No matter how many cruises you have been on, there are still a few things you are calling the wrong name.

Like so many things in spoken language, people tend to gravitate towards easier to remember terms or phrases and getting your brain to remember the proper phrase is never simple.

The classic example is when a highway or bridge is renamed, many people tend to still call it by the old name.  In other cases, it can be a simple case of not realizing the thing you are talking about is actually referred to as something else.

No one is perfect (especially me), so I wanted to share a few common terms, things, and policies that you might have been calling the wrong thing.

1. Jones Act

Let's start off with a timely mistake, and that is calling the cabotage laws that cruise ships adhere to in the United States as the Jones Act.

The rules that require foreign-flagged cruise ships to sail from the United States and stop somewhere outside of the country before returning back has become a major sticking point for cruise lines following Canada's ban of cruise ships.

Lots of people call this the Jones Act, but the Jones Act refers to cargo and cruise ships actually fall under a different law.

It is not the Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920), it is the PVSA (Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886) that prohibits foreign flagged ships from doing closed-loop voyages that do not visit a foreign port.  

2. Boat

The cruising equivalent of nails on a chalkboard has to be when someone refers to a cruise ship as "a boat".

This has to do with the nautical terms that differentiate vessels between a boat and a ship.

Calling a cruise ship a boat is demeaning because there are major differences between a boat and a ship.

• A ship is much larger than a boat
• Ships are built to travel the open ocean, while boats are relegated to shore areas
• A ship can carry a boat, but a boat can’t carry a ship

3. RCCL

Another incredibly common mistake is to call Royal Caribbean International "RCCL" or "Royal Caribbean Cruise Line".

Yes, that used to be the name of the cruise line, but Royal Caribbean changed its name from "Royal Caribbean Cruise Line" after they purchased Celebrity Cruises.

The company decided to keep the two cruise line brands separate after the merger, so "Royal Caribbean Cruise Line" became "Royal Caribbean International" and a new parent company, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., was created.

Since then, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. changed its name to Royal Caribbean Group in 2020.

The bottom line is, it has been over 20 years since the cruise line we know and love was called RCCL.

4. Mustard drill

My kids are as guilty as anyone for mispronouncing this as anyone, but one is the safety drill and the other is a condiment.

I am certain there is a technical phrase in speech about when you call something by a name you think you heard it as, but the safety drill on cruise ships is the muster drill, and has nothing to do with the stuff you put on burgers.

As a new cruiser, it is easy to mistake the name after hearing someone say "muster drill", but it is definitely not mustard.

5. Cay or Key?

The proper pronunciation of Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas has recently become a major source of debate among cruisers.

When Royal Caribbean transformed CocoCay into Perfect Day at CocoCay, there was a decision to call the island by the same pronunciation that the Bahamians prefer, which is "key".

Since many of us were so used to pronouncing it "cay", it drummed up a lot of discussion which is appropriate.  Many cruise fans pointed out "cay" rhymes with "Perfect Day", thus, it must be the case.  I have always seen that as a coincidence, since Perfect Day at Lelepa was announced and definitely does not rhyme.

The truth is both pronunciations are acceptable, but "key" is more proper.

6. Confusing sail away time with all aboard time

Of all the things on this list, I probably would not stop and correct someone on a cruise ship out of respect for them and not wanting to look like a know-it-all....except for this one.

When your cruise ship visits a port, you will see the times listed of when the ship is in port. However, these times are not what times you can actually get on or off the ship.

The ship has two times guest need to take heed of: what time the ship departs, and what time you need to be back onboard.

The all aboard time is the cut off for when you must be back onboard the ship.  This is to ensure there is enough time for everyone to get back on the ship, and prepare the ship to set sail.

So when you are planning your day in any port, you want to ensure you are back onboard well before the all aboard time.

7. Anytime Dining

Royal Caribbean's flexible main dining room dinner program is called My Time Dining, but there are a lot of other names people call it.

Lots of guests will call it "anytime dining" or even worse, "freestyle dining".  

Freestyle Dining is the trademarked name of Norwegian Cruise Line's bold initiative to shake up cruise ship dinner.

Happy weekend! We hope you remembered to Spring Forward! Here’s all the Royal Caribbean news this week!

Unfortunately, Royal Caribbean canceled nearly all of its May 2021 cruises.

The new round of cancellations means cruises will not be able to restart until at least June.

This means its voluntary cruise shutdown extends through May 31, 2021.

Cruise operations had been suspended through the end of April 2021, but will now be extended an additional month.

