How to book & pack for a cruise

My husband and I are unashamed that we love to cruise. We are not the target demographic of most cruises (late-20’s, no kids, not big drinkers or partiers, would rather read on a sea day than lay in the sun, would rather listen to a live jazz band than gamble), but we love it regardless. We’ve been on all sorts of cruises – a western Mediterranean cruise on our honeymoon, a rather last minute 10-day Caribbean cruise for vacation two years ago, & a cruise to New England and Canada last summer (where we became known as “the young people”).

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Seabourn… so many to choose from!
First, lets be honest: if you’re going to cruise on the yachts of Seabourn, you can probably ignore the rest of this column, because you already have it figured out. You are traveling in style! For the rest of you with a smaller budget, I offer the following advice: Every sailing of every cruise is different. Multiple cruise lines will run the same seven-day Caribbean route, yet the experience will be different on each, every time. The disaster one week when it rained every day will be followed by the most perfect week at sea. However, that doesn’t mean that review sites, like my favorite Cruise Critic, can’t be helpful, especially after you’ve booked.I have cruised two of the “mega” lines, Royal Caribbean & Carnival. I don’t want to scoop myself, since I’ll be reviewing our New England & Canada trip on the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas Wednesday & our trip on the Carnival Pride on Thursday, but let me just say that they were basically the same cruise with different itineraries. They both sailed out of Baltimore, a convenient port close to DC where we live. Both boats had about the same number of people on them (around 2600 passengers). They both had the same, mass produced food (some of which is very good, some of which is not).

Real Cruising Tip #1: try some of the smaller east coast ports, including Baltimore; Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey; & NYC. All awesome cruises do not leave out of Miami & Fort Lauderdale! If you’re coming from the east coast, I bet it’s easier to get to one of these ports than south Florida anyway.

Bottom line & Real Cruising Tip #2: we have always chosen our cruise lines based on itinerary & price, rather than brand name. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Celebrity, Princess, Holland America. They’re all basically the same. The only exception I would make is for Disney, which I understand takes their kids programs a notch about the rest. Of course, if you’re trending toward Seabourn, again, go with the brand name.

Interior, balcony, oceanview, suite… what does it all mean. Is there really a difference?
My first cruise was a Carnival cruise with my family when I was 13 years old. We stayed smashed together in an interior cabin & lets just say it was not pretty by the end. Now that I can make my own travel plans, I have a minimum requirement: my room has to have a window. Some people swear by interior cabins – they’re by far the cheapest & a lot of people don’t plan on spending a lot of time in their cabin anyway, so what’s the difference? For me personally, it is too claustrophobic for me not to at least be able to see outside.

The first time in my adult life I cruised, it was on my honeymoon. A balcony was a non-negotiable, even though it was late October in a chilly Mediterranean. We enjoyed it a bit, bundling up in sweatshirts to have coffee out on it every morning & popping champagne to celebrate our newlyweddedness. The next time we cruised, on a cheap-y Caribbean cruise in mid-August, the balcony room was so reasonably priced, there was no way we weren’t going to book it. For the two days it took to sail from Baltimore to the Turks & Caicos, we sat on the balcony, reading, enjoying free room service lunches, napping & watching Hurricane Bill (more on that in a minute). For our one day at sea coming back from the Bahamas we did the exact same thing, only this time we watched Tropical Storm Danny. We had breakfast on the balcony every morning, a glass of wine on it every evening & used it as a retreat to get away from the other 2500 people on the ship. Fast forward to last summer when a balcony cabin was three times the amount of an ocean view with a window. We couldn’t really afford the balcony, so we chose the window. Not having a balcony meant that we had to use the public areas of the ship during our three sea days, & it was often hard to find a quiet place to read (the small library was often jammed with others doing the same thing). While the balcony would not have been worth the difference in price, we both definitely missed having somewhere private & quiet to go.

Bottom line & Real Cruising Tip #3: choose the cabin you can afford. If you can afford the balcony, I’ve never met someone who was sorry they had one. If you can only afford the interior, do a little research to make sure the public areas of the ship are appealing to you.

When should I go?
We have cruised twice during hurricane season & once at the very end of cruising season in the Mediterranean. If you’re looking at a Mediterranean cruise, I would absolutely encourage you to look at one in the late fall. The weather will be cooler (& maybe a little rainy), but the crowds in the European ports will be so much more manageable than they are in July & August.

