The Contract You Sign When You Check In Online

We’re so excited when we check in online. We can’t wait to get the must-do done, so we can get on to what’s really fun. Like picking excursions. Deciding on drink packages. Shopping!

So, how closely do we look at that cruise contract we electronically sign?

After mechanically acknowledging I’ve read it for the past 20+ cruises, I finally decided that maybe I should take a look at that fine and tiny print after all.

All 15½ pages of it (when copied and pasted into my computer).

Here’s just a sampling of what I just agreed to on my upcoming Royal Caribbean cruise:

If I go to the onboard doctor, I do so at my own risk. Since RCI is not a medical provider, it can’t supervise the medical personnel.

Hate the haircut I get onboard? I’m on my own. If I change my mind after getting the photo package or am overcome with buyer’s remorse after that art auction purchase or the expensive bracelet I buy on the ship, even though RCI may get a cut from any of it, they assume no responsibility.

Was disappointed with my excursion? Too bad, so sad. Like the onboard shops, medical folks or photographers, argues RCI, the excursions are independent contractors and don’t represent the cruise line.

RCI can change my trip at any time. The cruise line retains the right to alter the itinerary, time of sailing or even the ship for any reason at any time and without prior notice.

Luggage with a view. My baggage is subject to inspection or electronic monitoring without my consent or knowledge.

They own my cruising face. RCI reserves the right to use photos or videos of me taken in connection with the cruise for advertising, sales, publicity and training. Until the end of time.

Indeed, there were some surprises in that lengthy document. Does it dampen in any way my excitement for the cruise ahead? Not one little bit. But what reading it did prove: it’s best to know before you go.

Cruising with a Travel Agent

The cruise industry wants you to use a travel agent. In fact, some cruise lines turn finding their phone numbers into a treasure hunt.
 
But don’t despair, there are really many good reasons for using a travel agent when you cruise. I recapped these in an earlier blog post.
 
Finding an agent is like finding a doctor or hair stylist—you might have to go through a few before you find the right one. Here’s my take on the right one:
 
Cruise-wise. Cruising is a special kind of travel and unless a travel agent has done a fair amount, it’s going to be hard to give advice. You’ll want one who’s cruised, books a lot and knows the lines.
 
Willing to share. When a travel agent won’t tell you what’s right or wrong about a ship, find someone else. While the agent gets paid by the cruise line, it won’t do you any good if you get steered to a ship or trip that’s wrong for you.
 
Shows they care. You want the agent to care if you had a good time, be interested about your experience so he or she can learn from it and be more useful to others. One travel agent called us after every trip to find out how it went.
 
Available when you are. Work during the week? It’s not too useful when the agent has no weekend hours. Trip planning takes time and if you’re like me, the only time that works is the weekend.
 
Doesn’t procrastinate. After all the planning and you’ve finally booked, it can be pretty frustrating to then have to wait weeks for the confirmation/booking number. The best agents will turnaround the paperwork quickly.

Tells you what you need to know. Like you’re going to need a passport, even if you’re just going to the Caribbean. When you need to be at the pier. That you’ll give up your luggage way before you get on board.

Doesn’t make a cancellation worse. It’s painful enough when a trip has to be cancelled. You don’t need that pain deepened when the travel agent socks you with a fee. Some agents do, indeed, charge for cancellations, and this fact can be hidden in small print on their documents. Be sure to ask upfront to prevent unpleasant surprises.
 
Find out how you benefit. With the competition for business, most travel agents will offer bennies to book with them. Don’t be shy—ask. We’ve received a wide range of extras—from free drink packages to free travel insurance to shipboard credits.
 
Where to look. So, how do you find a travel agent? The usual ways, like asking friends and family. If your community hosts a cruise travel show, that’s a good way to way to hook up with an agent—that’s how we found ours.
 