Royal Caribbean News

• Royal Caribbean extends Cruise with Confidence program by one month
• Royal Caribbean releases new Odyssey of the Seas sailings from Israel
• Royal Caribbean now surveying guests about comfort level with booking a cruise
• Royal Caribbean produces video where masks are required on Quantum of the Seas
• Royal Caribbean is re-evaluating its cruise ship health protocols following stellar vaccine results
• Here are the questions about crew members a lot of people are searching the internet for
• Spotted: Royal Caribbean ship scheduled to sail from Los Angeles, California in 2021
• What is the earliest flight I should book after the cruise?
• Royal Caribbean is close to purchasing Grand Lucayan resort in Freeport
• 20 Radiance Class cruise ship tips and secrets
• England opens up option for cruises to restart on May 17
• Ovation of the Seas enters dry dock for routine five year maintenance

Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

The 397th episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now available, which has the top things I wish more cruisers knew about going on a cruise.

In this episode, I have seven suggestions for anyone going on a cruise that wants to enjoy their cruise to its fullest.

Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.

New RCB Video: 5 Costly lessons learned on a cruise (and how to avoid them!)

Have you subscribed to the Royal Caribbean Blog YouTube Channel? We share some great videos there regularly, all about taking a Royal Caribbean cruise! This week, we are sharing our latest video — Where are Royal Caribbean's cruise ships right now?
 — and don’t forget to subscribe here.

Royal Caribbean releases Long Caribbean cruise itineraries for Winter 2022-2023

Royal Caribbean has released a new round of 2022-2023 itineraries for sale.

This week, the "Other/Long Caribbean" for Winter 2022-2023 went on sale, encompassing five cruise ships. These new sailings are available to book immediately.

The last major milestone in the construction of Royal Caribbean's next new cruise ship will begin this weekend.

Odyssey of the Seas will begin her sea trials on the evening of March 14, 2021 in the North Sea.

Shipbuilder Meyer Werft confirmed Odyssey will begin her test runs on Sunday.

Sea trials are tests of a cruise ship's navigational and technical systems, which are the final part of cruise ship construction prior to delivery.

Odyssey will test her technical and nautical systems in the North Sea, before returning to Bremerhaven.

It is not clear how long sea trials will be exactly, as they can vary in duration. Sometimes one or two sessions are common.

The ship has been in northern Germany since completing her conveyance down the Ems River from the shipyard in Papenburg.

Read more: 13 Beautiful photos from Odyssey of the Seas conveyance

In addition to the sea trials, work is continuing on the final interior work so that the ship can be delivered "in a few weeks".

In the final weeks before delivery, Meyer Werft announced, "extensive protective measures on board" following the reports of a few shipyard workers testing positive for Covid-19.

Among the enhanced protocols, a new task force will be deployed onboard to implement and adjust necessary protocols, while reducing personal contact among workers.

The several hundred shipyard workers onboard are undergoing daily antigen testing. Anyone come onboard must show a PCR test less than 48 hours old.

While Meyer Werft has not announced a delivery date yet, it appears that will occur later this month.

Royal Caribbean International Senior Vice President of Hotel Operations, Mark Tamis, told travel agents during a webinar that the date the new cruise ship will be handed over on March 24.

Read more: Why are new cruise ships still being built?

Odyssey of the Seas is a 169,000-gross-ton ship that measures 1,138 feet (347 meters) long and 135 feet (41 meters) wide.

Once Odyssey of the Seas is handed over to Royal Caribbean, she will begin offering cruises in May from Israel during summer 2021.

Exactly one year ago today, Royal Caribbean announced it would shut down its cruise ships for the next 30 days. Neither that announcement, nor what would transpire over the next 12 months, seemed possible to last, and yet that is exactly what happened.

In fact, the entire cruise industry voluntarily announced it would shut itself down the next day due to the rapid spread of Covid-19 around the world.

One year later, we are still as uncertain about when cruises might actually restart en masse as we were one year ago.

The lost year

The decision to cancel every cruise ship sailing was not the first tactic employed by cruise lines to bolster confidence in consumers while still operating cruises during the early days of Covid.

Two months earlier, Royal Caribbean cancelled its first cruises due to Covid, with a series of Spectrum of the Seas sailings cancelled on January 27, 2020.

At the end of January 2020, Royal Caribbean announced new screening procedures for its cruise ships that denied entry to guests of certain countries (mainland China and Hong Kong). New protocols were added onboard, such as professional medical treatment; quarantine of unwell individuals from the general ship population; and intensified ship cleaning, air filtration, and sanitization procedures.