We don’t cruise during hurricane season by choice, really: like the rest of Washington, our summer vacation comes in August during the congressional recess. We are comfortable cruising during hurricane season because while we choose itineraries we like, we’re never really married to one specific port. Except in extreme circumstances, the boat will sail if there is a hurricane (I know, I’ve cruised with several!), you may just go to a different port than you had planned. Real Cruising Tip #4: You have to be flexible when you cruise during hurricane season! A simple YouTube search will reveal videos of irate passengers screaming at crew members because they’re skipping a port due to a storm. Personally, I’d rather go to a sunny beach on a different island than a beach that’s getting by a hurricane. The cruise line will never take you anywhere that is unsafe.

Other than August, the Caribbean in the late winter/early spring is also lovely – heck the Caribbean is lovely year round! If you’re trying to avoid kids, cruising while school is in session is a great way to assure fewer.

Sore excursions
How do cruise lines make their money? A couple big ways & shore excursions are one of them. We have booked excursions through the cruise line & loved them (climbing Mt. Vesuvius in Italy; touring a lobster village in Nova Scotia). We have booked excursions through the boat & hated them (being herded with a 50 person tour group through the Vatican). We have booked excursions on our own & loved them (sea kayaking in Maine). We have not booked any excursion, just explored the port & loved it (most of the ports we go to).

I use this as a baseline: what is it you’re trying to do? We booked sea kayaking on our own because we were able to get a better rate, paddle a further distance & go to a less touristy area than if we had booked through Royal Caribbean. We also had eight hours in port, so we weren’t worried about making it back in time. However, when we wanted to explore the lobster village of Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, over an hour away from Halifax, we knew we would be better off with going through the cruise line… & it’s a good thing we did. Due to unpredictable rush hour traffic, we were over 45 minutes late getting back to the boat, well past the “all aboard” time. They held the boat for us, but only because there were 100 of us on a tour bus that they had booked. Had we been sitting in that rush hour traffic in a rental car we would have been driving to Boston to meet the boat two days later.

As for whether to book an excursion or not, I think a little research into the port goes a long way. If you’re cruising Europe, you have to book something to get you from the port city to Rome & Florence, both about an hour away from where you’ll dock. On the other hand, when you pull into Villefranche, France, the city is right there for you to explore. If you’re cruising the Caribbean, there’s probably a beach you can walk to from the boat. If you’re cruising New England & Canada, it’s a mixed bag. Real Cruising Tip #5: a little port research can go a long way when deciding on shore excursions!

To bring or not to bring, that is the question.
You’re booked – great! Now it’s a few days before hand & time to pack. Naturally light packers, my husband & I have only ever taken small roller bags on cruises with us. You will DIE when you see the huge suitcases piled up outside cabin doors – I think some people bring their entire homes with them. So, Real Cruising Tip #6: Take half the stuff out of your suitcase! Laundry service on a ship is a god-send. It’s reasonably priced, you can pay for wash & dry, ironing only &/or dry cleaning, & it’s quick. I find that I often wear two outfits on each day of the cruise: sometime during the day for hanging out or touring & something nicer in the evening to dinner. But each outfit can be worn multiple times because, lets be honest, how gross are you getting sitting in a chair reading a book while you cruise through the ocean? My basic packing list for a summer 7-day Caribbean cruise might look like this: 3 pairs of shorts or capris; 4 casual shirts; 2 nicer shirts for dinner; 2 sundresses; 1 pair of dress capris (for dinner); 1 sweatshirt or wrap (notoriously freezing in the public areas of the boat, also a wrap can dress up a t-shirt for dinner); 1 cocktail dress (for formal night, more on that in a minute); 1 pair of shoes for touring at the ports (probably flip flops, maybe ballet flats); 1 pair of dressy shoes for dinner; 1 pair of flip flops; 1 shorts & t-shirt to wear to work out, get breakfast, or hang out in; 2 bathing suits (because they’ll never dry all the way… & no one likes to put back on a wet bathing suit).

Obviously, you have to tailor your packing to your itinerary, but even in New England, where we wore jeans & fleece in August last year, we kept our stuff to a minimum.

But do I have to dress up?  This is an entirely personal decision. My husband & I rarely have the opportunity to wear black tie attire in our every day lives & really enjoy getting all snazzied up. It helps that he owns a tux & I own several cocktail dresses. But there’s something nice about seeing the same people you saw sitting by the pool in their skivvies dressed to the nine’s. Some people want their cruise to be casual though, so I say thumb’s up to them as well. Real Cruising Tip #7: dress up. Don’t dress up. You won’t be the only one doing either. It’s your vacation, so do what makes you comfortable!

Tomorrow: I made it onto my cruise. Now what?