"Cynthesis of other people's good ideas for cruising"

If you didn’t know, I love to talk about travel – and more specifically cruise travel. I don’t know how it happened. But, it happened.

My spouse and I went on our first cruise about 15 years ago and after that experience, the odds were very not good we would never do that again. I was a little over-zealous with my planning for that trip. And, no, I did not listen to Daddy’s advice. I knew exactly what we should do. As I said before, children always know better than the parents…..

I won’t recount the mistakes, but I will tell you about how we righted the wrongs and how started to love cruising.

Found that cruises left from local ports near home – New Jersey and New York are a bus or limo ride away. In fact there are so many options now for embarkation points now you can choose lots of locations other than Florida
Read Blogs and other websites that provide all types of cruising advise. When reviewing these sites, understand that someone will always find something to complain about – read the good and the bad since the truth is in between
You really do want to spend the extra money for the balcony room on a ship. The extra room and the fresh air are very important when you are living in a space under 500sq ft.
If you have to fly to your embarkation location, plan to be there a day ahead of your sailing date. I could write a whole story (with much humor of course) on what happens when you plan to fly and sail on the same day. Say “the ship sailed” 3 times fast
Plan to get on the ship as early as you can on embarkation day. Sometimes the special offers and reservations are gone by the end of the first day on the ship – even on the mega ships – and it’s almost like getting an extra day of vacation for free
Excursions – look at them all then decide what really interests you and sometimes it is just OK to stay on the ship since everyone else has gone ashore
And, lastly, I listened to Dad’s advice – it is a vacation and enjoy it

Now some other tips I have collected from all sorts of places, some of them are even mine:

Space planning. The staterooms are small, but they usually are well thought out and there are lots of places to put thing away. If you put things away consistently the room will not feel so small.
Always look under the bed – great place to hide the suitcases
Bring an extension cord. Ship cabins usually have very limited outlets. If you have lots of things that require power bring an extension cord just in case. I recently bought a multi-USB port charging station so we can charge multiple phones at the same time.
OK, you are on vacation. It is hard to go off the grid for days and days. I usually try to buy the internet package on the first day of the cruise, since there is usually a bonus offer for that. I really liked the unlimited internet package I had on my last cruise, that way I didn’t have to worry that I used up all the minutes writing to the office before my spouse found out.
Couple of things here. i) pop-up laundry baskets are great to hide in the closet then you can just quickly fold the laundry directly into your suitcase on the last night as well as the laundry basket; ii) Ship’s laundry services are usually very good and very quick. If you want to save time packing, bring clothes for half the trip and send them to the laundry mid-way through the cruise; and iii) you can wear something more than once, no one will notice.
Book the next cruise before you leave the ship. The future cruise option usually provides you will reduced deposits and onboard ship credit that you can always use to pay your bar tab.

Well I must go pack, business trip starts next week.

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