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

Location, Location, Location—Pick Your Stateroom as You Would Your Home

What’s the perfect location for a stateroom on a cruise ship?

Well, that depends.

What would you look for in a home? How far it is from work? Is it near good schools? Where’s the closest supermarket? Is the neighborhood quiet?

On a cruise ship, it’s not too different. Maybe you want to know how close your room is to the dining room, buffet or pool. And how far are you willing to trek down that long lonesome hallway to get

somewhere? Does quiet matter?

How far are you willing to walk down this long lonesome hallway on Allure of the Seas?

One thing for sure—like with a home, where your bed is on a cruise ship can impact how happy you’re going to be. 

Decorations won't help if you pick the wrong place

So, you want to give some thought into what you want and time into planning. Here are a few tips on selecting a room:

Know what you want. Prioritize what you want to be close to, and then select a room that's nearest the elevator that will take you there. You don’t have to worry about elevator noise; I haven’t been on a ship yet where a room near the elevator is a problem. Elevators tend to be set away from staterooms.

If it’s quiet you’re after. To find the quietest rooms, avoid adjoining ones (which can draw families) and those across from inside rooms (slamming doors, folks hanging out in their doorways). Pick decks that don’t have these above or below: pools, buffets, restaurants, gyms, jogging track or discos.
 

If it's quiet you're after, don't get a room below the pool...

...or under decks like the Promenade on Navigator of the Seas

And when looking at deck plans, be sure to note empty spaces near rooms—they can be the crew’s linen closet or galley, which can mean a lot of activity early in the morning. Be careful too to avoid baggage areas and laundry rooms.

...or near laundry rooms like the ones on the Regal Princess

Steady as she goes. The parts of the ship with the least amount of movement tend to be mid-ship. If you don’t think location is important, check out how the prices vary—you’ll pay a premium for being in the middle of the ship. And these rooms tend to go faster.

Help for planning. Looking at deck plans can be as fun and easy as reading a camera manual. If you can even read the print (which gets smaller all the time!), it’s hard to know what you’re even looking at. Fortunately, the cruise lines generally have decent online versions. Also consider cruisedeckplans.com for an easier online experience.

Deciphering deck plans can be as fun as studying for finals

The last step. Say you’ve narrowed it down to an actual room, but you want to make sure it’s what you want. You can:

* Call the cruise line for information, but what you get may be limited

* Throw a question out on the cruisecritic.com boards; see especially Cruise Discussion Topics/Cabin Selection Tips

* Google the room number (including the ship name)

One last idea is to scout out the rooms and decks on Disembarkation Day. If you can spare a few minutes, note where you’d want to be—or don’t want to be—should you (hopefully) find yourself on the ship or same class of ship at some point in the future. 

Making the Most of Your First Cruise

If you’ve booked your first cruise, you’re probably not quite sure what to expect. But you’ve got a lot invested in this trip and expect a great time. Here are a handful of tips to help ensure you make the most of it:
 
Read, read and read some more. About everything—the ship, the cruising experience, the ports. The more you know, the more you’ll get out of the trip. Be sure to read the forums in cruisecritic.com and other sites (see the posting “Cruising the Web”).
 
Inside or out. Consider an inside or outside room your first trip. Avoiding a balcony room your first cruise is the best way to ensure you get the whole ship experience. We love having a balcony, but it’s so tempting to stay on it at sail-away, on a sunny sea day, coming into port—nearly all the time! Our first trip, we had an outside room and never regretted it. Check out “The Cure for Deck Plan Distress” to help you navigate deck plans and find the right room for your needs.
 
Plan, but don’t plan. You may want to do some planning; for example, if you’re taking the Oasis or Allure of the Seas, you’ll need to schedule your shows before your trip. But you don’t want to plan every minute of your cruise; you may miss out on great spur-of-the-moment experiences.
 

Ice show on the Oasis: worth making plans for

Don’t feel compelled to excursion. For our first visit to San Juan, we booked an excursion. Mistake! The bus trip and Bacardi tour took forever and by the time we got back to town, everything was closing. When the ship sailed away, we knew we were in San Juan, but hadn’t a clue what it looked like.
 
Open for fun. If you got pushed into going, go with an open mind. One of the great things about cruising is that you can have any type of trip you want. Relax or be active. Be social or recluse. Eat to your heart’s content or sweat it out at the gym and spa.
 
Oh-oh. If something goes wrong, know it can happen on any vacation. Try not to judge the whole experience by your one trip.
 
Join in the fun. Some of it may feel silly and may not be to your taste. But getting into the games,

Joining in on the fun at Mardi Gras, Caribbean Princess-style

dancing the disco, singing the karaoke and showing up at the shows will guarantee you a good time. And no worries—you’ll never see your fellow passengers again!
 
Tap the wealth of info around you. Share a table. Seize the moment in a bar. Go to a Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle. You can learn a lot by talking to others on the ship, who may be experienced cruisers.  They can tell you where to go in port, what not to miss and what on the ship is worth seeing or doing.
 
Digital pictures are free. Whether your memory-capturing tool of choice is a smart phone or camera, don’t be stingy with taking photos. You’ll really appreciate it when you get home. I filled a digital frame with tropical pictures and it does wonders on those days of stress and strain.
 
Don’t leave the ship without it. Book your next cruise while you’re still onboard. You may get some great deals, like a super low deposit and shipboard credit. It’s a no-lose because you can get a refund at any time. I share this because I know once you get a taste of cruising, you’ll be lusting after more!

