Future Cruise Deposits—What’s Not to Like?

Worst part of a cruise? Hands down, Disembarkation Day. If you’ve cruised before, you know that feeling—the pit-in-your stomach recognition that your long-awaited vacation is over.

And the only antidote is to plan another one—fast. That’s what makes future cruise deposits so delicious. For the uninitiated, that’s where you put a deposit down on your next cruise while you’re still on one.

The way it works differs by cruise line. For Royal Caribbean, you actually book your next cruise onboard and put down a deposit. With Princess, you put down some money and then choose a cruise later.

There are a number of benefits to the future cruise deposits (FCD):

Low deposit – Deposits are often much lower than what you’d put down if you booked back on land.

Sometimes a great rate – Booking onboard (and early) can often get you a better rate for your next cruise.

Refundable deposit – Find out later that you can’t go after all? You’ll get your deposit back—all of it. (That is, of course, unless you’ve paid for the whole trip and you’re in the penalty period.) Note that the period of time this applies varies by cruise ship.

Onboard credit – FCD promotions often come with onboard credit, which you can use for specialty dining, excursions, drink packages, internet access, onboard shopping and more.

You can keep your TA in the loop – You can still work with your travel agent. When you put down the deposit, simply give the sales rep. your travel agent’s name. Your agent can continue to help you on the rest of the trip arrangements, and he/she can get commission from the cruise line. Just be sure to let your travel agent know that you’ve booked a cruise or put down a FCD.

You’ll get it in writing – Once you put down a FCD or booked a cruise onboard, you usually get a confirmation in writing—either in your stateroom before the end of the trip or via email.

To get a FCD, simply visit the ship’s onboard future cruise sales office. Note that it’s the busiest toward the end of the trip.

There’s no limit to how many FCDs you can have—one cruisecritic.com poster said he was sitting on six of them!

Which speaks volumes. With a low deposit—refundable, no less—what’s not to like? You can end your trip the same way it began—by looking forward to your upcoming cruise!

What I Learned by 25

Our last cruise was a milestone of sorts—it was #25. It’s made me think of how much I’ve learned since that first one back in 2005, such as:

Gumby guarantees a good time. The weather's bad. Ports are missed. Someone gets sick. Luggage comes late. Luggage goes missing. We’ve had it all. Bending with the wind can rescue a precious vacation.

Homework pays off. Like knowing you need to sign up for Royal Caribbean’s shows before you go if you want to make sure you see them. Finding out if there’s a laundry onboard. The cost for a massage. The ship’s pros and cons. Perusing the cruise line’s website, reading cruisecritic.com’s boards and checking out YouTube videos are some ways to go about it.

 

To make sure you see "Blue Planet" on Allure of the Seas, be sure to sign up online before you board

A passport to the Caribbean. While you may be able to get by without a passport on a Caribbean cruise, you won’t easily get by government authorities without one if you’re stranded on an island. And the passport can’t expire within six months of your return to your home port. (If you skip the passport, you’ll need a driver’s license and birth certificate.)

Walking off means sleeping easier. There’s a lot to be said for taking your own bags off the ship. While it may be more convenient to let the ship take your luggage, it comes with risk. Our suitcase almost ended up 700 miles from our home because someone grabbed it in the terminal by mistake.

Specialty dining is worth the money. We fought off paying for specialty dining for the longest time. When we finally took the plunge, we never looked back. Better food. Attentive service. More intimate setting. Yeah, you’re paying for food twice. But it’s worth it.

 

150 Central Park on Oasis class ships comes with an extra cost, but it's worth it

Whatever comes on, goes back off. Two weeks at home, and your extra pounds will be gone. So eat and enjoy!

Changing it up keeps it fresh. If you’re a frequent Caribbean cruiser, working in something different each trip can add some new excitement. During one cruise stop in St. Thomas, we took an excursion to the stupendous island of St. John. Another time, we got the Unlimited Dining Package on Allure of the Seas. Yet another, we got a mini suite on a Princess ship.

 

Just one of the spectacular sides to St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

It’s all in the fine print. We’ve missed so many great events because I’ve forgotten to study the daily newsletter. Increasingly, you only need to look at your phone to find out what’s going on.

Sanitizing is key—even when they don’t tell you to. We’re fanatical about staying healthy onboard. We load up on wet wipes before leaving home and use them before meals—and during them. The ladles in the buffet, menus in the main dining room, the salt and pepper shakers—these all can harbor germs. We clean everything in the stateroom, too.

