Surviving the Wait with a Cruise on the Way

Cruise on the way? You hardly need help getting excited, but here, anyway, are a few ideas for surviving the wait:

It’s a while away

Weight not guilt. Losing a few pounds now will go a long way toward guilt-free eating on your upcoming seven-day orgy.

 

These are calling your name.

Calling all rolls. Join an online roll call to virtually meet your fellow cruisers. You can join one on cruisecritic.com: Boards.

Meet and Mingle. Meet your roll call buddies in the flesh by signing up through cruisecritic.com for a Meet and Mingle event onboard. They can take the form of a party or “Cabin Crawl” (checking out the different staterooms) and can sometimes include drawings for logo prizes.

That’s app. Download Cruiseline.com’s free ShipMate mobile app for a trip countdown, cruise ship and port reviews, photos, roll calls and more.

Do your homework. Be sure to find out if you need to sign up for shows in advance (for example, on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class ships. Also, watch for sales on dining and beverage packages, and read the forums for ideas on excursions.

You need a reservation to see Ocean Aria on Allure of the Seas.

Throw yourself a party. Give yourself a bon voyage with a Caribbean-themed party to the tune of Harry Belafonte’s “Day O,” Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” or Arrow’s “Hot, Hot, Hot.” Do up a batch of rum punch and practice your moves.

It’s getting closer

Almost like being there. Get a sneak peek in real time of the ports right from your device of choice with webcams. Here are a few sites:

• larrysvacationwebcams.com – ships, ports, resorts and destinations
• cruise-addicts.com – ship and port cams
• cruiseoutlook.com – ship cams

Ft. Lauderdale in your future? Find your pier at Porteverglades.net, the official website of Port Everglades. It includes a port map and two weeks before you sail, you can find out from which pier by viewing the Ship Schedule on the homepage.

It’s 2 a.m. Do you know where your ship is? Check out where your ship is at any given moment, how fast it’s moving and toward where. This can be particularly helpful if you know there’s a delay. The best site is www.marinetraffic.com.

Weather or not. For last minute packing, check out the weather reports for your ports of call at cruiseoutlook.com. Then ignore it, because we know you can trust the weather reports anyway!

Disembark Without Distress

If you can’t walk off, you’re bringing too much stuff, says my suddenly wise travel companion.

The backstory: his big black bag—which looks like hundreds of other big black bags—was nowhere to be found in the cruise terminal on Disembarkation Day.

By the time we hooked up with the bag-taking couple, they were already at the airport. Our stuff nearly ended up in Maryland. We live in Florida.

Your bags could end up in Maryland too. Or Timbuktu. If you think it can’t happen to you, just peruse the forums on cruisecritic.com. It seems no matter how many pink pompoms or ruby red ribbons you put on your luggage, some folks can still think the bag is theirs.

And so, we’ve begun to, as the cruise lines call it, “walk off.” For the unfamiliar, this means that instead of letting the crew take your bags the night before the cruise’s end and delivering them in the terminal, you take them all with you when you leave.

What we’ve discovered is that there are many joys to walking off, such as:

A peaceful night before. The evening hours before Disembarkation Day used to be, for us, a panicky packing marathon, as we scrambled to get the bags into the hallway by the deadline. Now there’s no deadline and much less stress.

Smiling through the Disembarkation form. That dreaded form seems to show up earlier and earlier in the cruise—you know which one I mean—it asks how you’re going to get home so you can be scheduled for departure. It’s wonderful to check off the “walk off” option.

Leaving when we want. You don’t have to gulp down breakfast, drag your carryon to the theater and sit around impatiently waiting for your number to be called. You can just eat and get off the ship.

App it and it’s even faster. If you’re leaving from Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades or Miami’s Seaport Cruise Port, do the Mobile Passport. Simply download it before the cruise from Play Store or Apple’s App Store to do part 1. You do part 2 when you’re about to leave the ship. It’s easy and you’ll breeze right through Customs.

Once you do walk off, you’ll always walk off. It takes some of the edge off what is already distressing—the end of your wonderful cruise.

Lugging Your Luggage and Other Things You Should Know About Getting Your Stuff Onboard and Off

One of the great things about cruising is that once you unpack, you don’t need to look at your luggage again for the rest of the trip. 

But that doesn’t make getting it on and off any less painful.

There are a few things we’ve discovered along the way, though, that have eased the burden a bit:

Plasticize your cruise tags. Printing the paper cruise luggage tags and stapling them to the handles is a hassle. And it’s way too easy for them to come off. Some folks laminate them. But investing just a few dollars in Amazon will get you plastic cruise tag holders with a secure wire clasp. Beats paper and staples anytime.

Shower your suitcase with color. Regular readers of this blog may remember our recent horror story of how our suitcase was taken by mistake in the cruise terminal and almost ended up 700 miles away from home. Tie a yellow ribbon—or a fuchsia one, for that matter—and whatever else will identify your case as your own. Be sure to add your name and contact info. A lock on it won’t hurt either.

