Rupert's Insights: Tips for First Time Cruisers

As with anything one does for the first time, there are things that you can only learn by doing. If you are contemplating taking your first cruise or you have already booked a cruise and are awaiting the sail away date, I thought it might be helpful to share some of what my wife and I have learned from the 15 ocean and 1 river cruise we have been on. We enjoyed every one and look forward to more.

Since we live almost dead centre in the middle of the North American continent we have a long way to go to board a cruise ship. We have taken several cruises from Florida, a couple in Asia and several in Europe. When booking flights to get to the the cruise port we always take into account the jet lag effect on our bodies as well as the potential to work around any travel delays that may crop up. If you are not on board ship by the departure time the ship will leave without you – you would then have to get yourself to one of the ports where the ship will be stopping and board there. For a Florida departure we always arrive at least one day before the cruise. From Europe or Asia, up to three days before the cruise. This gives plenty of time for sightseeing in the port city and time to get lots of fresh air and exercise to work off any jet lag.
Typically the first afternoon aboard the ship before setting sail there is a “tour of the ship” which will show you around and give you some tips. If you are on board in time it might be worth asking about this. If there isn’t an organized tour it would be a good idea to make your own tour using the floor plan map that is normally provided when you go aboard. You will be amazed at what there is on board.
Your stateroom (some call it a cabin) will be located on either the port or starboard side of the ship when facing forward. When you are facing the front of the ship (the bow – the pointy end), port is on the left and starboard is on the right.

People ask what is the point of using port and starboard terminology when left and right work perfectly well on land. On land you always have a fixed point of reference. On land we usually refer to the location of something in relation to either where we are facing or in relation to a fixed object (“the movie theatre is to the left of the pharmacy” – the implicit assumption in this statement is that we are speaking from the position of facing both businesses from the street view; “our seats in the movie theatre were on the left side” – the implicit assumption in this statement is that we are facing the direction in which the seats are facing – toward the screen”).

A ship moves across the ocean where there no lines painted, street corners or intersections and you move around the ship, on deck or inside. Ships can be very large and usually it is not possible to see any land or other fixed point of reference. If I tell someone that my stateroom is on the port side then there is no doubt about which side it is on (it’s on the left when facing the front and always is, no matter from what position inside the ship or outside the ship I am located). If you were in the theatre at the front of the ship my stateroom would be on the port side and if you were have breakfast in the cafeteria at the stern (back) of the ship it would still be on the port side. To use the terms left and right on a ship becomes very confusing – a port side stateroom would be on the left if you were facing forward but would be on the right if you were facing the rear. The same would be true if I showed you a picture of a ship and said that our stateroom was on the port side – you would immediately know which side, regardless of whether the pictures was taken looking towards the front or the back of the ship.

This terminology did not evolve to make it easier for passengers to find their staterooms – it came out of the need to be precise when navigating and when communicating with other ships. If two ships are approaching each other in opposite directions and the captains of these ships agree that they will pass with the other ship on their port side then there is no chance of confusion as to where they will go. This is not a problem on land – highways are fixed in place and lines can be painted on them.

Typically odd numbered staterooms are all one one side and even are all on the other.
When you are packing for your trip, in our experience bathrobes for use in your stateroom and beach towels that can be taken off the ship for a snorkeling excursion are supplied with your stateroom as well as a large umbrella or two smaller ones. Check online with the cruise line to see if these are provided as these are all fairly heavy and bulky items when you are packing for air travel.
When you board the ship you will find the beds are designed so you can store your empty luggage underneath the bed – in case you were wondering where all that luggage goes.
Remember that this vacation is not the same as going to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. The food and entertainment are included but most everything else is extra. Don’t be put off by this, it’s just the way it is. They are not running a charity so don’t be surprised if you are asked to pay for things beyond food and entertainment. Spending your vacation grousing about having to pay will not make it any more enjoyable.
When on board there are no cash transactions for anything. You will have given your credit card information to the cruise line when you check in. Your room door key card (a plastic card which acts as your room key, as for hotels) is used to charge anything you wish to buy to your account (drinks, a t-shirt in an on-board store or a shore excursion). Some cruise lines have moved to a fob-style device and others have a free app for your phone that will do the same things as the key card but can also be used to, for example, dim the lighting in your room or even send free text messages to companion travelers when on board.
