Thread: How Much Do you Usually Charge on Your Shipboard Account

Originally Posted by MCcruiser

Alisa, do you use a cruise company credit card? With all those purchases, you could really earn a lot of points!

MC - you bet I do! I have an RCI credit card and it already has enough points racked up on it for a couple hundred dollars on board ship credit for my next cruise! getting those double points for spending money on RCI stuff sure does help!

Are you including excursions?? OMG, we may as well buy the ship!

I feel like we are BIG Spenders here. I usually pre pay for our excursion so that does not count. Here is what we normally spend. Bar tab runs about $450 with one to two bottles of Asti champagne every night and of course DH also has a few cokes along the way.(We do not bother with a drink card) Then I might have a drink later in the evening and DH will probably have a few beers druing the week. Then I go to the spa for at least one day. That might be $150.00. Then there is the gift shop, I often buy a piece of Swarvoski crystal then we like to pick up golf shirts with the ships logo. So let's say our gift shop tab is $450. Next is the internet charge I usually buy the $100 package if I bring my laptop and report from the ship daily so with the hookup fee that is $115.00.Can't forget going to the Pinnacle there is $40. I think that gives me a total of $1205.00 and that does not even include pictures and the $140.00 for tips. Thankfully I do prepay our excursion. As far as budgeting we know we are going to spend over $1000 and I pay off our credit card monthly.
Looking at this I wonder if all of you are tea totalers that have no fun. Only joking but I cannot see how you can have such low totals. Good for you that you can spend so little

It's always more than I want.

Lisa, for me personally I think that our bill is just lower than most others because of the fact that we are all non-drinkers. I buy the soda package and thats about it as far as spending. I normally cruise with my parents and they are also both non-drinkers. My mom is content with water all the time and my dad is a coffee drinker. As for pictures my mom doesn't really care and neither does my dad. I usually buy around $100 worth but thats it. My parents don't do souveniers either. And all I usually get from the ship gift shop is a shot glass and perhaps a postcard. And my dad and I might do the speciality restuarant, so thats $20 for the 2 of us. Then there's like 2 rounds of bingo, so thats like $70, but beyond tips, theres really nothing else. We don't do the spa and we don't really spend on anything else.

For me, cruising is reward enough. Besides, I'm only 25 and don't make that much money. If I spend too much, I won't have enough money to take a future cruise!

I can't vote because as I said it really depends on the length of the cruise.

Tips are a big factor on HAL. Just for 7 days for the two os that is $140 - which automatically goes onto your shipboard account.

We booked a couple of excursions on our last cruise which were not on the list for pre-booking - over $250 right there. So for 14 days - back-to-back cruises the tips were $280 + excursions at $250. Then we always eat at the Pinnacle at least 2 times per week - $160 and we always buy a bottle of wine when we are there - another $150 total. And we always have some drinks some evenings before dinner. And then there are the after dinner drinks.

Our bills can be high.

On our 1st cruise the charge account was about $1500.00.I spent at least half of that amount being pampered in the spa. On our second cruise that amount was about a $1000.00.Not as much pampering since the spa on the Grand wasn't as nice as the spa on the Caribbean. Who knows what the Golden will bring.
P.S. Yes that was me in the $1200-$1500 range.

Kathy:

Thats some serious pampering. Must be dealing with those nutty customers every day. Of course I could get the bar bill up to that level if necessary. Must be dealing with those crazy students every day.

I'll say about 500 a week