Ensure your bags are ship shape. You don’t want to get to sea and discover you can only get at your clothing with a knife. Or that you need duct tape to keep it all in your suitcase when you leave. We’ve come uncomfortably close to getting in a jam—literally.

Watch your pockets. Be careful what you store in the outside pockets of your suitcase. There was a sad story in a Cruise Critic forum of a couple who put their passports in their suitcase outside pocket. With the chaos at drop-off, their suitcases were swiftly hauled away—before the couple could take out their passports. So their luggage went on the cruise without them.

Tip the bag handler. I don’t know about other ports, but in Port Everglades, if you want to ever see your bags again, be ready to tip the guy who takes them. Seriously.

What to carry on in your carryon. Aside from the usual stuff—medicines, valuables, etc.—bring anything breakable with you. If you ever saw how the bag handlers handled the bags, you’d cringe. If you ever saw the bags piled high on the carts and knew yours was on the bottom, you’d cringe. If you ever saw the way the crew dragged them through the ship hallways, you’d cringe. You get the picture.

Go door to door. If your stuff doesn’t show up by evening, wander the halls. More than once, we’ve found ours in front of someone else’s door.

Give ‘em up or keep ‘em with you? For the first time in 20+ cruises, we decided to do a walk off with our bags when we left. It was an experiment. The upside? We didn’t have to rush to meet that 11 p.m. deadline the night before to get our bags outside the door, sit around the next day for our number to be called and then hope our luggage was still there in the terminal. We could stroll out of the ship—albeit laden with luggage—whenever we felt like it.

There was a downside, though. The walk from room to pavement is a long and crowded one.

Alas, I’m sorry to say, on Disembarkation Day, there’s no easy way!

Of Quick Customs, Champagne and Watching the Waters

Our past trip on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas had a number of firsts—all of them good and

all of them worth sharing:

 

Customs never better. If you’re cruisin’ out of Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglades anytime soon (and you’re a U.S. or Canadian citizen), you’ll absolutely want to use the Mobile Passport, U.S. Customs’ new app.

On disembarkation day, like a king and queen, we bypassed all 5,000+ of Allure’s passengers as they painfully snaked around the terminal, and breezed right through Customs in about five minutes flat. And all because of that app.

Here’s how it works:

Before you leave

1. Download the free app for Android or Apple from Google Play or iTunes App store (you need wi-fi for this, so do it at home or at your hotel)

2. Enter your profile info as it appears on your passport and for everyone traveling with you. You’ll need to take photos of yourself with your phone (or you theoretically can scan your passport, although I couldn’t get this to work)

Disembarkation day

3. When you’ve docked in Port Everglades and you’re waiting to be called to leave, open the app. This is important because you can only do this within four hours of getting to Customs. Fill out the required info and submit

4. You’ll receive a barcode

5. In Port Everglades, follow the signs that say “Mobile Passport.” You’ll go to a Customs agent especially assigned, show your passport and barcode on your phone. And out the door you go!

Here’s some more info on using the app in Port Everglades.

Swim with no fear. Wherever there’s water now on the Allure, there’s a lifeguard. They’re at all the pools, the ship’s water park and by the hot tubs. A very visible presence that should reassure parents who cruise. A very good move, Royal Caribbean.

You just never know. Heading down that long hallway to our room one day, suddenly a door opens and a 30-something fellow steps out. “Do you guys drink?” he asked.

“Moderately,” I said, figuring that was a safe answer.

Apparently that was the right answer, because he thrust a bottle of champagne at us. Turns out he'd been given the champagne—and the whole cruise—by his company, a reward for being a top salesman. But he didn’t drink.

So after many expressions of gratitude, we continued to our stateroom, bottle and champagne glasses in hand, and bemused smiles on our faces.

Now I can’t say that your cruises will bring offers of champagne from strangers. But what I do know is that cruising is filled with surprises. That—and the sea—keep luring us back again and again.  

Setting Off in Calm Seas

It may be counterintuitive, but going on vacation is stressful. There’s so much to remember, so much to do. And if it’s your first cruise, not knowing what to expect can ratchet this up a notch. But here are a few tips to ensure smooth sailing before your ship leaves the pier.

See when you need to show up at the port. This will vary by cruise line and port; check your cruise documents or the cruise line’s website. Usually, you have to be at the ship at least 60 minutes before departure.

Research the port and pier. You might want to see where in the port your ship will be and if anything’s going on there you should know about. For example, Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglades has been undergoing major construction for quite a while, and some of Princess and Celebrity’s ships are at the far end of the port. Which can mean a very slow trip and you’ll need to build in extra time. Here are links to the major Florida ports: PortMiami, Port Tampa Bay, Port Canaveral.