Tipping for pleasure. Those extra dollars we give the crew when we leave is so important to them and their families. It makes us feel good too—even when we’re miserable that our trip is over.

Plan to Cruise to a Great Vacation

If you want to get the most out of your upcoming cruise, there’s just no substitute for doing some homework. Here’s where it can count:

To go to the show

Booking a show on Royal Caribbean online before your cruise can make the difference between seeing it or missing it. If you don’t reserve in advance, your only hope is going to the theater before it starts, standing on line and crossing your fingers that there are some no-shows.

 

Sign up online in advance to make sure you see this fabulous show on Allure of the Seas

For your dinner dining

When you book your trip, on many ships, you have to commit to same-place/same-time dining or “my time” dining. Noting how late the ship is in each port and when the shows run will help you decide what’s best for you.

On Royal Caribbean, if you’re doing specialty dining, you’ll need to plan carefully—the restaurants won’t give you a reservation less than two hours from one of your shows.

 

You won't get your meal at Wonderland on Harmony of the Seas less than two hours before your show

The ports you’ll visit

So you don’t have any surprises, you may want to do two levels of planning—study the itinerary and research the islands. Particularly:

Is it an island holiday? One trip, we found ourselves on an island during its national holiday and half the stores were closed. Another time, another island, it was Sunday and everything was closed but the supermarket. Here’s one site that can help your research on island holidays.

Short or long stay? The hours of arrival and departure vary quite a bit from one port to the other. We’re late risers and port stays of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. mean we have enough time to get off the ship and back on—and that’s about it.

Dock or tender? Tendering means you spend more time traveling back and forth, and less on the island. It also means you’ll need to do some careful planning if you’re taking a non-sponsored excursion.

The way you’ll spend your sea day

Note that there are some restrictions on what can be worn for some of the activities. For example, closed-toed shoes are required for the sports court, Rip Cord and Laser Tag. Two-piece bathing suits are a no-no for FlowRider. And you’ll also need to sign a waiver to do some of the ship’s activities.

 

You'll need to sign a waiver before you surf on Allure of the Seas

The bottom line

Of course, there are many other things you may want to know before you go, and I’ve only covered a few. The best sources for info on your ship are the cruise line’s websites in the section for booked guests and cruisecritic.com (particularly the Boards, where you can ask questions). The more you read, the more you learn, the more likely you’ll get the great vacation you paid for.

Take Five: the Best Tools for Planning a Cruise

With the explosion of cruising has come an explosion of websites, blogs, books, videos and social media postings—it can really be overwhelming.

I’ve pulled out a few of what I consider among the best resources to read, hear and learn what you need to get the very best out of your cruise vacation:

Cruisecritic.com – This is the “Oasis class” of cruise planning sites, with tons of ship and port reviews, industry news and roll calls. Its forum is so robust that cruisers are posting just about every minute of every day.

There are specialty forums too, where like-minded folks congregate on topics ranging from “Lose Before You Cruise” (weight, not money) and “Cruise Foodies” to “Family Cruises” and “Solo Cruises.”

Cruise Radio – Not only does this site and its newsletter have useful and interesting articles, but it also features podcasts and YouTube videos.

Don’s Family Vacations – Don does video quite a lot on YouTube, giving it to you straight, from cruise tips to cruise trip-ups—and all done in a rather endearing way. He’s both informative and entertaining.

Cruise Control – Bill Panoff also does great videos—from ship reviews to special topics such as the newest technology on the high seas.

Cruisedeckplans.com – When it comes to picking your stateroom, this site is invaluable. Its

versatile functionality allows you to see several decks on one page, convert to PDF and print, bump up the size, and drag decks over each other to see what’s above and below.

If you hover over a room, you get a diagram and general square footage for a category. There are some actual photos of particular rooms and even a few comments of areas to steer clear of because of noise and other issues.

What’s your favorite cruise planning site? Share it here!

Don’t Miss the Boat!

Time waits for no man—and neither does the cruise ship. 

If you don't show reverence to Time, here's where the ship could leave you behind:

Flying the same day you cruise. Inevitably, there’s someone in a cruisecritic.com board asking if it’s safe to fly the same day you cruise. (Someone recently wanted to fly in—I kid you not—two hours before the ship was to set sail.)

