How Much Cash Should You Bring Aboard a Cruise?

Wondering how much spending money to bring along on your cruise?

Actually, you won't need a lot. Oh, there's plenty to spend money on, but most lines use a cashless system aboard the ship. When you check in, you'll get a credit-card-looking thing that will be your room key, identification card, and your swipe card.

Whenever you want to pay for something on board the ship, you just hand over your card to be swiped. This generates a tab that is charged to your credit card at the end of the trip (or you can choose to pay the balance off on the last day with cash, traveler's checks, etc.).

So, you don't need cash aboard the cruise ship itself (though you will want to be careful not to run up too much of a tab!), but of course you'll need some for going off the ship at various ports of call. In most places, though, you can use your credit card (which is often safer anyway), so you don't need to bring a lot of cash along on your cruise vacation.