If thou wants a great vacation, thou shalt follow the most important pieces of travel advice.
I'm asked every week for cruise advice when I host a YouTube live video every Monday night. It's an opportunity to give recommendations to specific situations, but there are certain truths that are applicable to just about everyone.
While some advice is going to vary on how effective or useful it is based on the person, there are a core set of travel guidelines I think everyone should follow because the consequences could be dire for your vacation.
The beauty of a cruise vacation is you don't have to plan a lot to have a great time. However, the more you do plan ahead, the better your experience will be overall and you'll probably save money too. Plus, you're far more likely to avoid common pitfalls.
In thinking about the breadth of cruise advice I can provide, I came up with the 10 most important cruise tips possible that apply to just about everyone.
I hope these tips will save your sanity, reduce your vacation cost, and get you time back during your vacation.
1. Book your cruise early to get the lowest price
There are a lot of approaches to getting a better price on your cruise, but the one that seems to work the best is to book as early as you can.
Prices tend to go up over time, so if you can book a cruise a year or more in advance, you'll probably get a better price.
Cruise lines price their sailings based on a few factors, but how quickly a ship sells and the amount of remaining unsold cabins are among the top considerations. As more people book a cruise, there are less cabins left and the price goes up.
If you can book a cruise more than 12 months early, you'll be able to take advantage of a wider selection of cabins and competitive prices.
There are last-minute cruise deals out there, but they rarely line up with the exact week you want to vacation. Worse yet, the choice of staterooms is likely going to be crummy.
For residents of the United States, Canada, Australia, and other select countries, you can re-price the cruise up until final payment date if there's a price drop.
2. Book your flight a day early and your flight home late
One of the worst mistakes you can make is to book your flight the same day your cruise begins.
You never want to fly the same day your cruise is scheduled to depart because a flight delay or cancellation means you could miss your cruise vacation, and there's no refund when you no-show for it.
Instead, fly in at least one day before the cruise begins. For international cruises, I'd bump that up to two or three days ahead of time.
Yes, coming in earlier means extra hotel and incidental costs, but it's better than risking your entire vacation on flights being on time.
There are horror stories of travelers who failed to heed this advice and ended up missing their cruise. It's something I unfortunately see all the time, and it's easily preventable.
3. Buy everything you need before the cruise begins, and re-price it along the way
There are lots of add-ons for a cruise, and you'll want to buy them all before it begins.
Instead of waiting to buy it on the ship, you should buy it before it begins on the Royal Caribbean app or website for two important reasons.
First, you'll save money because Royal Caribbean regularly discounts its offerings before the sailing.
There are sales and pre-cruise discounts offered on drink packages, shore excursions, wifi, and more. So book it when you know you need it and lock in the price.
The second reason to pre-book is if there is a new sale that lowers the price, you can always cancel and rebook it.
If you're thinking why not wait until closer to the cruise to actually book the add-on, the issue is prices can go up.
By booking early and re-pricing later, you assure you always have the best price.
Moreover, some things will sell out before the cruise begins, such as shore excursions or dining packages.
4. Buy travel insurance for any cruise you take
I know travel insurance is an extra cost, but it's worth protecting your family vacation with it.
Insurance is super useful for many scenarios you never expect to run into, and then it's the best money you ever spent.
Travel insurance covers your medical needs, as well as travel delays, injuries, family obligations, and all sorts of reasons why you need to end your vacation early.
I've see too many situations where a family encountered bad luck and it could have made the issue better with travel insurance to back them up.
5. Do the entire online check-in
The last thing you want to do when you arrive at the cruise terminal on the first day is waste time instead of being on the ship.
Just like an airplane, you can complete the online check-in via the cruise line app to expedite the process when you arrive on embarkation day.
Royal Caribbean wants to get you on the ship as fast as possible, so they've enhanced the app to speed up boarding.
If you take a few minutes at home to do all the check-in steps, you'll spend less time in the cruise terminal and get on the ship faster.
That means filling in all your personal information, scanning your passport, taking a selfie, and entering your credit card information.
6. Use a travel agent to book the cruise
Do you want to save money and time? Using a good travel agent is a must-do, in my opinion.
The value of a travel agent goes beyond booking the cruise, because anyone can do that. It's the depth of experience they bring, and ability to find the lowest possible price that are why they're so useful.
While travel agents aren't as popular in other forms of travel as they used to be, they remain quite useful with cruises because a cruise vacation is such a personalized vacation.
There are many decisions related to fare types, cabin selection, discount, ship choice, and more. New cruisers can easily miss an important factor, while those that cruise a lot could benefit from wasting less of their own time going back and forth with the cruise line.
If you've tried a travel agent but didn't like that, that just means you haven't found the right one yet. It's like a good restaurant, you can't give up eating out completely because you went to one bad restaurant.
Ask friends and family which travel agents they use and recommend, and work with one.
7. Pick your ship based on what you want to do
Too many cruisers pick a cruise based on it being the newest, biggest, or cheapest, without realizing they're picking the wrong ship for them.
There isn't an inherently bad Royal Caribbean ship to sail on, but there might be a better ship for your family.
Every cruise ship is not the same, and they don't all include the same activities, dining choices, or things to do onboard.
So what you want to do is research what the ship has to do, and what it doesn't have, and then pick one based on your needs.
When you chase the lowest price and end up on a small, old ship, it's not going to have many restaurants and very few top deck attractions.
Likewise, the newest ship is going enormous and sail to places you might not care about.
I can't tell you how many times I hear someone was disappointed in a cruise ship because it didn't measure up to the one they expected or sailed on previously. Having the right expectations is important.
8. Find and book excursions before the cruise begins
There are going to be dozens of things to do in any port your ship visits, and it's so much easier to find the right one when you research it from home.
The destinations a cruise go to are among the top reasons anyone books a cruise vacation. With only a few hours in each port, that leaves little wiggle room for disappointment.
My advice is take some time and look up ideas for what to do, and the right tour operator. You can book shore excursions with Royal Caribbean or with a third-party company. There are advantages to both, but you need to do your homework.
9. If your ship allows you to pre-book entertainment, do it
On Royal Caribbean's biggest cruise ships, you'll be able to book tickets to the shows onboard and you really should do it as soon as possible.
There is limited capacity for these shows, and no cost to pre-book, so you'll want to do so. Usually entertainment opens up about 30 days before a cruise begins, and it's only available on the Oasis, Icon, and Quantum Class ships.
If you're sailing on other classes of ships, you can't and don't need to book entertainment.
Reservations will sell out, but don't let that stop you from going anyway. There's a standby line for each show, and you can usually get in if you arrive at least 30 minutes before the show begins. Moreover, there can be additional tickets you can book once you get on the ship and connect to the ship's WiFi and then open up the Royal Caribbean app.
10. Be flexible
You can follow every commandment so far and still run into a problem or unexpected issue during your cruise, so it's critical to be flexible.
The spontaneity of a vacation is part of it's appeal, but it's also why sometimes things don't go as planned.
The key is roll with the punches and not let an issue ruin the rest of your trip.
You'll want to mitigate the problem and speak to a crew member to help, depending on the severity of it.
But if it's out of your hands, like bad weather, choosing the wrong tour, or wasting money on something onboard, you should chalk it up to bad luck and move on. Grab a drink, sleep it off, or laugh about it and try to make the rest of the trip better.
I've run into very frustrating experiences over the years while I've cruised, but I've made an effort to never let it get to me and become a major disaster.
