People Keep Falling For These 7 Crafty Cruise Port Tricks!

When I went to Lisbon the first time, we took a cab who offered the three of us a tour for $70 for all three of us. We spent the entire day seeing Lisbon sights, he would stop, tell us to go down this street and he would pick us up at the end of the street in 45 min to an hour, he took us to an excellent and inexpensive local restaurant, and we had a great day. It was an excellent tour! His charge, $70. We tipped him well, but it was one of the best experiences ever!

I have never fallen for a scam on any holiday and i have perfected the fck off and leave me alone face so i rarely get any hassle. Just remember 99% of the crap you buy on holiday will just end up stuck somewhere in a cupboard. Enjoy the experience you don't need to shop 24/7

In many countries taxi drivers are the worst scammers. But not in Istanbul, I overpaid a taxi driver who then went all his way to find me at a private reception to return the money. I gave him a large tip and thanked him profusely. A honest man

Just to put things in perspective: I recently got home from a 4-week trip around Egypt, most of it solo. I didn’t get scammed or have any trouble at all, as I know the ropes there pretty well. Four entire weeks — not a single problem. So I fly home, and have to spend a night in the big city as I have missed the last train home to my small town a couple of hours away. Exhausted (I hadn’t had any sleep for about two days), I dropped my bag in the hotel room, grabbed just my wallet, and headed across the street for a quick meal before I collapsed. Within one minute of leaving my hotel, my wallet was lifted out of my pocket — right outside the second-largest police station in the country. Luckily, my travel wallet never holds more than one credit card and a small amount of Egyptian currency. I cancelled the card instantly, so no financial loss, but lesson learned: your own home base can be just as risky as the big wide world. Or, to put it differently — the big wide world isn’t necessarily more dangerous than your own home base.

I got news for ya sparky: If you bought a $250 shirt on vacation, you were scammed already.

There are so many nationalities represented on a cruise ship. I always recommend asking someone on the cruise staff if they're local to the port you're visiting. Our Jamaican head waiter hooked us up with his cousin for an island tour. She also met us at the end of Dunns River Falls and escorted us through the very aggressive market, telling people to leave us alone. :-) As two young single women, we never felt safer. The locals may not worry about scamming you, but I trust the cruise staff.

Watch for spa scams on the ship too! I booked a birthday massage when I was on QM2 and the massage was great, but after, the therapist said she wanted to give me something, and put a few products she used in a bag. I thought it was a gift or possibly included with the massage considering the cost. Got to the front desk and she’s handing me receipt after receipt, for the massage, for the service tip, and then a $300 charge for those products! I cam back about an hour later and returned them. The spa didn’t see, happy but I was not going to pay for overpriced spa products!

I’ve watched so many travel scam videos, and I’m going to keep doing it! I always think I’ve got them down, I know what to do and not do, then some brand new scam pops up! I saw Ilana’s video about the purse scam in Turkey. I NEVER would have been watching for that. Thanks to all of you cruise YouTubers for looking out for us, and making us aware!

Even here in the states I take pictures of a rental car before I take it and when I drop it off.

I and my wife were in Barcelona when we were approached by a man who spoke colloquial north country English. He was carrying a suitcase and stated he had overspent his money and had to get to the airport to catch a flight. He wanted money for a taxi. The way he carried the suitcase seemed to indicate nothing inside. I suggested he go to the British Consulate and ask them as I too was flat broke.

We went to Cozumel, and my husband took a photo with someone who was in costume but told him we had no cash. The guy told him it's ok and asked if we could just buy him a water so we got him a big bottle. I kept telling my husband they work for donations, but he didn't listen, so we were lucky he was kind.

While on a trip to Europe, we stopped in Cologne, Germany. I spotted a woman holding what appeared to be a sick and weak child. She was begging for money to get help for her child. I gave her a Euro and went on the excursion. When we got back on the bus our guide told us not to give money to the 'gypsies' because they drug their children to make them look sick and weak in order to get more money. I wish our guide had told us about this before we left the bus.

Great tips, Gary! I appreciate you keeping us in the loop. Unfortunately scammers are everywhere. NYC is full of them as well. Last week I saw a person who was pretending to be a Buddhist Monk in Timesquare. He was putting small cards with golden Buddhas in peoples hands and saying its for good luck. Then asking for donations to rebuild his temple and getting quite aggresive if someone refused. I was filming Broll for a project I am working on and I saw him (2 hours later) walk down 2 blocks, take off the robe and get into an 80,000 dollar tesla to drive away. I didn't know Buddhist Monks drove electric!

In Naples a few years ago, we had the opposite experience with a Taxi driver. We agreed a price for 4 people (ourselves and 2 Canadian women.) He took us to Sorrento, Positano and Pompei stopping at some photo locations along the way and giving us time to wander around each town and location by ourselves. Thoroughly nice man and would not hesitate to use him again (if we could ever find him.)

This is one reason why I always take the ship’s excursions and in over 25 cruises, never had a problem.

Good advice... I spotted another kind of scam last week. I was at a big concert with a friend and we needed to buy tickets for public transit from the ticket machines. Many of the machines were labelled as out of service and the two that worked had a long line, but we knew that type of machine often had issues so we thought nothing of it. It appeared that the line was slow because neither machine managed to read cards. People were trying multiple cards but eventually they had to give up and pay with cash. An older gentleman was staying near the machines and helping people through the process of paying by clicking through the procedure on the screen, he said he was local and happy to help, because the machines often had issues. In exchange for his help he was asking for coins and small bills, which many other travellers were giving, because they were honestly confused by the ticket machine and unable to complete the purchase on their own. When we and my friend got near the head of the line, we noticed that the gentleman was actually pressing a button to cancel the payment before the machine had read the card. He hid this by talking a lot and pointing elsewhere, like asking to check if it was asking for the card's PIN code, and he was tapping on the screen multiple times under the guise of 'sometimes it gets stuck'. When it came to our turn, I physically put my body sideways to block him from touching the screen as he was trying to do even though I told him we didn't need help. Sure enough without his assistance, the machine worked and we were able to pay with a card in no time. I told the people after us that 'the machines are fine now' and I think they understood what had been going on. I thought it was just a trick to ask for a few coins, but the place was crowded and it could have been a way for an accomplice to check how much cash people were carrying and where we kept it.

We travelled to Vanuatu and stayed in Port Vila for one week. The prices in the shops were quite reasonable and we bought a few things. The day before a cruise ship was going to dock locals told us to buy what we wanted that day because all the prices would be doubled over night. We saw shop owners changing the price tickets. The next day we looked in the shops and it was as they said. Prices more than doubled in some cases.

I had an attempted pickpocket in Italy on a crowded train, and had my pocket picked on a crowded bus in Italy. Beware of people pressing against you in a crowded place.

I would also advise people to not take any free drinks from vendors or merchants in ports of call. On my first cruise the Liner made an announcement cautioning travelers to avoid drinking anything free, and only consuming from local restaurants. It was because of this announcement that I saw why this is so important. People at the port of call were trying to drug people with free drinks laced with something so they could steal their stuff or keep them hostage.

My friend always wears a plastic Casio watch. She says Pick pocket will see you are both cheap and careful.