How do you pay your onboard account?

Having just returned from my own cruise one of the discussions before we traveled was how are we going to settle our on board account.
We didn’t want to use our bank debit cards as the cruise lines make a hold each day on your account and this can take weeks after you have been returned to be released back into your bank.

The options you have are charging everything to your credit card or debit card or paying by cash.

If you pay be credit or debit card the cruise lines take a hold on your accounts to ensure that enough funds are available to cover your on line account , this can be one large amount which differs depending on the length of your cruise or a daily hold which can mean you are unable to access money from your cards.

On check in for our last cruise with Royal Caribbean there were people who had pre paid onto currency credit card to pay for there on board accounts but Royal Caribbean wouldn’t accept them which left these passengers in a quandary.

We had already decided to pay ours by cash and had taken $500.00 with us expecting on check in to be asked to put the account in credit, we were surprised when we were told that no we didn’t need to pay any cash Royal Caribbean had automatically given us a $500 credit limit.

If our on board spends went over the $500.00 they advised us that a note would be out under our door asking us to settle the amount and then another $500.00 would be given.

This was so much easier  and the day before disembarkation we settled our account with the cash we had taken and no holds had been put on any debit or credit cards allowing us to use this freely whilst in the ports .

Its certainly a way I will be handling my on board account in the future and will be recommending to my clients.