Or, visit the website of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the cruise lines’ trade association, to find an agent near you who specializes in cruising. Their agents have the designation “Certified Cruise Counselor,” which they earn both through coursework and putting in time at sea. CLIA offers agents levels of certification—up to a “PhD” in cruising. To use the search tool on CLIA’s website, on the homepage, select “Vacations” and from “CLIA’s Cruise Tools” in the middle of the screen and select “Cruise Expert Finder.”
 
Do take the time to find a good agent—it will pay off by making sure you get the vacation you want and your hard-earned dollars go the furthest.
 
Musing’s Top Tip: For more on the benefits of using a CLIA-certified travel agent, see this brief video put together by the association.

What Gets Better as it Gets Older? Cruising.

Those of us who have been cruising for a while tend to look back wistfully at what’s gone out to sea—midnight buffets, five-course dinners, chocolates and cards on our pillows, little shampoo bottles and Q-tips.
 
But in many ways, cruising is better than ever. Consider this:
 
Bigger ships make a bigger bang. Think of all the bells and whistles that didn’t exist before. Like

Chicago on the high seas, via the Allure

more balcony rooms. 3D movies and bumper cars. Rock climbing and zip-lining. Broadway shows. Glass-blowing and cooking demos.
 
Ships come in all sizes. The cruise lines keep pumping ‘em out, large and small, and that’s only a good thing. Want to go to exotic ports and get to know your fellow travelers? A small ship’s for you. Surfing and skating is your thing and don’t mind sharing space with 5,399 other travelers? There’s one for you too.
 
Backstage is the new front stage. Once a word-of-mouth thing, galley tours, backstage tours and if you’re lucky, even bridge and engine room tours, are standard fare on today’s ships. Think of the useful tidbits you’ll walk away with—pounds of coffee consumed each day and how fast the ship goes at night.
 

Stainless steel galore on a Princess galley tour

The smoke out. We all breathe easier these days with smoking banned on most ships in most places. Even in those palaces of puffing—the casinos.
 
Ways to health. There are more and better ways to be healthy onboard, with well-equipped fitness centers and classes, jogging tracks and health-food style restaurants. Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class ships and many Celebrity ships have no-cost healthy dining choices that, for the most part, are better than what they serve up in their MDR or buffet.
 


Hand wash reminder on
Celebrity's Constellation

Sanitation savvy. Alas, the cruise lines have had their share of experience with norovirus, which has made them pros at avoiding and containing it. Sanitizers are everywhere and Princess won’t let you near the buffet without a spray.
 
Safety takes center stage. There is no better time than now to cruise when it comes to safety. With the Concordia and engine room fires still fresh in everyone’s memory, the cruise lines are going out of their way to reassure the public that cruising is as safe as ever. There’s new attention to muster drills, installation of backup generators and other safety measures.
 
Steady and stable. The big new ships today are more stable than the ones that came before. There have been many improvements in design that have made them more solidly built. We’ve been amazed that we’ve felt very little movement onboard. In fact, after 16 trips, we’ve not used seasickness medication once.
 
More demand equals more fun. Demand for cruising—at least outside the U.S.—has been growing, encouraging the cruise lines to build more ships, each outdoing the next with fun features and other ways to entice and excite us, making cruising more intriguing than ever. And best yet--keeping costs on an even keel.

 

What’s Alluring About the World’s Largest Cruise Ship

What’s the allure of the world’s largest ship? In a word, entertainment. Of the four cruise lines I’ve sailed with, no one does it better than Royal Caribbean.
 
The fare served up on the stages of Allure of the Seas is a refreshing departure from the usual shipboard shows and are worth the effort of scheduling your trip around them.
 
Allure’s full production of the musical “Chicago” was great fun, and the voices were strong and

Broadway on the seas.

clear. How neat is that—a Broadway-quality show for free! And if you get to the theater super early, you can even get the best seats in the house.
 
Then there was “Ocean Aria,” a diving and acrobatic show that’s so compelling you won’t want to take your eyes away for a second.

Adonis-like acrobat brothers wrap their bodies around each other in poses where you can’t tell where one body ends and the other begins. Divers from 90 ft. high fly into the air and amazingly, land gracefully and securely into the Allure’s tiny theater pool.
 
