ON THE SHIP
Getting on the Ship, most boarding times say to board around 1-4 depending on the ship, most of the time you can get on on the ship by 10 or 11 and lines can be shorter earlier, so if you are there in plenty of time you might as well get on the ship and grab some food or even hit the pools, but.. you usually will not be able to have access to your room until 1:00 (gives them time to clean them from passengers getting off that morning).
Luggage, when you get to the port you will put luggage tags with your name and room number on them, (print those out with the online checkin) and give luggage to the porters they will get it onto the ship, you cannot really depend on it showing up to your room at an exact time, it could take an hour after you get on or as late as 5 or 6 in the evening. we have usually gotten our luggage in a few hours of getting on. the only way around this is to take small size luggage and carry it on with you (the large suitcases will not fit through the scanners in the area people are getting on)
so if there is anything really important take a small carry on or backpacks with those things, or clothes, swimsuits etc you may want to use before the rest of your luggage gets to your room.
Food, when you first get on usually you will just have access to the buffet, it will usually be a bit crowded so if you have a larger group/family its a good idea to find a place to sit first then send shifts to go grab food.
the other option (each ship can be a little different) is there are usually other places to get food that may be open that will just have stuff like sandwiches, pizza or burgers, these places can be less crowded, when you get on grab a map and a schedule for the day it will tell you what eating options are available.
Muster Drill, when everyone is on the ship, usually just before it pulls out there will be a Muster Drill, it takes about 30 min, you have assigned meeting areas if there is an emergency, so you go there and they give you some what happens in an emergency info (everyone has to go) when you get on its a great time to take a nap and relax especially if you have been traveling, just make sure your up for the drill, your day schedule will tell you exactly when it is.
That’s the basics for getting on (mostly for the first timers).
Food and Drinks, your cruise fare includes everything you need to have a great trip, but there are “extra” things you can buy.
Whats not included?
there are “Specialty Restaurants” that are available at an extra charge, on your daily schedule it will show you eating options and the Specialty Restaurants will usually show a $ or say something about an extra charge.
Alcoholic Drinks, Non Alcoholic Specialty drinks, Soda Pop and milkshakes, if you want soda pop with a meal it will cost you, if you plan on drinking alot and don’t mind paying, most cruise lines sell “beverage packages” which can let you drink all the pop you want, its usually not cheap.
Juice also is not included at lunch or dinner, it is included at breakfast
Water, they may try to sell you bottled water at dinner time, don’t bother. all the ship we have been on have had great water (probably better than what you get out of your faucet at home) most ships get their water from sea water that is run through a revers osmosis, distilling or desalination processes.
What is included.
Breakfast, the two main option for breakfast are the Buffet, its quick and easy with alot of options, most ships will have a cooking station at the buffet that you can get made to order omlets.
or in the Main Dining Room, where you can sit down and order, more relaxing and takes longer, for days at sea its not like you really have anywhere you need to be :).
check your daily schedule there may be other options available (on Royal Caribbean Oaisis class Johnny rockets is free for breakfast but charge for lunch and dinner).
Lunch, similar to Breakfast the three main options for lunch are the Buffet for quick and fast or in the Main Dining Room, where you can sit down and order or at one of the Pizza or Hamburger places. Royal Caribbean’s pizza is usually good, Princess’s pizza is really good!
Dinner, same options as lunch- Buffet, pizza or burgers, or the main dining room. there are a few things to know about dinner though.
Traditional dining, normally on cruise ships there are 2 dining times, early and late, usually about 5 or 6 pm and then about 7 or 8, you can chose either of those option when the cruise is booked, the early dining fills up fast so if you book last minute most likely you will have to go “late” or “anytime dining”, with traditional dining you will sit at the same table every night with the same people, it can be a good chance to meet people and make friends.
