Feel free to ignore me, because I
am an internet stranger offering you financial advice, but I figured out a system to use on my cruise in January. This was the first time I've gone on a trip since high school that I didn't go hundreds of dollars over budget (I actually came in about $30
under budget). I built my trip budget in Excel, breaking expenses out by category, then used that information to build a series of tables in Word, one for each day of the trip, in which I could track how much I expected to spend that day, how much was left over from the previous day, and then, of course, how much I actually spent.
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Sorry if it's not clear from the image what's going on there -- for some reason I chose one of the most complicated days to take a picture of it (my excursion had been cancelled and I moved the money from it into other categories). The "Wiggle Room" didn't initially have any money in it, but I ended up having extra money because my flight was delayed and I didn't spend a night in a hotel before embarkation, and then I used that category to pay off extra drinks through the whole cruise. I kept track of everything by taking a photo of the receipt every time I made a purchase, and then whenever I happened to be back in my stateroom for a couple minutes I'd comb through my photos on my phone, copy the amounts into my table, then delete the photo so I wouldn't accidentally count it twice.
I traveled solo and didn't take advantage of the spa or really any excursions after the only one I'd booked was cancelled, so I was less likely to hit the limit and have my credit card charged. I just used my gift cards and Disney Visa Reward Card to pay down my balance on the second to last day, but you could certainly do it earlier in the cruise. On future trips I may add a line for tracking how much is currently charged to my onboard account just to be sure I'm nowhere near the threshold.