Inside the ship, on the ice rink, professional skaters—one a veteran of “Disney on Ice”—twirl, jump, spin and lift, while on a moving vessel, no less. The “Monopoly” theme lent itself well to playful and colorful sets and costumes.
 

Soaring from 90 ft. up.

The singers from “Chicago” re-emerged in “Blue Planet,” which had everything thrown in—acrobatics, singing and dancing—all in a celebration of nature. I won’t give it all away, but it included a trampoline, large rings and a human tree.
 
This comes on top of onboard surfing, ice skating, zip-lining, rock climbing and miniature golf. And then there are the three “neighborhoods;” their personalities ebbing and flowing by the hour. There’s the Promenade, the hub of the ship and venue for parades, dance classes and the best people-watching; Boardwalk, where you can ride a full-size carousel over and over again for free or eat foot-high pink cotton candy for a cost; and Central Park, an oasis of real foliage (but fake bird sounds).
 
Exciting, yes. But it does steal the show from the real leading lady—the mysterious, fascinating and ever-changing sea.
 
Not as Alluring
The Allure’s weak spot is the food. Some dinner dishes in the Main Dining Room were good (memorable was the shrimp on Italian-theme night), others were disappointing (Chicken Marsala was rendered as fried chicken with a nearly invisible sauce).
 
But what we most noticed—and missed—was the absence of beef choices, particularly compared to competing cruise lines.
 
We found that among the free dining options, the Windjammer buffet was often the best choice. Not only did it have a wider variety (shrimp crackers, anyone?), but some standout spicy Asian choices. It was a nice break from the usually bland and unimaginative dining room dishes.
 
Aside from the food, the other area where the ship doesn’t compare well to, say, the Caribbean Princess, is the staterooms. While okay on size, the Allure’s cabins offered less in the way of storage space. The closets are tight and night tables have open slots, which make them minimally useful.

Another downside is that the balcony chairs don’t recline, which makes seaside napping a challenge (but nothing that a glass of wine can’t cure!).
 
The Bottom Line
But, hey, you can’t be good at everything.

This may seem heretical, given all that the Allure and Oasis have going for them, but Musing wouldn’t recommend these ships for first-time cruisers. Because you’ll be permanently spoiled, and forever searching for the carousel and ice skating rink on every other ship.

Musing’s Top Tip: to really appreciate “Chicago,” stream or rent the movie version before your trip. And don’t forget to reserve all your shows online well in advance of your cruise. You can try to get in once on board, but be forewarned—the lines for standby outside the shows were substantial.

 

Photos by R. Greenburg

 

 

 

How to Be a Tightwad and Still Have Fun

We’re not the cruise lines’ best customers. Well, yes, we’ve done a lot of cruising—14 so far, with number 15 coming up fast. But we spend little beyond the cost of the cruise.

Yet our tightwad-ness does not detract from the experience one little bit. In fact, that we are frugal on trips allows us to take more of them.

If you’re on a tight budget or just want to be able to afford more trips, here are a few tips on saving money when you cruise:

Start at the very beginning. Get the lowest price on the cruise that you can. There’s plenty of info out there on how to snag the best price. For example, book early—at least a year out—for the best price and choice of room. Or, get a last-minute deal. If you’re going with a cruise line you’ve sailed with before, you might be able to get a loyalty club discount.

Saving the night before. When we first started cruising, we spent the night before in the traffic-clogged, high-octane, always-expensive, stress-producing Ft. Lauderdale. We wised up and now stay outside of town, for a cheaper, more relaxing experience. This only works, of course, if you’re driving to the port.

The lowdown on stateroom savings. The cost of a stateroom varies all over the place. Not just inside room (the bottom price) vs. suite (the top price), but categories of staterooms, based on where they are on the ship and where they are on each deck. Getting a room on “guarantee” (the ship picks where you’re going to end up) can snag savings.

