Behold the Frugal Cruiser

Have you seen The Frugal Cruiser?

You can find him toting a bottle of wine onboard to sip in his stateroom.

Enjoying free drinks at happy hour because he’s Loyal to Royal.

Using the casino only as a pass through.

Trekking around port instead of taking an excursion.

Using the medicine he brought from home, instead of from the ship’s shop.

Ordering the drink of the day, even though it’s not his first choice.

Saving on each specialty meal by buying a dining package.

Getting perfume at a shop in port, after pricing it out at home.

Booking his next cruise while he’s still onboard, saving money and getting onboard credit too!

And smiling all the way down the gangplank, with no big bar bill looming, no casino losses—and another cruise with onboard credit—right around the corner.

Squeezing an SUV into a VW Beetle or How to Get What You Pack into Your Stateroom

How small is a cruise ship stateroom?

Well, the average U.S. hotel room is 300 square feet.¹

College dorm room? Around 180.²

And the ship stateroom? Sadly, about 175.¹

Smaller than a dorm room.

When you consider how much you’re going to pack into that room—play clothes, formal clothes, travel clothes, electronics, and so on—you can’t help but wonder, how is that going to work?

Luckily, the cruise lines have managed to work a fair amount of storage space into that bite-sized room that’s going to be your floating home for a week. Some ships have more than others, but here are some tips for finding a spot for all that you’ve got:

Off the door and into the closet. Carnival recently made waves with some restrictions on over-the-door shoe organizers. You can get around this by bringing the kind that fit inside the closet (it has hooks on the top that hang from the bar). Yeah, it eats into your space for hanging clothes, but you’d be surprised how much extra storage this adds. Three of these (one for clothing and two for shoes/knickknacks) fit very comfortably in Princess’ large closets and even (though snugly) in the smaller Royal Caribbean ones.

This organizer is perfect for shirts and
underwear and folds into a compact package
for your suitcase. Get it at
Target or Walmart.

Look under the bed. There’s a lot of space down there. When closet and drawer space is tight, consider keeping half of your clothes in your suitcases stored under the bed. About midway through the trip, I do a swap—take the clean clothes out of the suitcase and onto the shelves, and store the dirty ones back under the bed.

Climbing the walls. You don’t need to take up space on your night table—your walls function as a note-holding device. Just throw a few magnets in your suitcase before leaving home.

Bare the frig. On embarkation day, ask your room steward to take all those high-priced drinks and snacks that you won’t touch out of the frig, and use it for the wine or water you bring, or snacks from the buffet. Some cruise lines are now just providing an empty frig.

Safe and sound. Don’t forget about the safe—in addition to wallets, keys and jewelry, it’s also a great place to store smartphones, smaller tablets and anything else you’re not likely to use as you cruise.

Pack your smarts. If you’re flying to the cruise, you’ve got built-in over-packing protection—it’s called baggage cost. But if you’re driving to the port, there’s nothing stopping you from stuffing your bags—except self-control. What’s worked for me—uh, sort of—is to pack, and then repack, saying over and over in my head, “am I really going to wear this?” I pull out a few things…and then still take too much.

¹nbcnews.com

²WSJ, 8/12

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.

Packing It In

I love to cruise. But boy, do I hate to pack.              
 

Fighting the urge to take too much. Afraid to take too little. What if it’s really hot? Or we get rain? Did we decide on a beach? Are we doing formal night? And on and on.
 
After 16 cruises, I’m sorry to report that it’s only gotten a tad easier. If you’re like me and look forward to packing as much as a root canal, you may appreciate a few tips, accumulated from many trips of taking the right—and wrong—things along:
 
List your to-dos. It works at work and it works at home. Simple but invaluable. My cruise to-do list has on it things like: book a hotel for the night before, online check-in, print up luggage tags, turn off the water, stop the newspaper and mail, tell the neighbor we’ll be gone, forward the landline to the cell.
 
Digitally document. If you do a lot of cruising like we do, it really helps to put your packing list on the computer. You can easily add and subtract over time. We print up the lists and cross off each item as it makes it into the suitcase. This just about guarantees you won’t forget anything.
 
Pack early and often. The next best way to make sure you don’t forget anything is to start early. Pull things aside that you’re taking and either load them into the suitcase or put them in a box or crate for packing later.
 
Forget cotton. Alas, I don’t follow my own advice. Warmth and cotton were made for each other. But I pay for it; I spend weeks ironing my stuff. Only to pull it out of the suitcase wrinkled as a prune. And do the whole thing again the next trip.
 
