we got up to the counter, the rep simply asked us how much we wanted to put on the account. Nothing was mentioned about a minimum or anything like that.

This morning, a copy of our account info with charges was outside our door along with a letter explaining that a check would be mailed to the address on file if there was cash remaining on the account, but we could also get it by visiting Guest Services (which I chose to do, seemed ridiculous to wait for a check for five dollars and change).