Cruise ships shopping ashore · Shopping Ashore in Cruise ships
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Shopping Ashore in Cruise ships
Shopping Ashore in Cruise ships
Shopping remains a highly-popular activity, with most ports offering at least handicrafts and souvenirs reflecting the destination. Others offer wide ranges of merchandise, to include clothing, electronics, jewelry and consumables. A crude rule of thumb: the farther you venture from the dock area, the lower the prices may be for given types of items. If there is a chance that you'll use your credit or debit card card:
Let the issuing bank know in-advance where you'll be traveling.
Follow good practices for ensuring it won't be lost, and won't be misused by others.
Cruises to certain destinations may stop at ports offering serious shopping...duty-free and/or highly competitive, e.g., Saint Martin and Saint Thomas in the Caribbean, and (perhaps except for "designer stores") Hong Kong and Singapore. For example discussion of duty-free shopping and customs obligations, see Saint Thomas#Buy. If inclined to seriously shop somewhere not familiar, do some on-line research about what to expect, stores, tax/duty, and what to watch out for.
The ship may have a port shopping adviser who can provide useful information and may recommend certain merchants. Those advisers are often employed by the cruise line or merchandising firms that receive very large fees from the merchants they recommend. This does not impeach the reputation of those merchants, nor does it impeach the worthiness of their competitors. But it may mean increase the prices seen. In desirable shopping locales, most merchants are quite responsible.
At other locations, take care with final costs beyond labeled or negotiated prices, e.g., duty, or tax such as Europe's VAT not reflected in prices...often 17-25%. Though eligible for them, you may be able to obtain refunds only at certain places, e.g., airports as you leave the customs jurisdiction to return home, and only for each purchase that exceeds a substantial amount. The last cruise port for a ship exiting such a jurisdiction may have no "standing", nor the port an office offering or processing refunds. Getting refunds by applying by mail after you are home will be problematic.
Such challenges cause serious shoppers to seek-out cruises to and wait to reach truly duty/tax-free and highly-competitive locales. Wherever you shop, know what you're getting and what it costs elsewhere.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Cruise ships
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Cruise ships Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.