In recent years there has developed a very nice trend, that of incentivizing potential customers with various perks for which there is no charge. These might include one or more of: drink packages, unlimited internet, cash credit to be spent on board or against the cost of excursions and tipping. These can add up to a thousands of dollars of monetary value if you are able to snag three or four such perks, depending on the length of the cruise. Sometimes perks are not offered when you are booking your cruise if you book many months in advance because the cruise line doesn’t know how quickly the cruise will sell out. However, we have found that by getting on the cruise line’s email list you may find out that perks are being offered at a later date. All you need to do is phone the cruise line directly or go through your travel agent if you booked through them and they will often throw in the perks to keep you – this is especially true if your deadline for paying the final balance has not yet arrived or if the retail cost of the cruise has dropped since you made your original booking.
If you are not able to get a drink package as a free perk you will still be able to purchase one when on board, or you can just pay as you go by charging each drink to your account. You will be able to purchase a variety of drink packages (pop and water only; pop, water and booze up to a certain quality; or all-inclusive including the most expensive “premium” booze). If you have a regular drink package already included with your reservation, for an extra cost you will be able to upgrade it for a “premium” drink package and get all the premium brands, etc. You should be able to check this out on line before you leave home so you can make an informed decision when you get on board. It’s your choice but it would be a good idea to know in advance what is available because it is easy to buy something on the spur of the moment your first day on the ship and they realize later that you perhaps could have chosen a different alternative.
In addition to drink packages, there will be much selling of specialty dining especially during the first few days. In our experience the specialty dining has always been very good on the few occasions we have been but the dining room service and food is always excellent so you shouldn’t feel obliged to pay extra for your evening meal, unless you want to try something different for a change. You can always make a reservation for a “one-off” meal (but sometimes they get fully booked, especially toward the end of a cruise, so if you are thinking of doing this don’t leave it too late to make a reservation).
The same goes for tipping. Sometimes your trip will have all tipping included but if not, tipping is strongly encouraged for good service. People like your stateroom attendant, waiter, assistant waiter, etc. work very long hours and usually only get one day off (or only part of a day off) each week and their pay is not very high by Canadian standards. The crew work very hard for their tips and they rely on it as part of their compensation. If you choose to tip a particular person at the end of the voyage, in my opinion it is more tasteful to put cash in an envelope and hand it it to them rather than flashing around a wad of cash.
If you go on any shore excursions through the ship, the ship will wait for you if the excursion is delayed (Celebrity Cruises makes this promise but I assume all the cruise lines do – check on this to make sure). If you are on your own excursion and you are late returning to the ship they might wait a short while but they are under no obligation to wait at all. Therefore, if you are on your own excursion make sure you have all your credit cards and passport in case you need to buy plane tickets to the next port! It will always be very clearly posted what is the “all aboard time” any time you are in port.
Depending on the countries you are visiting the practices with respect to passports can vary widely. Sometimes the ship will hold on to your passport for one or two ports; sometimes for the whole trip; sometimes not at all – this is dependent upon the countries you are visiting and not the cruise line. Make sure your passport, wallet, car keys, etc. are locked away in your stateroom safe when you don’t need them. We always bring a couple of colour photocopies of our passport ID page with us in locations where passports are not required – which is the case in the Caribbean. In such cases, only your room key card is needed to get back on board.
Make sure you have a reasonable amount of time to disembark and get to the airport in time for your flight home. If she ship is docking at, say 7 AM that doesn’t mean you get off at 7 AM. It can take up to a couple of hours the ship to be cleared by local authorities. After that, again depending on the port, you will likely be given a number which dictates the order you can get off the ship. Even if you have a low number sometimes (again depending on the port) it can take a long time to get through customs – once we arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Easter Sunday and US customs had three agents to process 3,000 passengers. It wasn’t pretty!