Plot out your path. The best way to avoid panic to the port is planning: where to stay the night before, how long you need to get to the port and where you’re going to park. Check out forums like the one on cruisecritic.com for ideas on where to stay. And know the route to the port in advance. Our first trip, we put the port street into the GPS and ended up on a road with the right name--but in the wrong town. By the time we discovered what went wrong and made it to the port, we were one of the last on the ship.

Bring seasickness medicine. That’s the surest way to not need it. 

Pack the right stuff in your carryon. When you get to the port, you’ll have to relinquish your

luggage, except your carryon. So, you should keep anything you’ll need for the next few hours in your carryon (the luggage may not show up in your cabin for hours—sometimes as late as 6 p.m.). Keep in mind, though, that if you’re planning on getting onboard before about 1 p.m. (when the cabins are usually ready to receive you), you’ll be stuck carrying around that carryon while you’re going to lunch or checking out the ship. You might consider one with wheels.

Don’t leave home without it. Before you leave your home, make sure you have your passport and driver’s license with you. Then check again. Have both, as well as the boarding passes you printed up after online check-in within easy reach because you’ll need it when you get to the port.

Securely fasten luggage tags on each of your bags. You need to print these up at home, and staple or tape them closed around luggage handles. (We bring a small stapler with us and do it just before leaving for the port. Or, you can always ask to borrow one from the hotel front desk.)

If you’re taking Celebrity and do the online check-in enough in advance, you can order luggage tags on their website. Color-coded stickers will come in the mail, and you can easily fasten them with their own adhesive.

Don’t bother eating on your way to the port; lunch is waiting. Enjoy the hunger—it’s the last time you’ll feel it. Then when you get onboard, you can enjoy a leisurely first meal in the buffet. Some ships have the dining room and other restaurants open, too.

Set aside some ones for the luggage guys. Tipping the guys at the port who take your luggage is not just customary—it’s essential. If you don’t, you should have a back-up plan for your luggage, like prayer.

Breathe deeply and relax. You’re on vacation!

Musing’s Tip: They won’t provide info, but they’re fun just the same—follow these webcam links to live feeds from the ports: Port Canaveral, Port Everglades, PortMiami

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

If you’re like me, more than a few times after an unpleasant surprise, you’ve thought: why didn’t someone warn me?

Well, today I’m going to share some cruise planning tips that we found out the hard way. So you don’t have to.

Like to gamble? Cruise during hurricane season. When you cruise the Caribbean, sun and warmth is a given. But go during hurricane season and you’ve just shot the dice. Getting stuck on a cruise ship in strong winds and rain isn’t much fun. So, know that Atlantic hurricane season is June 1 through November 30, with the peak in early September.

Just a word or two about the peak: that only means the odds of a hurricane go way up. It’s still a gamble going the other vulnerable months. One year, we thought we were safe going the first week in November, but just missed a hurricane by a few days. And though the weather was fine, the seas were still rough. The cost? The captain bypassed our stop at the cruise line’s  Bahamas private island, a highlight of the trip.

Build in time for coming and going. Then, add some more. You can never build in enough time for getting to the pier and getting out of it. This is not the time to cut it close. Flights get cancelled. Luggage gets lost. Cars break down. The cab gets lost. Customs takes forever. The port is under construction. There’s going to be a hard rain. Or fog. You get the idea.

It helps to find out as much as you can ahead of time about what to expect:

• Read the forums such as cruisecritic.com
• Go into port websites to find your way around in advance. Is there going to be construction to slow down traffic? Where’s your ship going to be docked? Closer to the port entrance or at its furthest point? If you visit Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglades’ website (see “Ship Schedule”) two weeks or less before your cruise, you can find out your ship’s pier and how many other ships will be in port. This could impact your parking options

Is that itinerary stop open for business? This one still pains me. One time, I chose a particular cruise because it was going to Martinique. What I didn’t notice was that it was pulling in on a Sunday. The port was closed up tight. Another trip, St. Maarten was celebrating a national holiday and most of Philipsburg took the day off.

Some itineraries have you getting into a port very late in the day. By the time you get off the ship, it’s even later. If everything closes at 5, what are you going to be able to see?

And some get you into port when the sun rises and leave just a few hours later.

Tendering to Philipsburg, St. Maarten. The ships dock,
but you still need a tender to get into town.

My advice? If the ports are important to you, study the itinerary carefully. Call the cruise line with questions. And read the forums.

Tendering adds time. It helps to know in each port whether you’re going to be sitting in the middle  of all the action or in the middle of the harbor. Tendering can easily add an hour or more to the process of getting on and off the ship. You also want to know what pier you’re arriving at. In St. Thomas, for example, there’s a big difference between the piers at Havensight and Crown Bay in terms of proximity to Charlotte Amalie.

Choose your excursions wisely. We made the mistake of picking a tour of the Bacardi factory on our first trip to San Juan. The whole process of busing there and back, and waiting around with the huge crowd for our turn to tour took hours. When we finally got back into the city, everything was closing.

I hope this helped a bit. And if you had your own wish-someone-had-told-me moments, don’t make us suffer—please let us know!