Cruise lessons
Hi, Rick.
I love cruisin', its one of our favorite vacations. I've been on 5 different cruises and my sweetie's been on 6. Our most recent was a 7 day Alaskan cruise in August. :inlove:
Here's some things we've learned:
1. Its not necessary to schedule a shore excursion at every stop. Pick one or two excursions you most want to do and stick with that. Save your $$ on the rest.
2. Be careful with buying stuff from the ship's store or the stores right at the dock, they can be overpriced and/or of lesser quality. If you do buy from shoreside vendors, pay cash if possible. We've had credit card numbers stolen and I'm sure it was someone in one of those stores. :-x
3. Since you don't pay cash for drinks aboard the boat, its very easy to way overspend for alcohol
On our first cruise, my wife's bar bill was about 10 items, my bill took 4 pages to list!!!
4. Don't overpack. Keep it simple, but do follow Liesl_s's suggestion and dress up for dinner.
5. Speaking of dinner, don't be afraid to order anything and everything that looks good. The ship does not care if you order 3 entree's and 5 deserts each. Those at your table may want to go in with you and share an extra entree or two. If you order something and don't like it, send it back and get something else. Be good and friendly to the wait staff and you'll be surprised at how well they'll take care of you.
If you opted for a scheduled dinner seating where you'll have the same staff each time, so much the better.
6. Your cabin steward is another person you'll want to engage early on. If there's anything special you might need in your cabin, he'll be the one to ask.
7. It will be cold and windy on deck your first day and last day at sea, so dress appropriately.
8. I like to bring along several scopalomine patches for motion sickness, prescription required. I always wear one when I'm offshore fishing.
9. Participate in shipboard activities - dance lessons, trivia games, etc... They're usually lots of fun and you can meet cool folks with the same interests as you. 8)
10. Relax, relax, relax. Don't let youself get caught up in rush, rush, rush. Plan plenty of lounging time. :bum: Each day, they'll give you a newsletter with the day's schedule of events. Use that to plan your time and activities.
11. The ship's size and layout can be very confusing at first. Don't worry about it, everyone else is lost too. :?
12. The slots in the casino don't pay out very well at all, but it can be fun to participate in a slot tournament if they have them.
They usually only have one formal dinners on each cruise and the rest are semi-formal. But you'll want to dress well in the dining room every night. Most other folks in there will be dressed up too. Also, they may have some themed dinners, you'll want to participate in those too.
Have fun and enjoy yourselves. Give us a report when you get back.
Steve
