You spent what????!!

$$$$$$$$$$$$

Five or so days into our holiday we came in to our cabin to find our preliminary bill on our bed....

All cruise ships operate a cashless system whereby you are issued with a seapass card when you embark and this functions as your room key, your charge card and your ID for getting on and off the ship in every port.... what you charge to your card is automatically debited from your credit card at the end of your cruise...While Elena and Alex's card did not have their charge facility activated we decided to allow it on Darrelle's in case she was with her friends and needed to buy something not included...

Can you see where this is going?

All was fine until 5 days into the cruise and we were perusing the statement left in to the cabin.. glancing quickly at the total my first thought was 'things really add up!!).. then I started ticking off each transaction and all was easily expalined until I came to a transaction for :

From the number on the statement we were able to trace it back to Darrelle:

'You spent what????'

In fairness she had been really reluctant to use it.. in fact I think she was a bit daunted by having a credit card of sorts to use and had maybe only used it 2 or 3 times, each time having checked with her Dad was it ok to buy a Ben & Jerry's or get some credit in the arcade so to be hit with $893.10... She was stumped!

She started mentally retracing her steps.... her purchases... we wondered had anybody taken her card.... figured it must be a mistake....

A necessary visit to the Main Desk cleared it up very quickly:

Turned out she had run up almmost $900 on......

.... the internet....

Except that she had not been online at all.... She had  however attempted to get online one evening and had reported back to me how she had tried to go online but it hadn't worked...whereas in fact it had...... and she was online for..... well almost $900 's worth... Roughly it would have meant her spending almost 23 hours in front of the computer so in a way we were lucky it was such an exhoribant amount... It added to her credibility and luckily it was refunded to our account!!!  Darrelle was one relieved young lady.... Think it would have taken her a while to work off that one:)))

End of drama.... It was very expensive to go online on the ship and in fact I am writing this from the comfort of home... as you may have gathered....so this is the cheapskate's version to holiday blogging!!!!

Plus I get to relive it a little.... and it puts a bit of order on the holiday photos......