Crucial and costly mistakes while planning and during a cruise can cost cruisers dearly.
Regent Seven Seas Voyager at Tallin, Estonia. Copyright © 2018 NSL Photography.
This week, I’ve got 10 cruise mistakes for you to learn about and avoid that friends, family, readers and I have made in the past.
I’m finishing my research for a lengthy cruise we hope to take at year’s end, with extended touring pre- and post-cruise. While concentrating on the cruise portion of the journey, I thought about the myriad of poor cruising decisions my friends, family, readers and I have made over the years.
Last week, I discussed pre-cruise mistakes. This week, I’ll discuss the worst of the cruise mistakes I’ve seen at the pier and aboard cruise ships. Learn from these mistakes so that you can avoid them and have a great cruise.
Don’t wait until you arrive at your cruise ship embarkation to make reservations for specialty dining, spa treatments and shore excursions.
On large ships or small, there are often many reservations you can make long before your ship sails. If you wait until you board, you’ll likely miss your first or possibly second choices for specialty dining, spa treatments and particularly shore excursions, plus — on large ships — many other activities.
The moment reservations are open online for your cruise, generally weeks or months before your embarkation date, make every reservation you want and that they allow. You won’t be sorry you did.
If you don’t take the muster drill seriously you might be kicked off your cruise. Avoid making cruise mistakes.
Not taking the muster drill seriously:
The muster drill, whether mostly by video, with a quick in-person check-in or a full blown exercise, is mandatory. It’s an international requirement of the International Convention of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). It typically takes place at the port of embarkation, before the ship sails. Until all passengers have been verified as participating in the drill, the ship can’t depart. Cruisers who delay their participation until a crew member tracks them down have been known to be kicked off the cruise before it begins. If you’re kicked off your cruise, there will be no refund and you’ll likely be on your own to return home.
Neglecting commonsense, every day sanitation protocols:
Most people associate norovirus outbreaks with cruising, but they actually occur infrequently on cruise ships. In 2023, there were just 13 sailings with outbreaks of norovirus among the more than 12,000 sailings on cruise ships, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Unfortunately, norovirus is highly contagious and causes diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and severe stomach pain. It lasts from one to three days, but those infected can spread the disease for a while after they feel better. You can get norovirus by consuming contaminated food or water, touching your hand to your mouth after your hand contacted a contaminated surface or being in close contact with someone with norovirus.
You can protect yourself to a considerable extent before, after, and even in the midst of an outbreak, by taking the following precautions that I use on every cruise I take, from beginning to end.
Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, particularly after using a toilet, changing a diaper or before eating or drinking anything. If you can’t wash, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Typically, hand sanitizer stations are found dispersed all over cruise ships. If a traveling companion comes down with norovirus, get help from the ship’s doctor for them and sanitize everything around them.
Smoking in non-smoking areas will result in a fine, clean-up or both and could mean you’re kicked off the ship at the next port.
Smoking in non-smoking areas:
If you’re a smoker, be aware that smoking is significantly limited on cruise ships. In general, smoking — including vaping — is strictly forbidden in cruise ship cabins, verandas and most every public indoor area. Most ships have limited areas outside at which you can smoke. Some have interior cigar bars in which smoking is permitted. Many ships’ casinos have smoking areas in them.
Cruise ship passengers who violate their ship’s smoking rules will incur a fine and/or cleaning fee and may be kicked off the ship at the next port.
Skipping setting your cellphone to airplane mode and/or restricting cellular roaming:
Using your cellphone at sea can be costly, especially if you haven’t pre-purchased a data plan from your cellular provider. If you need Internet or want to make calls from your cellphone, if Internet isn’t free on board your ship, consider buying a WiFi package, as it will likely be far less expensive than other options. You can use your cellphone’s ability to make phone calls via WiFi if you must call from the ship.
Getting drunk on board cruise ships results in crime and high risk behavior that results in serious injury or worse.
Getting severely drunk on board:
Ships passengers as a group reflect the cross-section of communities across the world. There are all kinds of people who go on cruise ships. Those who become severely intoxicated on a cruise ship are at risk of both becoming a victim of crime and participating in risky behavior that could lead to going overboard or other injuries.
Forget to review the cruise ship planner/newsletter daily:
The daily planner/newsletter keeps you up to date about what’s going on during the cruise. It helps you keep your time bearings as to what you have planned. Avoid cruise mistakes by knowing what time you need to be ready to go for your activities, meals, and excursions.
Ship’s time and local time may not be the same. Know what “time” you need to return to the ship from an excursion. Don’t miss its sailing.
Not taking time to understand ship’s time leads to many cruise mistakes.
Every cruiser has to understand that ship’s time and local time may or may not be the same. Often the ship sets its time to the port of embarkation for the remainder of the cruise. Often the ship crosses into different time zones or visits ports that vary between daylight and standard time. When you’re trying to meet your ship from an excursion, often local time doesn’t match ship’s time, Be sure when you must be back on board the ship so you don’t miss the sailing.
Booking a port excursion with a third party, then returning to the ship late:
I’ve booked many third party excursions at cruise ship ports of call over the years. I’ve done it to do something the ship excursions missed or to save money. Be careful when booking excursions. Ensure they build in plenty of return time leeway. Be certain they arrive at the pier long before the ship is scheduled to sail. Don’t arrive at the dock just minutes after the ship sails. It can take days to meet the ship at another port.
The ship will wait for passengers getting back late on excursions run by the cruise line. Don’t expect the same for third party excursions.
The night before you disembark your cruise, don’t pack the clothes you’ll need in the morning.
This is a cruise mistake too many make. Packing all your clothes before disembarkation:
Cruise ships require passengers to pack their bags the night before the cruise ends. They must place the bags in the hall to be picked up during the night. The bags will be transferred to the cruise terminal at disembarkation in the morning. Don’t make the mistake that a couple of readers told me about. Their friends didn’t leave out clothes to wear the next morning. They had to borrow the extra set my readers had in their carry-on.
By avoiding the above cruise mistakes, you can help make your cruise an enjoyable journey with few, if any problems. Avoiding the mistakes will take research and planning. Bon Voyage.
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After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.
