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In general, booking cruises early is a good idea to lock in the best rates, as well as the best cabin availability. You learn so much on that first sailing that you may wish you could go back and get a do-over to maximize your time on board and ashore. Carnival Cruise Line's affordable rates and plethora of U.S. departures means it attracts a lot of first-time cruisers. No matter how much research you do, it's hard to be completely prepared to step onto a ship for the first time.
Make reservations for My Time Dining
Don’t worry if you don’t have pesos, or any other local currency. In Caribbean cruise ports American dollars are widely accepted (and often preferred). That’s a huge help for cruise passengers who don’t have to worry about having different currencies as they go from port to port. Credit cards are also accepted in many places, but we suggest cash for most transactions.
Embarkation Day
Rooms at the ends of halls will have less foot traffic, meaning less noise from passersby. Having a cabin between the two spots means you are within just a few decks of either. That makes it much easier to get to where you want to go as opposed to waiting on an elevator because you are on a low deck. It’s the middle of it that would move the least as the ends rise and fall. There is less motion mid-ship, which could help you feel better when the seas are a little rough. It’s easy to underestimate just how quickly you can burn from the Caribbean sun.
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Secret Tips for Cruise Dining: Where and How to Scarf Up the Best Food Onboard
If you do need to sit down to go over options, make sure to make an appointment with the Future Cruise Desk early in the cruise. The temperature can be hard to regulate in your cabin, so if you tend to get warm, especially at night, you can bring along a small portable fan. This one is battery operated as well as by USB for convenience. While you can put your clothes away on the shelves or in a drawer, you’ll minimize wrinkles on your clothing if you can hang as much as possible. When meeting your cabin steward on after boarding on the first day, make it a point to request several extra hangers. Many cruisers report losing their reading glasses or even their sunglasses.
Bring refillable water bottles
There are many ways to use packing cubes to be organized as you pack for your cruise. If you run into a situation where you need a passport (rare), this page can serve as ID until you get back to the ship. Meanwhile, you don’t have to worry about your actual passport getting lost in a port. Everyone tells you to be sure to wear plenty of sunscreen on your cruise, but they don’t tell you why.
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Carnival Cruise Line, for instance, prides themselves on having the "most fun ships at sea," while Royal Caribbean is known for having the most innovative, thrilling ships at sea. On any cruise that isn't all-inclusive (and some that are), you're likely to spend a fair bit of money during your holiday. Extras might include your bar bill, spa treatments, any excursions booked onboard, anything you buy in the shops and specialty restaurant fees. Some cruise lines offer special ship tours on the first day. It's a good idea to join one of these; you'll get to know the ship and a bit about how it functions.
Taking sketchy DIY excursions
The reality, though, is that everybody is having too much of a good time to judge what you’re wearing every day. Part of the fun of the first day is exploring your new home, and a wise cruise tip from experienced sailors is to take a self-guided ship tour. This way, you’ll figure out where you want to sunbathe, eat, and relax, find classes you like the look of, and see the array of activities on offer in Camp at Sea. We love nothing more than relaxing and watching some TV after a long day in port. Unfortunately, cruise lines don’t offer much in the way of television stations. Instead, it’s a few news stations and maybe a couple of channels for movies and a couple for cartoons.
Just like restaurants on land, cruise ships sailing from the United States undergo regular health inspections. This checks everything from food service to pool cleanliness and lots more. If you want to save some cash, then check the daily planner delivered to your room (or found on the cruise line app) for any happy hour specials or drink deals. For example, we’ve seen 50% off drinks at RedFrog Pub on Carnival at certain times during the day. There will often be some sort of discount somewhere on the ship each day.

Lunch prices at specialty restaurants are often cheaper than dinner
“All you can drink” alcohol packages can really help you budget. For a set amount, you can drink as much as you want without worrying about the bill. But buyer beware, the cost of the packages usually means you have to order between 7-10 drinks per day before you save any money. Scroll around a little, and you may never pay cash for a flight to a cruise ship again. When choosing a room on your first cruise, you might want to stay away from those near elevators and just above nightclubs and other late-night venues.

Here are 43 Carnival Cruise Line tips, tricks and hacks that you can use to get maximum enjoyment out of your first Carnival cruise or next vacation at sea. It’s true that tipping isn’t the same on cruises as it is in other places—after all, most cruises are all-inclusive. When you’re staying at a hotel, you might forgo room service because it can get pricey—or because you can’t order whatever you want, whenever you want it. Post-pandemic, you can order anything off the menu through room service, 24/7 … but not all the food is free. This enables them to load all luggage in to the respective areas and to enable the ship to make an efficient disembarkation.
But all it takes is a moderate flight delay or a pile-up on the highway to upset those plans. Carnival's comedy shows and musical numbers in the Celebrations Central venues on its newest ships often have more demand than seats available. If you want to guarantee a spot at a specific show, or get a preferred seat without blocked sightlines, you'll need to line up early.
A good tip is to take Bonine or another non-drowsy seasickness medication, use seabands or even a motion sickness patch behind your ear. Nowadays it’s super important to download the cruise line app for online check in, emuster and more. However, there is often a messaging part of the app which is very useful to communicate with other people on the cruise. If you need to work on the cruise or even keep in touch with people, consider an internet package.
Take it to heart, or you may end up missing your ship — something that happens to cruisers more often than you might think. These sorts of things happen all the time to cruisers, and they're all the sort of situations where you might benefit from having travel insurance. In our book, reaching out to a travel agent who knows the Royal Caribbean brand is the first thing you need to do when planning a cruise with the line.
These are months when kids are typically back in school and family travel — a huge market for Royal Caribbean — drops off significantly, resulting in diminished demand for the line's ships. In the Bahamas and the Caribbean, it's also hurricane season, which keeps some people away from both land resorts and cruise ships in the region. In addition, travel agents often can get you extra onboard credit and other perks on Royal Caribbean ships that you might not be able to get by booking directly with the line. These are specific Royal Caribbean cruise tips that will save you money and time, and let you maximize the experience both on board the vessels and during port calls. We’ve gotten used to seeing security cameras everywhere in life, but ships take it to another level. There are security cameras watching every public area of the major cruise ships.
Many people go to the effort of decorating their doors to not only be festive, but also stand out and be easier to find. If you don’t want to go to that much effort, just bring a few Post-It Notes (they are great for leaving messages in the cabin anyway). Stick one brightly colored note on your door and you have an instant way to identify your cabin. If you break a rule, they will usually just ask you to stop doing it.
Many cruise lines will also offer discounts on, for instance, spa treatments and packages or port days. They don't make any money when passengers disembark, so they try and persuade guests to stay onboard this way. Once you've booked your cruise, you'll gain access to the cruise line's online planning portal. Here, you can book dining reservations, shore excursions, onboard wi-fi packages, and other add-ons in advance.
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