Don’t leave home without it. Some little extras we always take are top of the list—a big portable digital clock so we can see the time from everywhere in the stateroom, walkie-talkies, stainless steel coffee mugs, little reading light and water tumblers.

Stashing Your Stuff

Not as much of a torture but a challenge just the same is finding a place to put all this stuff once you get on board:
 
Do like Russian nesting dolls. When you put your suitcases under the bed, put the small one inside the big one. That frees up space under the bed.
 
Dealing with dirty wear. Once the laundry gets to a certain point, I take the small suitcase out of the big one and store the laundry in the big suitcase. That frees up closet space. All this moving around can feel like a shell game, but how else to pack it all into the little hovel they call a stateroom?
 
Closet help. We bring a shoe organizer—the kind that hangs from the bar in the closet. It provides handy storage for those small things—batteries, charging cables, sunglasses—oh, and shoes, too.
 
Have any great packing/unpacking tips of your own? Let us know!

 

Sizing Up The Ships

Big truck or small car, mansion or cottage, sub or tea sandwich—size matters. And so it is with a cruise ship. Whether you choose a smaller one—like the Celebrity’s Constellation at 90,000 tons—or the world’s biggest, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas at 225,282—it will shape your vacation.

The biggest ship in the world
has 16 decks

Why should this be, you might wonder? After all, both ships have dining choices (free and otherwise), pools, theaters, shops, a library and casino. They both have a mind-numbing number of stateroom categories, room stewards to meet your needs, and plenty of public rooms and outside decks to hang out in. 

But there are differences and it helps to know about them when planning a trip. Consider these pros and cons:

Big Ship, The Pros



 

Wide variety of facilities and activities. Nothing beats the Oasis of the Seas and its sister ship, Allure of the Seas, in places to be in and things to do. There are the three “neighborhoods” of the Promenade, Boardwalk and Central Park, with their eating places, shops and entertainment. The ship’s got onboard surfing, zip-lining, miniature golf, ice skating and rock-climbing.

Myriad food choices. More space means more room for restaurants, from fine dining to buffets, cafes and pubs. Some free restaurants on the Allure are so underutilized the ship actually promotes them.
 
Lots of exercise opportunities. If you don’t get enough exercise just walking to your room on a ship the size of the Allure, you’ve got other options. There’s a gym with plenty of machines and exercise classes. And a jogging/walking track that runs the length of the ship. Just do 2.4 laps and you’ve conquered a mile.  

Big Ship, The Cons

Lots of exercise opportunities. On a ship like the Allure, you’re going to get walking in—whether you like it or not. Even if your room is as close to the elevator as you can get. As on most ships, the theater’s on one end and the main dining room’s on the other.

 


After the parade on Allure's Promenade

Forget learning how to navigate the ship. Trying to find the same bar twice on the Allure is truly a challenge. At least there are lifelines—digital maps in the lobbies.   
Sometimes, crowds. Though the big ships have many more passengers, there’s also more room for them to spread out. But there will be times you’re woefully aware you’re not the only one on the ship. Like the muster drill. Parades on the Promenade. Disembarkation. Peak meal hours in the buffet. The Allure even has a crew member doing crowd control in the buffet at times.

Small Ship, The Pros

Mastering the ship is a short learning curve. Perhaps the best part of a smaller ship is that fumbling is at a minimum. You can have that baby mastered in a day.

 
Everything’s easier. Because there are few crowds, everything’s easier, from finding a parking space at your embarkation port to getting a seat in the buffet to getting off the ship.
 
You’ll know thy neighbor. There’s a more intimate feel on a smaller ship. Because there’s less room 

Cozy table for two in the Constellation's
Ocean Liners specialty restaurant

to spread out, you keep seeing the same people. Eventually, you start talking to them. Before long, you’re friends.
 
Doors are open at more ports. Some ports can’t accommodate ships the size of Oasis class. Smaller ships can get into more places.
 
There’s less to do, so you'll do more. Unlike a larger ship, you’re not likely to leave saying, “Oh, we forgot to try…” You take advantage of more of the ship.

Small Ship, The Cons

See Big Ship, The Pros above.

 
The bottom line? You’ll have a great time no matter what size ship you choose. And if you go with a small one, you’ve got a built-in excuse for booking your next cruise, and try a big one the next time around.

Cruising the Web

Looking for reviews on a ship? Help on picking a cabin? There’s a website for that. How about tracking your ship’s whereabouts? Finding out who else is sailing with you? There’s a website for that too.
 
