Secrets to Booking a Great Cruise
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The secrets to booking a great cruise is a simple thing, right? Just talk to your travel agent, or go online to a cruise website, and hop on board when the time comes. At least that’s what the uninitiated think. But there are secrets the smart shopper knows that will get them a much better cruise experience than the new to cruising passengers.
The first and most important secret is to book early and I mean early. If you want to cruise in July, book in January or February. Why? Because the way that a ship fills up is from the bottom up. What do I mean by that? Well if you book a porthole room in January by the time you get to July you may have been upgraded to a balcony room, up several levels from your starting point with no additional cost to you. This results in a much better cruise experience for you.
The cruise ship company, well they have you feeling oh so happy for the “free” upgrade. The late booking passengers who get your original room are happy that they got lucky enough to “find a room” to go on their cruise. A win, win for everyone. Remember this is a first come, first served situation. If your the last one to book at the porthole window level you will be the last one upgraded, if ever, so book early, early, early.
Days At Sea
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When you book, look at the number of “days at sea”. When you are on a “day at sea” you don’t have any ports or land excursions. I always found these days not of that much value to me. Unless there is a theater or live shows to see, these are days for outside the room activities. Make sure you have a good understanding of the amenities available to you or your family. Heads Up! These are also the days that they seem to push the jewelry sales. I don’t know about you, but when I purchase jewelry I like knowing that I can go back to the store where I purchased it if there’s a problem. I try and pick cruises that have the least amount of these days.
Travel Accessories – Amazon.com
Dining aboard ship
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A short note to anyone who has or will book a cruise on Norweigan Cruise Lines. They have the “Freestyle Cruising” option. I like the open dining schedules. No assigned seating schedule is great. But what you need to know is not about the main dining rooms but about the other restaurants on board ship. If you want to eat at any of the other restaurants on the ship during your cruise, you need to make reservations the very first thing as you get on the ship for the whole cruise.
You may not get into the restaurants later if you don’t make those reservations. If you’re like me and don’t know if you’ll be in the mood for Chinese food four days from today, make the reservations anyway, you can always cancel them later. So familiarize yourself with the other restaurants on the ship and have a game plan for restaurant reservations before you board the ship.
Beverages
Cruises include the meals, cabin, entertainment, and activities in the fare, you’ll have to pay extra for soda, bottled water, alcoholic drinks, and special coffee drinks. This can add up if you’re not paying attention. There is a price break where it is in your favor if you purchase the drink package. All of this is, of course, dependent on you and your family and the cruise line that you are using. Check out the link below to see if you should buy a package or go ala carte.
Should you buy a drink package or go ala carte: read this
Do you have to travel to get to your cruise ship? Want to reduce the worry and stress of getting to the ship?
Related Article: The Park, Sleep, Cruise experience
(By Abxbay (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
