You’ve decided to take a cruise. Prepare to be indulged and pampered. You will never go hungry or be without some form of entertainment as your floating hotel sails from one exotic port to another. But to make the most of your experience, there are definitely things you should avoid doing on a cruse and a little common sense goes a long way. Take a look at the following 5 tips to ensure your next cruise is a happy one:
Don’t Miss the Boat
The first step in having an enjoyable cruise is getting on the ship, hopefully without part of your luggage left behind in the cab. Keep your passport close to you at all times or you may be forced to sunbathe next to your iced-over backyard pond in mid-February. Make sure you have everything before you leave your house and allow yourself plenty of time to get to the ship.
Missing the boat at the ship’s home port is one thing, but failing to get aboard before your cruise ship sails away into the sunset from a foreign locale can be even worse. Best case scenario is that you are in a city or town near a sizable airport so you can catch a plane to the ship’s next port of call. That is of course unless you have left your passport and the majority of your funds and/or credit cards aboard. Worse case scenario is that you are on a tiny island where the locals speak no English and you end up in a real-life “Gilligan’s Island” episode waiting for the next, hopefully congenial, cruise ship to arrive.
Don’t Inhale the Buffet
Admit it, the abundance of food and the opportunity to eat when and where you want are one of the main appeals of going on a cruise. Most of the newer ships have specialty restaurants, ice-cream shops, pizza parlors and other treat producing outlets in addition to the traditional main dining room. But the real seat of temptation lies in the buffet, an extravaganza of scents and colors intended to cajole even the most disciplined dieter. Mexican themed buffets offer the chance to build your own tacos or mile-high plates of nachos. Caribbean Night brings jerked chicken, spicy ribs and fried plantains. And of course there is the Chocolate Buffet, with sweet rivers of brown cascading down a heated fountain, perfect for dipping everything and anything.
It is tempting. You are human. Don’t beat yourself up about it. But if you want to have any chance of fitting into that bathing suit you just bought, make sure you spend as much time at the onboard gym as well. Then again you could pack some loose-fitting clothes for the latter part of your trip and not worry about it until you get home. Decisions, decisions…
Avoid Marinating your Liver
The one saving grace about alcohol on cruise ships is that drinks are not usually included in your cruise ticket. That means that you are perfectly welcome to get completely legless, you just have to pay for it. True enough, it is hard to resist that fruity mai tai or a Caribbean Breeze laced with coconut flavored rum. Nor should you, after all you are on vacation. But downing multiple bottles of wine or the equivalent of a fifth of rum in one setting may leave you unaware of the fact that you are on a tiny, moving, man-made island in the middle of the ocean. That first miss-step might be a very wet one.
Sometimes it is even more tempting to indulge while in port. Tourist towns like Acapulco and Mazatlan offer lively pubs with drinks at rock bottom prices. While it is one thing to get blitzed while onboard the ship where all you need to do is find your cabin, it is quite another to be in a foreign country and have to navigate yourself back to your cruise ship.
Thou Shall Not Forget the Sunscreen
You’ve worked out for months before your cruise, spent a fortune on that to-die-for bathing suit that leaves little to the imagination. Now you want to plant yourself poolside and do a bit of showing off. The sunscreen is back in your cabin, but heck, you won’t be out that long, no need to go back for it. Closing your eyes, you relax in the warm sunshine and drift off to sleep.
Two hours later you wake up, that honey-brown tan you were hoping for is now a vision in red. Bending one cherry-colored knee you wince, but finally manage to lift yourself off the lounge. Once up, you discover a distinct “tan-line” separating your sunburned front from your still-pale back. It is a long, painful walk back to your cabin, or the ship’s doctor’s office. Forgetting to lather up with sunscreen will not only make you look silly in your vacation pictures, but it will guarantee you are miserable the rest of the trip.
Avoid Hiding Out in Your Cabin
Marketers do an excellent job of promoting cruise ships as a place to do as much or as little as you want. It’s true. Take an excursion, or not. Join in on one of your cruise ship’s parties or bingo games, or not. Dine when and where you want, even if it’s room service at 2 am. But does that mean the best plan of attack is just to hide out in your cabin for the duration of your trip? If your personality mirrors that of Howard Hughes, why did you come on a cruise in the first place? At least take a stroll around the ship and see what’s available before you bolt the cabin door and immerse yourself in repetitive onboard close-circuit TV. Meeting new people is part of the fun of cruising. Stretch the envelope on that comfort zone of yours and make the most out of your trip.
Make sure that your next ocean voyage is a fun and relaxing experience by avoiding the cruising blunders listed above.
This is a guest post from Ryan Avila-When not on a boat, Ryan is protecting your home with Home Security Systems.