Moving into February, a total of 18 sailings had been cancelled by February 14, 2020.

In early March, mandatory temperature screenings were added to the cruise check-in process.

By this time, the government started to get more involved in what was happening with cruise ships. On March 8, United States State Department issued a travel warning to US citizens against going on a cruise ship because of Coronavirus fears.

However, the reality of the rapid spread of the virus was becoming all too clear, and Royal Caribbean pulled the plug for 30 days beginning at midnight on March 14.

One month turned into two, which turned into three, and then cancellations became a monthly routine. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease control moved to prohibit cruise lines from restarting service with its "No Sail Order", which dominated much of 2020.  The order was extended a few times, and effectively banned cruise ships from operating from U.S. waters.

The rest of the spring, summer, and fall, saw no cruise ships sailing and just speculation regarding if or when the CDC would relent and allow cruise ships to restart.

The first good news came in the summer when Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings announced a joint-effort to craft health protocols meant to keep passengers safe through a variety of new health protocols.

The Healthy Sail Panel was comprised of scientists, public health officials, and epidemiologists. Their job was to look at how they could make going on a cruise as safe as possible during a global health crisis.

They came up with 74 recommendations, which have since become the cornerstone of the entire cruise industry's approach to restarting cruises safely.

At the end of October, the CDC allowed the No Sail Order to come to an end, and replaced with the a phased approach to resuming cruise ship operations in U.S. waters.

The Conditional Sailing Order for Cruise Ships outlined phases that would allow ships to resume service.

Unfortunately, all cruise lines have not received the full extent of instructions yet from the CDC on what they need to do in order to prepare for simulated voyages.

Four months after the No Sail Order was lifted, cruise lines are stil waiting for the list of things needed for test sailings to commence, and subsequently revenue cruises.

Small victories

Once cruises shutdown in March 2020, Royal Caribbean had very little good news to offer, and next to no progress on ships returning to service.

The first major accomplishment was when Quantum of the Seas began sailing from Singapore in December 2020.

Some other cruise lines had been able to restart a ship or two in Europe under tight restrictions over the summer, but Royal Caribbean did not.  Instead, the first ship to return to the water was Quantum of the Seas under a pilot program with the government of Singapore.

An array of 3- and 4-night cruises were open only to Singapore residents and had no port stops. Moreover, guests onboard would need to adhere to the comprehensive health and safety requirements developed by the Singapore government.

Since December, Quantum has sailed successfully without a single positive case onboard (although there was one false positive report).

Following the success of Quantum, Royal Caribbean said it would deploy Grandeur of the Seas to Barbados in December 2021 to offer cruises from that new homeport.

Just a few weeks ago, Royal Caribbean announced a second ship would be able to restart sailing. Its newest cruise ship, Odyssey of the Seas, would sail from Israel in May 2021 with fully vaccinated crew and guests over the age of 16.

Hope on the horizon

While there has been no indication the CDC has budged yet on getting cruise ships to move towards restarting, the world has made some rapid improvements lately.

The advent of a few different Covid-19 vaccines, coupled with a rapid distribution to the public, has many health officials (and cruise fans) optimistic about the future.

With new cases falling and more and more people becoming vaccinated, Covid is no longer the forever problem that it felt like recently.

Cruise lines have not given any kind of a schedule as to when simulated or revenue cruises might be able to restart, but the tone of the comments from cruise executives seems to be much more hopeful.

In his March video message, Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain shared his optimism with travel advisors.

"These are the most hopeful days we have had in a long time. But as we get closer to our goal, we inevitably also get more impatient to reach it."

Despite the fact cruises were the first travel industry to voluntarily shutdown due to Covid, and are the last industry to restart meaningfully, there is good (yet cautious) optimism for ships to resume sailing at some point this year.

Royal Caribbean has created a new video for guests sailing on the only Royal Caribbean cruise ship sailing right now to better demonstrate where and when face masks are needed.

Wearing a face mask on a cruise ship has been one of the more polarizing topics among guests related to cruises restarting, and has been one of the many required protocols on Quantum of the Seas since she restarted sailings in Singapore in December 2020.

Royal Caribbean has produced a new video for guests on Quantum of the Seas to demonstrate where and when masks are required.

It is important to note the face mask policy is specific to Quantum of the Seas only, and it remains to be seen what the rules regarding face masks will be on other ships around the world.