Photos by RJ Greenburg

The Cure for Deck Plan Distress

Well, maybe I’m exaggerating the agony of trying to select a stateroom with those microscopic cruise catalog deck plans…or am I?
 
If you’re like me, you’ve pained and strained to read those numbers that seem to get smaller every year. We’ve done a Sherlock and wielded a magnifying glass. Stacked as many eyeglasses as our noses would hold. Held the catalogs up to the light and pushed them as far out as our arms could go.
 
The good news is that after the all the eye strain, the migraine and a dose of research, I now have a few decent suggestions for dealing with deck plans for picking that perfect stateroom:
 
1.      Blow it up. We’ve taken a page from the catalog, enlarged on the copier and then did it again and again until it got legible. Then, we mounted it on foam core.
 
2.      Look it up. Here are some websites that are a real help:

cruisedeckplans.com –Perhaps the best of the sites, it promises to “make cruise deck plans fun.” It certainly has a lot of neat features, which enable you to:

·        View a number of decks on one page, convert it to PDF for printing, and make the display larger or smaller (select “Deck Plans” from top menu)

·        Drag decks over each other to see what’s above and below (select “Drag Decks” from top menu)

·        Hover over a cabin to get a diagram and general square footage for a category

·        Where you see a photo icon on the deck, see actual photos of the area on the ship

·        Be alerted to possible issues in a deck area, such as “This blank space is a crew area and you may hear doors opening and other noise coming from this area” (a star on the deck plan indicates a comment)

 

And if you join for $8.99 a year, you get actual photos of rooms submitted by readers, as well as downloadable photos of public areas. There were quite a lot of photos, which makes the reasonable fee well worth the cost. 

In fact, they’ll even pay you—if you submit your own photos ($.25 each).

icruise.com—A great feature of this site is that you can plug in a room number and it takes you right to it on the deck plan, flagged by a can’t-miss-it flashing square. To use this feature, from the homepage, select “Cruise Lines,” then your ship and “Deck Plans” from the left menu. Enter your room number in the “Find Your Cabin” search. Be sure to include the letter with the room number when searching (e.g., D415) or it won’t work. 

Also, the deck plans are oversized and clear, and can be enlarged or reduced. If you select the “Public Rooms” tab (in the middle of the screen), it will show if there are any public rooms on that deck.

deckplangenius.com—This site claims advice on 83,000 staterooms. From the top menu, select “Cruise Ships,” your ship and then scroll down the page to select a deck. The deck plans are easy to read, but not enlargeable. Click on a room to get info about it, and pros and cons of the location. However, this info is very general in nature.

For example, the first room we chose, in a bump out, said, “At this time, there have been no extraordinary issues identified with this cabin. However, that does not mean that there are not possible issues with this cabin.” 

And the caption under the stateroom photo said: “It is not the actual picture of the stateroom, but should be quite similar to the actual cabin.” In fact, we’ve stayed in a mini-suite on the same Princess ship and this was not an accurate representation.

Some detailed reviews on specific rooms have been submitted by readers, which can be very useful, because they comment on everything from noise level to condition of the room. Unfortunately, there’s a limited number of reviews; for the Caribbean Princess, for example, there were only four.

cruiseshiprooms.com—Deck plans on this site are also easy to read, but, again, can’t be magnified. If you click on a room, you get just general info.  It provides an area for reviews and photos, but none was available for a room on either of two ships I searched.

 
3.      Give it up. The easiest way to pick a cabin, of course, is to let your travel agent do it. Or, select a “guarantee” room, which will save you some money, but you could end up with a room anywhere—including next to the laundromat.
 
Musing’s Top Tip: Other helpful resources for trip planning are cruise reviews—by folks like you and me who actually took the trips on the ships you’re considering. Check out this posting for some of the best cruiser review sites.

Cruising and the Sweet Anticipation

Ah, anticipation. “That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.” Jane Austen might as well have been talking about cruising.
 
I know it’s not just me who finds the planning of a cruise nearly as satisfying as the cruise itself. That explains the variety of cruise countdowns, roll calls and other tools designed precisely to fuel our excitement.
 
And now, here, I’m going to share some of what’s out there to feed your sweet anticipation:
 
Cruise countdowns—There’s a cute (free!) cruise clock widget at Cruisingtalk for your blog or website. You select your cruise destination, the ship icon with the right logo and trip date. If you want to see what it looks like, scroll down to the very bottom of my blog screen for my upcoming trip on the Constellation. Here are some other countdowns (all of which are free):

Ucruiser—wide variety of tickers you can tailor to the particular ship
Shipmate—designed for your Facebook page
Shipmate app—this cell phone app has a countdown, as well as trip itineraries, photos, deck plans and more

Weather forecasts for ports of call—If your trip is coming up within a month, cruiseoutlook.com will give you the weather forecast at all your ports of call. It will also show you where your ship is right now and where it will be over the next month.
 
Webcams—Watch the port ship comings and goings, get a sneak peek of what your port looks like and check out what’s happening on your ship right from your desk with a webcam. Here are a few places to find them:

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

Roll calls—These are ways for people who are taking the same cruise to meet virtually. Many of the forums have them, including:

cruisecritic.com
cruise-addicts.com
cruiseline.com
cruisemates.com
 
Advice from those who really know—us
There are many websites with tips on planning excursions, packing and the like. But to get the details—and answers to your most specific questions from those who really know—your best bet is the forums. For a list of them, see my posting from July 18, Cruising the Web.

Musing’s Top Tip: If you sail on Princess, check out the “Downloads” section of their website for screensavers and wallpapers, slide shows and shipboard webcams you put on your desktop.

#cruise