In our experience with Celebrity Cruises, they always deliver a questionnaire to the stateroom fairly early in the trip asked about your arrangements on the day you will be leaving the ship (flight time, flight number, airline, etc.). This came in very handy on the second Asia cruise we did. We went to bed the night before we were to dock in Shanghai, China knowing that is was extremely foggy outside. We received a phone call from the guest relations officer at 1 AM to say that the port was closed, we were at anchor and it would take the ship at least 6 hours to sail through the narrow 60-mile long channel into the port when the fog eventually lifted and the port re-opened. He said that there were just over 300 guests on the ship who had flights out that day and that the odds of us making the flight were slim to none. They were giving those of us in that group the first opportunity to contact our airlines (and they gave us free long distance calls) to change our flights. The earliest direct flight to Canada we could catch was in two days. As luck would have it, Shanghai was a wonderful city to visit and we were very pleased to have had the opportunity to stay there. This is the first time in all the cruises we have done that we have been delayed. We were very pleased with how the situation was handled by Celebrity Cruises. Our travel insurance covered all the costs of the Shanghai stay and flight change fees incurred because of the fog delay.
If you are taking a cab to the airport from the cruise terminal, depending on how much luggage you have and its size you may not be able to get more than one couple in a cab as many cabs are quite small in some parts of the world. My wife and I alone had our luggage hanging out of the trunk of a small taxi strapped in with a bungee cord in Hong Kong.
The staff on the ship will strongly encourage you to fill in the online survey that you will asked to complete at the end of the trip. If there are staff who are particularly good, take note of their names (first name is fine) and their position (stateroom attendant, waiter, assistant waiter, etc.) and mention their names in the survey. From speaking to staff over the years we have learned that they get recognized for this and it helps a great deal when job promotions are being considered.
If you don’t have an all-inclusive drink package and one of your group likes red wine but the rest of the table doesn’t drink red, you can purchase a bottle of wine at dinner and they will label the bottle which (hopefully) contains some wine at the end of the meal and you can finish it off over the next day or two in the dining room (you can’t take the partly used bottle with you). This is usually much cheaper than buying by the glass.
Cruises we have been on prohibit bringing your own booze on board from ports. Celebrity allows two bottles of wine (no other booze) when you first board the ship, per stateroom. When you board the ship at each port you have to go through security similar to an airport – they won’t throw out any booze they find but they will keep it and give it to you at the end of the trip (but remember it will have to go in your checked airline luggage because it is a liquid). If you want to bring booze on board, find out what the policy is before you try to do so.
Make sure you are aware of the dress code in the dining room. With Celebrity this has been relaxed somewhat over the years. In a 14 day cruise they will have 3 evenings which they now call “evening chic”. The other nights are what you might call business casual (collared shirts for men, long pants, etc. – pretty simple). Evening chic was brought in to get rid of the mandatory jackets and ties. I still wear a sports jacket on those evenings, with a dress shirt but no tie. I like this change because I dislike having to take a suit or tuxedo on vacation. There is a small handful of men who wear tuxedos but very few. Perhaps 10% of the men wear ties. Check with your cruise line – it can be uncomfortable (for me) walking into a room full of people dressed to the hilt and you are the only one without a tie. I can’t comment on the women’s clothing because I must make sure I don’t too much attention to what the women are wearing – no wandering eye here! Save that for the pool area when you’re wearing shades.
The ship will have shops – usually one with typical clothing items (t-shirts, hats, etc.) as well as souvenirs and usually several with higher end items such as watches and jewelry. They will tell you that their prices are very competitive and that it is duty free. In our experience both statements are true. We have never felt taken advantage of when buying a watch or jewelry item when we are back home and have checked out the prices. I once purchased a watch which turned out to be 1/3 of the price in a jewellery shop at home. With Celebrity they provide their own warranty for a year, regardless of what the manufacturer’s warranty is.
Remember to turn off the data roaming on your phone when you leave your country as data roaming charges can be huge when outside your country or area served by your cell provider. Of course Wi-Fi is free so use your data on Wi-Fi. The ship will probably have Wi-Fi available for a price and it won’t be cheap (it goes by satellite). The ship will also probably have cell phone coverage on board but again, make sure your data roaming is off because it will get very expensive very fast if your data roams on their cell network. If there is cell coverage on the ship of course there will be airtime as well as roaming charges if you make a call. Many ports and even some tour buses for excursions have free Wi-Fi (you will see many of the ship’s crew who have some time off in the port using the fee Wi-Fi – they always know where it is!). Free Wi-Fi is gradually becoming a perk that is easier to get.