Our friends at the Singapore Cruise Society shared screenshots of the new video that give examples of what to and not to do onboard.

The health protocols on Quantum of the Seas were developed in tandem with the government of Singapore.

Among the many protocols are reduced capacity onboard, and has implemented mandatory universal testing during embarkation and debarkation, and enforced mask wearing, physical distancing and enhanced cleaning practices across the ship, among other required practices.

The cruise line calls its collection of new health protocols, "The Royal Promise", and it encompasses all the new changes onboard to protect guests from the current health crisis.

Creating a video like this comes after the Singaporean government investigated a group of passengers who took their masks off for a photo.

More than a year after plans were announced, it looks like Royal Caribbean's joint venture is close to purchasing the Grand Lucayan resort in Freeport, Bahamas.

For months, the joint venture of ITM Group and Royal Caribbean Group has been negotiating the sale of the government owned resort so that the land can be turned into a new port destination.

The cruise industry shutdown coupled with the global health crisis complicated the deal since the buyers wanted to renegotiate the terms to find a more affordable price.

With both the Bahamas and Royal Caribbean Group incurring billion dollar loses, conditions rapidly changed and closing the sale had to go through a few rounds of new negotiations.

The Bahamas Tribune is reporting Bahamian Minister of Tourism Dionisio D'Aguilar has said the sale is "nearing the end of the journey."

Mr. D'Aguilar claims that commercial terms for the sale have now largely been agreed but did not disclose them.

Part of the deal includes an separate agreement with Hutchison Whampoa, controlling 50 percent owner of Freeport Harbour Company, for the redevelopment of Freeport Harbour via the addition of two new cruise berths.

"The terms have been essentially agreed and, having the sale of the hotel tied to Royal Caribbean and ITM first striking a deal with Hutchison Ports has made this transaction that much more complex. But I think all of the ducks have been lined up and we are nearing completion. I remain hopeful."

No estimated timeline was given for the Grand Lucayan sale's completion.

The Freeport project is one of two projects Royal Caribbean short listed to be completed since the cruise industry shutdown. The other project being the new cruise terminal in Galveston, Texas.

In March 2020, Royal Caribbean announced it would revitalize and expand the Grand Lucayan resort so that it could be transformed into Harbour Village.

It is unclear if or how those plans have changed under the new deal apparently struck to purchase the resort, but the original plans called for a a world-class beachfront destination.

Two phases of the project were announced that focused on the Grand Lucayan resort first, and then the surrounding area after.

Phase One of the Lucaya Property will consist of a beachfront destination – including a 526 room hotel, shopping village, spa and wellness center, water based family entertainment (including water and adventure theme park), a 40,000-square-foot convention center, adventure activities (such as zip lines and off-roading), restaurants and bars, entertainment and nightlife.

Phase Two – Harbour Village – will be at the cruise terminal in Freeport Harbor. The expected enhancements will allow visitors to enjoy numerous spaces with multiple shopping and dining venues, beach areas, shore excursions and more.

Additional plans for Freeport included a new transportation hub providing infrastructure for water ferries and ground transportation, including buses, vans, and jeeps. Holistica Destinations will partner with local business owners and entrepreneurs providing opportunities for guests to experience additional shore excursions in Grand Bahama.

There is something intriguing about the crew members that work on a cruise ship and what it's like to live and work on a cruise ship for months at a time.

Many cruisers are curious about what life is like for crew members onboard, as well as the nature of the lifestyle and daily routine for a crew member.

Just like everything, people will search the internet for answers to these questions, and I have assembled the top questions about crew members on a cruise that people are searching for on the internet.

Keep in mind that it is impossible to give an answer that encompasses all crew members' experience, just like doctors, mechanics, postal workers, teachers, and CEOs do not all make the same income, or work exactly the same way.

Do cruise ship employees get free food?

Yes, crew members receive free food for working onboard a ship, along with a cabin to sleep in (more on that later).

Similar to the guests, crew members have their own buffet style restaurant to get their meals from throughout the day.

Known as the crew mess, this restaurant offers prepared foods, ready-to-go foods, and ways to heat up food that crew members already have. There is seating provided as well in booths or tables.

Often there will be regional dishes from the crew members' home countries.

How many dining venues and where they are located, will vary from ship to ship.

Read more: Top 10 things you didn't know about what it's like working on a cruise ship

What are the highest paying jobs on a cruise ship?

Just like any job on land, how much someone makes doing their job will vary depending on a person's experience, what their employer is willing to pay, where they live, and other factors.

