During our NCL cruises in Europe on the Mediterranean on two separate cruise ships (the Norwegian Spirit and Jade), we found that it was possible to exchange dollars into Euro or GBP (British Pound) at the front desk. For Turkey (Istanbul & Kusadasi) and Croatia (Dubrovnik & Split), however, they did not have an exchange service for Turkish Lira or Croatian Kuna. The official policy and availability, as well as commission charged by Norwegian Cruise Line, is as follows:
A $10.00 commission is applied each time a currency transaction is made, regardless of amount purchased.
The $10.00 commission also applies when exchanging the above currencies (Euro or GBP) back to US Dollars. Please note the rate for exchanging currencies back to US Dollars differs from the rate the currency was purchased at.
For Euro Traveller's Checks $10.00 USD commission also applies. 500 Euro & above 2% commission also applies.
Due to limited supply of smaller denominations of Euro notes onboard, we are unable to assist solely for breaking large Euro notes into smaller bills.
We are unable to accept Euro foreign coins for exchange.
Euros will be available/accepted for exchange for refunds only until the 10 PM (before the disembarkation day of the cruise).
Tip: Most of the ports we visit use euros. We recommend that you estimate your total spending for all ports and only change your money once to save on the commission.
Note that the exchange rates shown below were from our cruise several months ago, so be sure to do your research on what constitutes a good/bad rate before going on the ship.
Luckily, we did not have to do any money exchange aboard the ships as we relied mostly on our credit card which did not charge a foreign transaction fee. But for those of you who must do so, try and just do it one time as NCL suggests to save on the fee they assess. For Turkish Lira, we found that the rates charged by exchange companies at or near the bazaars were reasonable and commission-free. In Dubrovnik and Split, we also found that most vendors were fine with accepting US dollars- interestingly enough they would rather take USD over Euros.