And just as inevitably, there’s someone else complaining that they missed their cruise because their flight was cancelled or delayed.

Picking an excursion not cruise-line sponsored. Now, I know some of you will disagree, because non-sponsored excursions can be cheaper. But if the bus breaks down, or the driver runs out of gas or gets caught in traffic…if the ship didn’t sponsor it, it’s not going to wait for you.

Going by local time. If you’re cruising into a different time zone but the ship doesn’t change with it, going by store clocks in port can trip you up. Some smart phones automatically update to the local time, so using that as your guide is also not a good thing. 

So, what happens if you do, indeed, miss the boat? Maybe you can jump onboard at the next port—if there is a next port.

But whether you’re trying to catch up with the ship or just get back to home base, it’ll be on your dime. And it’s likely to be a big dime—and all because you lost track of Time.

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!

Against the Tide: The Case for Off-season Cruising

Years ago, while on a Celebrity Constellation cruise, we decided to visit the sales office to book the next one. As our appointment neared, I got a brilliant idea. Why not cruise the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and leverage my days off from work?

Then we met with the sales agent. Just so you know, he said, there’ll be about 500 children that week. Wow.

If you’re traveling with kids, this most likely wouldn’t be an issue. But if you’re not, you’d probably prefer to avoid this scenario.

So, after the sales guy burst my balloon, we began to discover the benefits of off-season Caribbean cruising.

What’s defined as “off-season”? The “in-season” is typically the winter months—December through March—when folks want to get away from the cold.

There are also other times, though, that can mirror the in-season, such as school vacations.

Thanks to the popularity of Caribbean cruising, you can now find trips year round and if you time it right, get just the experience that’s right for you.

Benefits of being a bit off

If you’re able to be flexible in when and where you go, you can:

Save moola. The difference between one month and the next—or even one week or the next—can mean a huge difference in cost. For example, booking a trip in the week between Christmas and New Year’s can be $1,000 per person more than that same trip another time of the year. Watch for cruise line promotions, which offer lower rates for harder-to-fill dates.

Get your pick of the litter. If you pick a downtime of year, you can be choosy when choosing your cabin. Want a bump-out balcony? The big one at the stern? The closest room to the elevator? You’re more likely to get it. Note that even off-season and off-weeks can sell out, so the earlier you book, the better your chances.

Snag an upgrade. The cruise lines get more generous when the ship’s not filled. We recently booked a balcony room on Princess for April and were upgraded to a mini-suite—for free.

 

You may just get an upgrade to a mini-suite for free on Princess

When to avoid

Hurricane season! This past year showed us in neon lights the risk of booking a cruise from June 1 through Nov. 30. It may be cheaper, but is the risk really worth it?

When school’s out. This is when a lot of parents need to cruise, so the rates tend to be higher. The tough part is figuring out when school is out, because spring and winter breaks vary. We’ve found, as a general rule of thumb, when you price compare trips, the cheaper the cruise, the less likely it will be school vacation time.

You might want to be conscious of college breaks too, as there are occasionally complaints on the cruisecritic.com boards from cruisers who had to contend with unruly college kids.

When to go

So, when’s the best time to cruise? Well, whenever you can, of course. But if you’re flexible, we’ve found these to be great times in general for more room choices and better prices: late November, the first half of December, April (not during Easter week) and May.

But whether it’s winter, spring, summer or fall, here’s the best part of all: you’re on a vacation and the vacation is on a cruise.

Musing’s Top Tip: Got a minute? Check out the new video series, “Musing’s In One Minute,” the best in Caribbean cruising in just 60-ish seconds. The first in the series features “Royal Caribbean’s Sea Day Secret.” Watch it here:

Cruising the Web, Part Two

This posting could also have been titled, “So Many Cruise Sites, So Little Time.” With 25 million cruisers today¹, so many cruise sites have sprung up, competing for your attention (including mine!). How do you know where to go to plan your trip?

I’m going to help by sharing some of the more useful ones so you don’t have to wade through them all:

Decking it out. Picking a stateroom can be torture, particularly if you’re trying to do it with those

A website is so much easier!

impossible-to-read deck plans in cruise line catalogs. Luckily, there are some good sites out there that make this much easier, such as:

• Cruisedeckplans.com not only has deck plans you can actually read, but when you hover over a stateroom, you get a generic description and layout. Click on camera icons for a snapshot of the area a cruiser submitted. Note that camera icons in orange are photos available only if you pay a site registration fee ($8.99 a year).

