As I said
the other day, I recently had reason to consider what I would want to know before my first cruise. Well, if something is worth doing it is worth overdoing. How about another ten?
1.) Do I Really Need A Passport?
Assuming you don't need a passport to reach your port of embarkation (say heading to Barcelona for a Mediterranean cruise), is a passport necessary?
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| Don't Leave Home Without It? |
Passports are recommended (as is trip insurance) although on a closed loop cruise, neither is currently required and I've cruised with friends who were perfectly happy to cruise on other approved forms of proof of citizenship. As always, things are subject to change. I wouldn't cruise without, but it's about your comfort level with risk. (The risk is if something happened and you needed to fly back to the states, how would you handle that without a passport?) So maybe you need one.
2.) Get The Pool and Slides To Yourself.
If you pack swimsuits in your carry-on bag,
the first afternoon the pools are much emptier.
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| My two enjoying the Mickey Pool at opening. |
It will probably remain relatively empty on port days, first thing in the morning and during either of the dinner seating times.
3.) Just a Tip
Room service is included, but tips aren't. (An envelope of ones will make tipping easy). Tipping a dollar a plate or a dollar a person is customary.
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| Room service = Mickey Bars 24/7 |
Disney will automatically charge a gratuity to your stateroom for your room steward and your dining team. If you wish to adjust these up or down, contact guest services at any time.
4.) The What, Where and When
A "Personal Navigator" with the next day's schedule will be left in your stateroom during turn down service each evening. Extra copies are available at Guest Services. If you're techy,
there's an app for that.
5.) Avoiding Phone Bill Surprises
If you're going to use your iPhone during the cruise for just photos, double check your cellular data is off and airplane mode is on.
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| Photography only! |
International rates = bad.
6.) Safety First!
There is a mandatory muster (safety drill) the first afternoon.
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| Back in the day, lifejackets were required. |
Don't wear the lifejackets to it.
7.) Let's Do It Again!
8.) Keep The Peace
Let your kids spend as much time in the club as they want. First family cruise we kept pulling them out for half or more of the day. Chris particularly, since he enjoys vegging (he hardly ever watches TV at home) more than participating in the club activities.
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| Like mosquitos to a porch light... |
Then we realized this was their vacation too. If the want to spend super long in the club lounging and whiling away the day on video games we let them.
9.) Side Effects
Try out any
seasickness remedies you plan to use during your cruise ahead of your vacation. If you're going to experience side effects, you might as well know that before you're on a ship.
10.) Do Less, Enjoy More
Like a trip to Walt Disney World, you
cannot do it all. Also like a trip to Disney, if you try to do it all, you won't enjoy your trip as much as you could by embracing a "do less, enjoy more" mantra.
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| Relaxing before dinner. |
I'm still easing into this as I am still a
Recovering Disney Parks Commando.
Do you have any great tips that I missed?
Any tricks that help bring more magic to your cruise?
Please me know in the comments!
All great tips! The mobile phone could be a real shocker! I like to turn it off and stay disconnected for a few days.
ReplyDeleteMore great tips! Thanks so much for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteLove the extra tips! :)
ReplyDeleteAfter our 1st cruise we noticed that we were all over the place with what we wanted to do and missed events that we would have liked to attend. So we started to bring a different color highlighter for each family member to mark what they wanted to do in the Navigator. Sometimes we'd highlight together the night before and sometimes at breakfast. We got 2 Navigators because my teenager often went off on his own to participate in activities at Vibe. Highlighting made it easy to visualize when we'd do things together as a couple, family or individuals.
ReplyDeleteI love the new DCL Navigator app because it lets you set reminders for the activities you want to do and share favorite-d activities through the app. So much easier than color coding. Plus I get to keep a nice clean copy for my scrapbook!
DeleteThat sounds like an update worth looking into the next time we sail. The Navigator app was pretty new when we sailed on the Fantasy in 2012, and there wasn't much you could do with it so I didn't bother with it on our next 2 sailings. Thank you for the info! :)
DeleteIt's a wonderful app! We loved the phone to phone texting feature. Much easier to use our normal phones than the wave phones.
ReplyDelete