In our experience the on-board entertainment is usually very good and it doesn’t cost anything to go to the evening stage show. There are normally two showings, one for the early and one for the later dinner crowd. The early show (around 7 PM) is intended for people who like to eat late and the late show is intended for people who like to eat earlier (like us).
On Celebrity ships they have two dining times, usually around 6 PM and 8:30 PM. In addition they have what they call “any time dining” which means you can go any time without a reservation. However, with any time dining you can make a reservation if you wish. In our experience we reserve every night in the dining room at, say 6:45 (they let you do so on line before you leave home) and then if you want to change the time or don’t show up you can phone the dining room and make the change. We find that 6:45 is a good time because if you are ashore for a day you want to go to your room and “freshen up”. We then usually go for a pre-dinner drink in one of the lounges. This time also gives us sufficient time (but not too much time) after your dinner to walk through the shops on the way to the late show which usually starts at either 8:30 or 9 PM.
When you get on board you will not be able to pay cash for anything. Everything gets charged do your room key card and at the end of the trip to the credit card you registered with them. During the cruise you should be able to see all charges to your account by using the appropriate menu choices on your TV.
Don’t assume as many Americans do that the US dollar is accepted everywhere you go. It will be accepted throughout the Caribbean and in touristy places in South America and Asia, especially “fridge magnet shops” at the port. Don’t be surprised if it isn’t accepted in other places. This is especially true in Europe. Even in Canada it will be accepted in touristy places but most other retailers won’t accept US dollars if they are in non-touristy places and they are under no obligation to do so because it is not legal tender in this country any more that are Russian rubles.
There will be one or two doctors and several nurses on board. They are mainly there to deal with medical issues for the crew (there will be 1,000+ crew on board in addition to the passengers and the crew are very far from their family doctors). For guests it’s a pay-as-you-go system. We have had to use this service a couple of times over the years (sinus & ear infections). The doctor can prescribe drugs and they normally have most medications you would needs unless it is very unusual. If you need medical treatment on land they have doctors, dentists, etc. that you can be referred to (don’t forget your credit card if this happens!). I fractured a molar while on a Mediterranean Cruise in 2018. The ship’s doctor explained that they can do many medical procedures but that they are not dentists so he prescribed an antibiotic and strong pain killers and made an appointment at the next port, Barcelona, Spain where I had to have the tooth extracted. Neither my wife nor I have ever felt the least bit seasick. However, as a precaution you might want to take a bottle of non-drowsy Gravol ginger pills. Ginger ale, green apples and looking at the horizon all help with motion sickness – and eat cold meals rather than hot ones if you are feeling motion sickness.
The electrical power and outlets in your stateroom will be the same as in North America so phone and computer chargers will operate fine. Sometimes there is a special outlet which carries European voltages too. If you are staying in a European, Asian or Australian hotel before or after the cruise, remember to take an adapter with you so your plug will go into their socket. Most phone and computer chargers will work on any voltage around the world – but you still need the correct adapter to plug it in to an outlet.
On Celebrity, any device that produces heat or flame is prohibited in your stateroom. This includes irons, candles, hair dryers, etc. Celebrity provides a hair dryer in the room but they don’t want people bringing their own. You should be able to find out about this from the cruise line’s website. Fire is the biggest danger on a ship – much more dangerous than the water underneath the ship and they take fire safety very seriously.
The day you board the ship there will be a mandatory safety drill which all guests must attend before the ship can sail. There will be clear instructions on what to do. In short, you will have to make your way to your “muster station” which will be one of the public areas on the ship (a lounge, the theatre, the casino, etc.) where you will receive instructions on the alarms that would be sounded in an emergency, what to do and where to go in an emergency, how to put on a life jacket, etc. This is something that Costa Cruises failed to do before they set sail a few years ago off Italy and a number of people paid the ultimate price for this.