A trip within a trip can pay off—or not. While cruise line-sponsored excursions at the ports can be memorable, other times they’re not worth the cost. You can try reading the forums (such as on cruisecritic.com), but with the cruise lines offering so many, it’s hard to get any feedback on the specific excursion you’re interested in. Look carefully at the excursion itinerary and the timing to help make a decision.

No-cost beaching. Some ports have nearby beaches or pools you can use for free, so you can skip the beach excursions. Some examples: St. Maarten’s Philipsburg (tender to the public beach right in

The public beach in St. Maarten's Philipsburg

town), Aruba’s Oranjestad (public beach is about a 10-minute walk from the pier), Grand Turk (beach--as well as a big pool--are right at the pier) and Costa Maya (huge public pool right at the pier).

Walk, don’t cab. Balance off all that sitting and eating onboard with a walk into town. Not only do you get to see more of the town that way, but you’ll burn off some calories, which makes room for some more!

Booze for free. Most of the cruise lines now allow you to bring a few bottles of wine on board. And if you cruise a few times on one line, you’ll automatically be included in their loyalty club, which entitles you to special events, which often include free drinks.

Ask the veterans for their tips. Anyone who has cruised a few times has money-saving tips of their own. Like when you’re in St. Maarten, invest in the unlimited tender fee instead of the one-trip fee, so you can go back and forth to the ship as many times as you want. Or take advantage of the free wi-fi at the library in Dominica’s Roseau, which is just a short walk from the pier. Get your bottles of rum at the Kmart near the Havensight port in St. Thomas.

If you don’t think the excursions, specialty restaurants, bar bill and casino visits add up, consider this: on his first cruise, what a friend of mine spent on all of these nearly equaled the cost of the cruise itself!

Have some of your own tips for saving money on cruises? Please let us all know!

 

How to Convince Your Spouse (or Family or Friend) to Take a Cruise

It can be really frustrating when you’re itching to try a cruise, but your spouse keeps putting up roadblocks. And with every bad news story, that roadblock gets taller and wider.

For a veteran cruiser, it can be maddening when you can’t get your family member or friend to try one. It’s kind of like having a favorite food that no one else will taste.

I’ve been there. I’ve done my share of coaxing, cajoling and arm-twisting. Sometimes it’s worked. Sometimes, it hasn’t. In any event, here are my very best suggestions for getting that special someone to try something we just know they’re going to like. If only…

Find out what excites them and zero in on it. For an active person, play up the rock climbing walls,

Rock climbing on the Allure of the Seas

zip lining and surf-maker on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis-class ships. The catamaran, parasailing or scuba diving excursions in the Caribbean islands. Entice gamblers with visions of roulette tables at sea. Tempt people who want to be pampered with menus of massages

Allure's Solarium

Appeal to all the senses. My spouse and I talked about cruising for years before trying it. Behind our procrastination was fear—we really had no idea what it was like. After all, it’s not like you can just walk onto a cruise ship, take a look around, say thank you and be on your way. And photos don’t really do it. Video helps because it involves more of the senses; it allows you to feel the excitement in a way that photos just can’t

So, find a documentary on cruising. You can rent one from your local library or see if the Travel Channel is airing one. Visit the cruise line websites for video clips and 360-degree views. Here’s a video on the Oasis class ships. Also, check out YouTube; it’s got a treasure trove of clips cruisers have posted from their trips

Let them hear someone else’s voice other than your own. The person you may trying to convince may be tuning you out at this point. If you know someone else who’s a cruise enthusiast, recruit him/her to help. Does your spouse/family/friend have a newspaper or magazine he/she regularly reads and trusts? Find an article on cruising from this source and share it, such as this one from The New York Times

Show them the cost. In the end, many things come down to cost. And this is where you can get some of your best ammunition. Break down a typical vacation to calculate the daily cost. Do the same for a cruise. Here’s one tool you can use

If none of these strategies work, don’t despair. It’s always possible some of this has gotten through and then when you least expect it, your spouse/family/friend has jumped onboard!