• Cruisemapper.com also has large deck plans and is particularly useful, say, if you’re interested in staying on the Central Park deck of a Royal Caribbean Oasis class ship and want to see where the room lines up in relation to the restaurants and elevators. There’s also an easy-to-read legend of which rooms connect, have sofa beds and other features.

Know where you’re going. Cruiseportadvisor.com is a good site for information about the ports and what to do there. Especially helpful are descriptions of where ships dock and how to get into town.

Another is www.tomsportguides.com, which has info and maps on the ports, and more. One neat feature is you can download and print PDF port guides.

 

Aruba is one of  the ports featured in tomsportguides.com

Almost like being there. Probably the best way to get a feel for a ship or port is to view videos on YouTube. Now mind you, some of them are not too useful—indeed, a few will make you downright dizzy. But if you have the patience to sift through them, you’ll be rewarded with some great information and what words or photos can’t do—evoke the ambience and sounds.

There’s also the webcams, which are real-time views of the ports. Alas, there’s generally just one camera focused on just one spot, but they’re fun just the same. One of the largest collections of port cams is at Larrysvacationwebcams.com.

Everything else you need to know. The granddaddy site of them all is cruisecritic.com, with regular news, and extensive cruise ship and port reviews. Another especially worthwhile site is cruiseradio.net, which features a wide range of informative podcasts.

Yet another is cruisefever.net, with news, ports, price drops, webcams and ship reviews. Where it really shines is on its articles, which tackle topics not often addressed in other places, such as “What Happens When You Get Sick or Hurt on a Cruise” and “Five Tips to Keep You Safe While in Port.”

Keep track your ship. Several sites have map trackers, so you can see where your ship is at any given time. Cruiseoutlook.com has a good one; you can search by your ship.

If the sun will shine. Cruiseoutlook.com also has weather forecasts by ship/itinerary, complete with sunrise and sunset (great for planning those sunset photos). You can even switch to metric. Note, however, as with forecasts at home, they can be accurate—or not.

 

Find out when the sun will set and you'll get memorable photos like this one of
Ft. Lauderdale at sail away

Scoping out the scoop. There’s nothing like the forums for the chance to ask any question and get an answer from someone who’s just been there. Or, check out the chats for answers to questions you didn’t think of asking yourself. Cruisecritic.com is the best, with entries every day, all day long, on a wide range of topics—from rooms to drink packages to port excursions to cruise memorabilia.

It’s also a great site for getting information on onboard Meet and Mingle gatherings or joining a roll call for your ship, which connects you with your upcoming cruise fellow travelers.

Then once you join a roll call, you get to see questions like this one recently posted: “Only six months to my cruise. I can’t stand the wait. What do I do?” People actually answer. Maybe you’ll want to too.

Musing's Top Tip: Want to know if your ship is on the refurbishment list? Check out www.cruisehive.com for upcoming dry docks and what you can expect.

¹Cruise Lines International Association, State of the Cruise Industry Outlook 2017

Got Something to Say About a Cruise? Start a Blog!

Now, I’m no expert. But if you’re reading this, I’m doing something right.

And if I can do it, you can do it.

Why would you want to start a blog? Maybe you want to spread the word about how great cruising is. Or, you had a fabulous experience on a ship or at a port, and you’re bursting to talk about it. Perhaps you love taking photos and need an excuse to get them out of your smartphone camera.

Whatever the reason, there’s no reason not to do it. It’s fun. And you can be as creative as you want to be.

So, how do you get started? I use Blogger—it’s simple and free. You just pick a template and go. Another big benefit is that it’s part of Google Plus. More on this later. See this article on some of the top blog hosting platforms.

What do you write? The quick answer: what others want to read. In other words, if you want to get folks to come to your blog, you need to pick topics that will be popular and write in a way that’s engaging.

And keep it short—use no more words than you need. Use bullet points and bold text for those who prefer to scan.

I saved the most important for last: use a captivating title. Think of yourself—would you read something if the title doesn’t grab you?

What about photos? Definitely. And the bigger, the better. They draw the reader. Think Pinterest. And Instagram. You get the picture. The web has made us more visual than ever. It pains the writer in me to say this, but do more photos and less text.