As you might imagine, the best paying jobs on a cruise ship are going to generally be held by the highest ranking crew members onboard: officers.

Just like a job on land, everyone's salary is not public information, so I have to rely on job recruiting websites for some insight.

According to BestHospitalityDegrees, the top five jobs on a cruise for salary are:

1. Executive Chef
2. Cruise Director
3. Chief Purser
4. Hotel Director
5. Human Resources Manager

ZipRecruiter also notes that Cruise Ship Physician Assistant and Cruise Manager also rank well in terms of salary.

Do cruise employees hook up with passengers?

Despite what you may have seen on the television show, "The Love Boat", crew members are strictly prohibited from any kind of relationships with passengers onboard.

Royal Caribbean's cruise contract states guests are, "prohibited from engaging in physical relationships with crew members. Guests are not permitted in any restricted or crew area of the ship, including crew staterooms and corridors."

In fact, crew members are not allowed to go into passenger cabins unless there is an official reason.

Any crew member that is caught engaging in any kind of a personal relationship with a guest can be terminated immediately.

Do cruise ship employees get days off?

Crew members work very hard onboard, and their schedule is different than the 9-to-5 schedule many Americans think of when it comes to a work day.

Rather than getting full days off, crew members get large gaps in their schedule, but they work every day of their contract. This is because crew members work around the schedule of the cruise ship.

As an example, a stateroom attendant will work the morning to go through all of his/her cabins, and then take a few hours off in the afternoon, before returning for work in the evening.

Often crew members will disembark the ship while it is in port during the afternoon for a break to visit the port of call. Others may simple enjoy some downtime back in their cabin.

Read more: 8 cruise ship tips from a former employee

Do cruise ship employees share rooms?

Many crew members do share a room with another crew member, although it does depend on their rank or title.

The most common scenario is two crew members will share a cabin together, although on some ships larger cabins can accommodate a third crew member.

Crew cabins are basic and typically smaller than guest cabins, and offer the basics: bed, desk, closet, shelves, and a small bathroom.

Bunk beds seem to be the norm for crew cabins, as it maximizes the space available for them.

Officers, higher ranking crew members, and temporary crew may earn themselves a larger room, or even the opportunity to not share a cabin with someone else.

This may actually change somewhat once cruises begin again. One of the 74 recommendations of the Healthy Sail Panel is "Crew should be placed in single-occupancy crew cabins whenever possible to minimize extended periods of close contact with other crew members."

Do cruise ship employees pay room and board?

Cruise lines cover the cost of food and a place to stay for crew members working onboard.

On top of their pay, crew members on a ship can expect to receive a variety of benefits, such as:

• Accommodations
• Meals
• Medical care

A contract ranges anywhere from three to approximately eight months, depending on the position. Most senior management roles have 4-month contracts while most of the rest of the positions have 6-8 month contracts. Employees live onboard for the total length of their contracts.

Royal Caribbean has released a new round of 2022-2023 itineraries for sale.

This week, the "Other/Long Caribbean" for Winter 2022-2023 went on sale today, encompassing five cruise ships. These new sailings are available to book immediately.

Odyssey of the Seas will sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and offer a mix of 6-, 7-, and 8-night Caribbean sailings from November 2022 through March 2023.  

Once stateside, Odyssey will sail 8-night Southern Caribbean itineraries that visit destinations such as Labadee, Haiti; Oranjestad, Aruba; Willemstad, Curacao and La Romana, Dominican Republic.

The Quantum Ultra Clas ship will alternate 8-night Southern Caribbean cruises with 6-night Western Caribbean sailings that visit island gems Falmouth, Jamaica; George Town, Grand Cayman; and Perfect Day at CocoCay in The Bahamas on every sailing.

Explorer of the Seas will offer cruises from PortMiami that anywhere between 6- and 9-nights long, including Southern Caribbean itineraries. The 8-night Southern Caribbean itineraries to the ABC Islands will have late stays in both Kralendijk and Willemstad on every sailing. Explorer will alternate with 6-night adventures that visit Falmouth; George Town; and Perfect Day at CocoCay.

Grandeur of the Seas will begin sailing from PortMiami as well in November 2022, and offer 5-night Western Caribbean jaunts to Labadee and Key West, Florida, alternating with 9-night cruises to Castries, Bridgetown, Barbados; St. John’s, and Basseterre.

Jewel of the Seas will arrive in Port Canaveral in November 2022 to sail 5- to 9-night cruises. Jewel even has cruises visiting Bimini, Bahamas. The ship will make late-night visits to San Juan and Oranjestad in addition to longer days in Bonaire’s Kralendijk. 