There’s so much stuff on the web for cruise planning that it can be hard to know where to start. So I’ve spent time sifting through a lot of it so you can spend less. Here’s my take on the best online resources for ship reviews, cruise advice and getting excited about your upcoming trip:
 
Cruisecritic.com—The most robust and well known of the sites, it gets more visitors than all of its competitors combined. It has detailed reviews of ships and ports by its authors, a huge database of member reviews, industry news, feature stories and cruise deals, as well as active roll calls (connect with fellow cruisers before your trip). Musing’s Top Feature: It has the most vibrant forum, with readers writing in all day long on a wide variety of topics. The site’s members also work with many of the ships to host free “Meet and Mingle” events during cruises that can feature “cabin crawls” (peek into different cabin categories), presentations by the crew, raffle drawings, food and gifts.

Cruiseline.com—Search for trips on this site, view ship reviews and photos by members, and get overall ratings of ships based on member reviews. There are also feature stories, cruise planning advice, roll calls and a forum. Musing’s Top Feature: This site verifies members actually took the cruises they’ve evaluated, designating the reviews with a green “Verified Review” ribbon. You can also access the free smart phone Ship Mate app to track your ship’s whereabouts at any given moment, connect with others on your trip and more.

Cruisemates.com—Provides reviews by the editors of ships and ports, and a forum with reviews by members. Member reviewers are asked to rate ships on various criteria, and each ship is given an overall rating based on this input. There’s also advice on cruising and cruise deals. Musing’s Top Feature: Lively feature stories are submitted by columnists such as Janice Wald Henderson, a food editor and writer for epicurious.com.

Cruise-addicts.com—Includes industry news, cruise deals, ship reviews, photos submitted by members and forums. Musing’s Top Feature: This site is a winner for audio/visual features, with its array of videos on the ports, ships and the industry, as well as podcasts. It also has a variety of webcams on the ports and an interactive, real-time cruise ship tracker.
 
Cruisedeckplans.com—Sick of straining to see the tiny stateroom numbers in deck plans on websites or in catalogs? This is a site for sore eyes! Deck plans are interactive and enable magnification. Hover over a room number and you get cabin descriptions and occasionally, insider info that you’ll never get from the cruise lines. Like when a cabin could be noisy because it’s near a crew work room.

There are also deck plans with on-the-spot photos of public rooms that have been submitted by readers. The site is actively recruiting member photos and will even pay (though you’ll have to submit a lot just to cover the price of a cup a coffee). Most of the site’s info is available for free, but a modest membership fee gets you even more. Musing’s Top Feature: The whole site is unique and offers something no other one does—the ability to find a stateroom on a deck plan without getting a headache.

Porteverglades.net—This is the official website of Port Everglades, Florida, one of the busiest ports in the U.S. 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 also alerts you to construction that may slow down traffic into the port.

Know of any other great sites? Do share!

 

Quiet Times

It seemed like such a great idea. We’d schedule a cruise over the holidays so we wouldn’t have to take as many days off from work. Then the Celebrity sales rep said, “You know, during Christmas week, we get about 600 kids.”

All of a sudden, our week of blissful heaven began to look the depths of you-know-where.

 
It was then that we realized finding quiet when you cruise is not a given—you’ve got to work at it. Here are some suggestions (no guarantees, mind you!) for getting that piece of peace on your next sea voyage:
 
Quiet times: avoid school vacations. Obvious, yes. But a bit harder to pull off. You’ve got elementary school vacations. College vacations. Florida’s vacations. Canada’s vacations. They can all be different. Is it worth avoiding these times? Just read a few of the reviews in cruisecritic.com by the unlucky travelers who found themselves sharing a ship with those 600 kids.
 

The tranquility of Central Park at night
on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas.

Quiet rooms: pick your stateroom very carefully. Check what’s above and below you, as well as side to side. You don’t want to be anywhere around the gym, jogging track, cafeteria, dining room, discos, bars, pools or laundromats. Or too close to the elevators, the crew’s linen room, the galleys, or where the luggage comes in and out.
 
If you’re going for a balcony room, it’s better not to be across from an inside room. And unless you’re traveling with family or friends, I would avoid adjoining rooms as well. 
 
Musing’s Top Tip: It’s nearly impossible to read room numbers on those deck plans in the cruise catalogs, so try enlarging them on a copier. Makes checking out the rooms much easier.

A hideaway on Celebrity's Solstice.

 
Quiet moments: stay when everyone else goes. Many will tell you the best time to be onboard is when the ship empties out in port. A lovely silence pervades the vessel. There are seats in the cafeteria. Even the crew looks more relaxed.
 
On each ship, there’s always little hideaway to discover. Your best bet is off times. The crow’s nest is usually empty during the day. Hardly anyone uses the library. And somewhere onboard, there’s a cozy armchair in a corner with your name written all over it.