My Time or Anytime Dining (each cruise line calls it something a little different), this is a good option for flexibility, you can make a reservation for a time you would like to eat, you can ask for a large table to sit with other people or smaller table by yourself, you can almost treat this like traditional dining, if you like the people you sit with you can each request the same table for the next night or even for the rest of the cruise, or if you don’t like them sit somewhere different the next night and see if you end up with some cool dinner companions ( on Royal Caribbean you can reserve the same table at the same time once and it can stay that way for the whole trip or you can change it, with princess we had to tell them each evening after we finished eating that we wanted the same table and time the next evening) or if you want to eat later the next evening because you will get back to the ship later than you normally eat you can adjust your time for just that day, it works well, we have mostly done my time dining (partly because we book last minute alot)
so if you are doing My Time dining, check to see how to make reservations and do that as soon as you can when you get on the ship otherwise if you just show up and get in line (which you can) you may be in line or waiting for a while to get a table.
Dinner usually takes a couple hours because it is a 4 course meal, they will take your order for appetizer, salad and main course then after the main course is finished they will bring the dessert menu.
For those that have not gone before – if you want 2 or 3 appetizers or a couple main courses look good or you want 4 desserts– go for it!, the waiters usually even encourage you to get whatever you want and however many you want, its part of the awesomeness of cruising.
Entertainment, each evening there is entertainment, usually they will have comedians, magicians, singers and dancers, etc and is usually in the main theater. There are usually 2 show times of each show, a late show for those that eat dinner early and an early show for those that eat dinner later (alot of times we will try to eat early and also catch the first show if we can), there are also other things you will find in your daily schedule, sometimes they will do game shows or comedians in other smaller venues, watch for the ratings though, sometimes especially the late night ones are “Adult only”.
Some of the newer ships have more entertainment options like ice skating shows, diving shows or Broadway shows and alot of times these will require reservations, still free though ( we had to do this on Freedom of the Seas for the ice skating show and on Allure of the Seas for the Broadway show, ice show and the diving show) so if they do require reservations figure out when you want to go to them and book early.
Stuff to do, each ship will have different things to do onboard depending on size and how new the ship is, older smaller ships will be pretty limited with standard things like pools, hot tubs, jogging track, and gym. alot of ships have mini golf, rock climbing walls, outdoor movie screens and sports courts. And getting into the newer bigger ships you can find bigger water slides, surf simulators, ice skating, ropes courses, zip lines, bumper cars, carousels, etc.
A Nice thing you can do, your room will be cleaned twice a day, usually morning/noon and in the evening when you are at dinner, these guys are great and its nice to come back to a clean room, at the same time that is what they do all day long every day, they never get off the ship in ports like some of the other staff (because they are cleaning your room) we have found that they really appreciate it when we offer for them to not clean our room either in the morning or evening a couple days in the week (you can give them the option of getting a little break AM or PM), especilly if you are traveling with family or friends and have a couple or few rooms it can give them a decent amount of time to do something.
Cruising with kids, our first 2 cruises were just my wife and I, we had a great time and really enjoyed our relaxing do whatever and whenever trips, we decided to take our 4 young kids (9,7,3 and 1) on the next one, we brought along one of my wife’s teenage siblings as a babysitter so that we could go do our thing, fortunately we didn’t do that, we hung out with the kids , a family cruise can be a great trip but will definitely be different than a couples trip, we shifted gears and settled into doing stuff with our kids, the kids activities on the ship were fun for them so it gave us a chance to nap and hang out a little, we got off in port for a short time with them, as they have gotten older we do more stuff with them as we get off in ports, cruising with our kids has been a great alternative to going places like Disneyland, we usually are alot cheaper and its alot more enjoyable for us (get to enjoy a cruise, no standing in lines all day, all the food you want, cheaper, etc. etc. etc.) but its still work, so we end up planning a trip for my wife and i to recover from the family trip 🙂
Kids Club, once again it is a little different on each cruise line but each line that we have went on has had good programs for kids (even when we thought we would not try to pawn them off so we could do stuff they were eager to finish lunch or whatever and get back to the kids club) it is broken into a couple stages, kids usually 3-11, teens 12-17. with the kids being broken up into 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11 the teens 12-14 and 15-17 (the last Royal Caribbean one we went on did not have alot of teens so they combined 12-17) there are a wide variety of activities they do with the kids, making crafts, playing games, watching movies, etc. etc.
what we saw on our last Royal Caribbean trip is that days at sea there will be times during the day that the kids club will close, usually around lunch and dinner, the days in port the kids club is open all day (most likely so if parents wanted to get off the ship kid free for a bit the kids could stay busy and be watched out for).