Jewel will also embark on 6-night adventures to western Caribbean destinations, including Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico; Falmouth; and Nassau and Perfect Day at CocoCay in The Bahamas.

Vision of the Seas will call Fort Lauderdale home in November 2022 and offer the longest sailings of the group, with 9-, 10- and 11-night cruises to destinations throughout the Caribbean. 

Vision’s 10-night itineraries visit a variety of popular ports of call, including San Juan, Puerto Rico; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis; Castries, St. Lucia; St. Johns, Antigua and private destination Labadee. The 11-night sailings take guests to exotic tropical locales like Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; Colon, Panama; Cartagena, Colombia; Oranjestad; Kralendijk, Bonaire and Willemstad.

View the full Long Caribbean sailings:

• Explorer of the Seas
• Grandeur of the Seas
• Jewel of the Seas
• Odyssey of the Seas
• Vision of the Seas

The release of the Long Caribbean Winter 2022-2023 cruises follows the release other deployments, including 7-night Caribbean,  Short Caribbean, Northeast and China & Hawaii sailings a few weeks ago.

Over the next few weeks, more sailings will be released for the 2022-2023 season, although changes to the deployment schedule are possible.

Planning on booking a 2022 cruise? These stories will help:

• Eight Southern Caribbean Cruise Tips & Secrets
• Top 10 Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas hidden secrets
• The differences between Royal Caribbean's ships
• How to choose the right Caribbean cruise sailing

How do you know if you are cutting it too close when booking your flights home after your cruise is over?

Each week I answer questions our readers have sent to the RoyalCaribbeanBlog mailbag to answer for the benefit of everyone.

I'm looking at flights for my cruise, but I'm not sure what time to pick for a flight home.  What is the earliest flight I should pick after my cruise is over? - Ray V.

The issue with picking a flight after your cruise is you want to find a flight that gives you enough time to disembark the ship and get to the airport to make the flight on time, but at the same time, not booking a flight later in the day so you essentially spend all day in the airport waiting around.

Finding the right time for a flight home also has a lot to do with the port your cruise ends at, as some ports are significantly closer to an airport than others. Fort Lauderdale International Airport is literally next door to Port Everglades, while Orlando International Airport is about a 45 minute drive from Port Canaveral.

Read more: Why you shouldn't fly to your cruise the same day it begins

The first part of the decision is figuring out roughly what is the earliest time you could get to the airport.

Your itinerary will list a time your cruise ends, but that time is not an indication of what time you can get off the ship. Just because it says your ship will return at 6am, does not mean everyone can start leaving the ship at 6am. Moving thousands of people off a ship, moving thousands of pieces of luggage, sending thousands of people through customs and immigration takes time.

The disembarkation process is always a bit ambiguous because there are a few factors that are always unpredictable:

• What time exactly the ship will dock
• How long it will take local authorities to clear the vessel to disembark
• What time the ship will begin allowing guests off the ship
• How many other people will be ahead of you
• Delays in the cruise terminal

If you get up early, take advantage of the self-assist disembarkation process (where you take your own luggage off the ship), and things go as planned, many cruisers have been able to disembark early enough to make flights as early as 9am.

Read more: Self-disembarkation on Royal Caribbean cruises

You should also consider your group and realistically estimate how quickly you can move.  An adult couple can get up and in line a lot faster than families with kids, or large groups traveling together.

However, delays due to bad weather, customs taking longer than expected, medical emergencies, and a variety of other unexpected problems can easily back up the entire process.

Ultimately, you have to weigh the level of risk you deem acceptable in making a flight. No one wants to sit around an airport all day, but missing a flight because you are late is an even worse fate.

You should also consider the airport's proximity to the port, time of year (busy holiday seasons means longer lines at the airport), whether you have TSA PreCheck (or other program) to get through security, and other factors.

If you take a later flight, you can sleep a little bit later, enjoy a stress-free breakfast, and otherwise not drive yourself crazy with concern you might be late.

For cruises in the United States, the general rule of thumb has always been you are likely safe to book a flight after 11am, and noon or later is absolutely achievable.

Some cruisers will opt to stay an extra night in the city their cruise ends at just to avoid any hassle with getting to the airport (and get an extra day of vacation).

More mailbag questions:

• Why do I have to pay gratuities for my toddler?
• Will a Royal Caribbean sale actually save me any money?
• What's worth paying extra for on a cruise?