The wife banks at a credit union, and it took them years to get the card set up for international access. We actually have a picture of her beaming when the ATM in China actually spit out some cash. Since then it's worked just fine.

I would assume Bank of America would be much better at setting it up than her credit union was.

Until it works I would either get a prepaid travel card to put funds into or bring cash. For your cruise, depending on the line, you may be able to cash checks at the purser's desk or add it to your shipboard, and you can exchange money on board. Some AAA's for example are making the back of their membership cards a prepaid AmEx card that will also work at ATM's across the world, something like that.

Make sure your PIN is four digits as already mentioned and not the old six digit ones, and that you know your PIN as numbers and not letters, as some foreign ATM's have the letters on different keys.