And other media? Sure! Upload one of your videos to YouTube and link it from your blog. Link to other blogs or websites.

Then what? Just because you post it, doesn’t mean they’ll come. You need to aggressively promote your blog. In fact, getting people to read your blog is more work than creating the blog itself.

If you use Google’s Blogger, once you publish a posting, it automatically posts to Google Plus.

Happily, Cruise Critic, the place for the most robust cruise conversations, allows bloggers to link their postings in their Boards section (see tab on top menu of their website), under Cruise Conversations/Cruise Blogs and Websites.

Travel websites and social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram are also good places to promote your blog. Also consider sites like Feedspot, which consolidates readers’ favorite blog feeds so they can get them all from one place.

Anything else? Join in conversations—not to promote, but to share your knowledge and ask questions. Develop online relationships and readership will follow.

Also, post often. If you want to develop a following, you need to keep writing. If readers don’t see new stuff, you’ll lose them and they might not come back.

A few last words

Think before you post. Posting is public. Anyone can see it, Google it and save it. Be smart about what you say and what you show.

There’s a lot out there. Try searching for “cruise” in a site such as Pinterest. The postings go on and on. If you can find a new and different way to help your blog stand out, you’re more likely to get attention.

See what others do. Study the blogs that you follow; see if you can identify what makes them successful.

If you do launch a blog, let us know how it goes. And if you discover something that works, please share! It's a new world for all of us and there’s something new to learn every day.

Kinda Kooky Cruiser Christmas Gifts

Looking for something a bit different for the hard-to-please cruiser on your list? You’ve come to the right place. Check out these kinda kooky, kinda wacky and even a few practical gifts that will stand out. Maybe you’ll even want them for yourself.

What’s outside is almost as good as what’s inside. No bottle of guavaberry should be without a Santa hat. Find these cuties in the Sint Maarten shop in Philipsburg. Or buy the liquor online.

Send your family on a cruise all year long. If only through the pages of Porthole.

Float their boat and beer. Know someone who likes to take their brew to the beach? They won’t lose it to the sea with this little beer saver. Find it in the Navigator of the Seas’ gift shop.

Bring the bedding to your buddy. You and partner slept like babies on your Royal Caribbean cruise? Must have been the bedding. Do it again, this time in your own home, with linens from the cruise line. Rocking motion’s extra.

When monopoly is a good thing. Yes, there’s still such a thing as board games, but this one you won’t find anywhere but Philipsburg. You might say St. Maarten has a monopoly on it.

They can wear it on their sleeve. Someone passionate about cruising? Deck them out with a Cruise Critic tee shirt from their online store.

Bring on the bling. This is the perfect jewelry travel case—it’s got separate zipped sleeves and the whole thing folds into a tight compact case. It’s only 10 bucks, but you’ll need to fight the crowds at the onboard $10 sale to buy one. Get there early; they go fast.

Captain Mickey on your tree. Hang Captain Mickey Mouse by his ear with an ornament for your holiday tree. Find it at Disney’s online store.

Book it. This will take some work, but send your best cruise photos to Costco, Shutterfly or online others that will make a coffee table book out of it. It’s great for bringing back memories and working on that you’ll-never-catch-me-cruising person you happen to know.

Missed out on the photos? Disney will let you order photos from your trip even after you’ve walked down that gangway—but you’ve got to act fast. In six weeks, deleted!

Get those pictures out of your smart phone. And into something your cruiser will like. Think calendar, mug or mouse pad.

For the kid or kid at heart. I mentioned this one in the posting, “Keeping the Cruise Going After It’s Gone: Part II”: Princess’ adorably smiling stuffed captain teddy bear. Best yet, if you don’t have a Princess cruise on the horizon, you can pick one up from the cruise line’s website.

Clip ‘em. Walk by the pool on any ship and your eye will be caught by bright clips some folks use to keep their towel from shimmying down their chair. Amazon has a bunch of choices—they’re cute, functional and cheap. Some of them look like flip-flops or sea shells. Great for stuffing those stockings--or keeping them up.

Tag ‘em. Another Amazon cheapie but goodie are plastic holders for the cruise luggage tags you print up when you do online check in. We just bought some and they’re a perfect fit for the tags, and come with metal loops for slipping around your suitcase handles. Beats stapling any day.

Can’t end without this one. The best gift of all is the one they want the most—another trip on the wide open sea. And while you’re at it, give one to me!