If it’s a cool day or even a cloudy day exposure to the sun on the outside deck of a ship can be much more intense than on land – there is reflection off the water and there is normally a cooling breeze. Be extra careful with sunscreen, especially early in the trip.
If you are having a day at sea and the forecast is for rain send one of the keeners in your group early to grab chairs in the indoor pool area because if the weather isn’t great you won’t want to sit outside and the indoor seating will fill up. Of course you could sit in any of the many bars/lounges on board – but you can’t lie down on a recliner to read a book in a bar.
You will have many opportunities to have your picture taken by staff from the ship’s photography studio (when you get on and off the ship, at dinner, etc.). If they take your picture there is no obligation to buy it, but it can be a nice keepsake if you want to spend the money.
There may be talks offered on various topics such as the history of countries you are about to visit, the geography of the area or other topics – there was even a speaker on dog behavior on one cruise. These are usually no more than about 40 minutes long and are usually very good (no charge).
In the dining room, if you like the look of two appetizers they won’t flinch if you ask for more than one (no charge). Sometimes if there is a main course or dessert that looks interesting but you don’t really want to order it for yourself you can order it “for the table” in addition to your own order and then more than one of you can sample the dish.
The average weight gain for a two-week cruise is about 5 pounds. There is normally a well-equipped gym available at no charge. There is also a walking/jogging track, often on one of the highest decks (although for the one Princess cruise we took it was on a much lower deck, such as deck 3 or 4 and it passed an area where garbage was stored and was rather stinky at times).
Distances are reported in nautical miles which are longer than statute miles (1 nautical mile = 1.15 statute miles = 1.85 kilometers. Speed is reported in knots (nautical miles per hour) (1 knot = 1.15 miles per hour = 1.85 kilometers per hour.
When approaching a port (sometimes at the port entrance but often a few miles away) the ship will slow down and a small power boat will approach one side of the ship. This boat is the pilot’s boat. The pilot is a retired captain who is based in that port and is intimately familiar with the local tides, currents, rules and any temporary restrictions, etc. The pilot will board the ship through an entrance on the side and go up to the bridge where he provides advice to the captain when navigating the port. The same goes when leaving a port – the pilot leaves the port on the ship and will get off onto the pilot boat sometime after leaving the entrance to the port.
Every evening you will have delivered to your stateroom a daily program for the next day (they usually put it on the bed). This is full of all kinds of useful information about what will be going on around the ship, information about the port of call, docking times, departure times, weather forecasts, etc.
When you (sadly) reach the last day of the cruise you will be issued special luggage tags that need to be fastened to each piece of luggage that is not “hand luggage”. You will be given a time when these items need to be placed in the hallway outside your stateroom door the night BEFORE your departure day (usually its 10 PM or 11 PM). You’ll need to set aside toiletries and whatever clothing you want to wear on the departure day before you put your bags out (it’s not classy to be wearing your jammies when going through customs!). Don’t be taken by surprise when this happens – it’s not practical to have 2,000+ passengers all taking all their luggage off the ship by themselves. When you get off the ship and are in the port the luggage will either be lined up in groups according to the numbers on the luggage tags or, in some ports, will be on a huge luggage carousel airport-style. The day of departure can be a pain, depending on how well set up the port is; some are good and some are slow. Remember, if it is slow I can guarantee that it isn’t the cruise line’s fault – they have to get 2,000+ passengers off the ship, clean all the rooms and then get another 2,000+ new passengers on the ship in time to depart (often by 5 PM or 6 PM). It is quite an enormous undertaking, to be sure. The customs process is the biggest determinant of how quickly everyone is able to disembark.
If your flight home is the same day that you disembark the ship but later in the afternoon and from a city where you would like to do a bit of exploring, one option is to purchase a shore excursion for the day of departure. We did this once in Miami. We got off the ship, cleared customs with all our bags and boarded a coach which then took us on a guided tour of Miami. We had time for lunch and then the coach dropped all the passengers at the airport in the early afternoon. This was much nicer than lugging bags into and out of a taxi and was a nice way to kill several hours that would otherwise have been spent at the airport.