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Cruise Tips
Cruise ship tips- Don’t overpack, you don’t need three suitcases of clothing for a five-day cruise. Book a room that fits your family or friends, don’t try to shove four people into one room with one bathroom, get two adjoining rooms instead. The balcony’s rooms are best, they make the room feel so much bigger and the views are great. When you get to embarkation day have all your documents ready for security. Make sure that you keep everything that you need for the day with you as your checked luggage won’t arrive outside of your state room till late afternoon usually. Do the muster drill as soon as the ship lets you, it is mandatory and could be either on your phone or in person depending on what the ship decides. Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the layout of the ship. We do suggest that when they announce that the cabins are available and now open, you should go to your cabin. Your luggage should be in the hall by your room and your sea card will be by the room door in a slot. We recommend that you put a hole in the sea card (guest services will punch a hole in it for you) and attach it to a lanyard. You need your sea card to enter your room, buy drinks, buy stuff, sometime turn on the electricity in the room, get off and on the ship (along with your passport) in ports.
Always bring an old plastic card from a hotel, gift card, with you on a cruise, you will be able to put that card into the slot in the room to turn on electric (if ship has the feature) instead of your sea card.
Most cruise lines have an App, you should download before your cruise. Some of the App’s will let you send text messages to friends and family on the same cruise if you’re on their Wi-Fi. You can also bring walkie talkies to contact each other if you like.
One of the questions that we see the most about is passports off the ship while you are in a port. This is our answer: We would NEVER step off the ship without these seven things, whether is a foreign country or a US port.
1. Passport
2. Driver’s license
3. Credit Card
4. Debt Card
5. Cash
6. Cell phone
7. Ship Card
The reason is simple with those seven items, if you miss the ship for whatever reason you will be able to get back home.