Do these things before you get on a cruise ship

The Street

You can make your first day much easier if you take care of these things before you leave home.

Transcript

00:00I'm Dan Klein, Executive Editor of Come Cruise With Me.

00:04You can visit us on the internet at comecruisewith.com or comecruisewith.me.

00:09I am on the beautiful Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas at the Mason Jar Bar with our travel agent partners.

00:16Dennis Post is sitting next to me, Amy Post is over there.

00:19They own Postcard Travel Planning.

00:21We're going to talk a little bit today about what you need to do when you get on the ship

00:26and what you'd like to do when you get on the ship.

00:29We have another video that talks about all the things you can do before you leave your house.

00:35So it's really important on Royal Caribbean.

00:37You can watch the safety videos when you get up in the morning.

00:40You can do the safety questionnaire 24 hours before.

00:43It's important to do all of those things, to just remove the clutter.

00:47Just have as little, have luggage tags on your bag if you're going to check them,

00:51just to avoid the porter writes the number wrong and then your bag doesn't get where you're hoping it's going.

00:56But when you get on the ship, there's one thing you have to do right away.

01:00Technically, you could wait to do it, but you should do it immediately,

01:04and that is report in at your muster station.

01:07Dennis, do you want to explain what a muster station is

01:09and sort of the newfangled way they're doing the muster drill?

01:12Yes, so the muster station is, it's actually required by maritime law.

01:17It falls under SOLAS, which is Safety at Light at Sea.

01:21And that was created many, many years ago,

01:24and it's adapted by all the international countries, including in the United States,

01:28the Coast Guard enforces it.

01:30So a muster station means that you would actually go to your,

01:33first off, you'd watch the safety briefing.

01:35The safety briefing would tell you where all the exits are, where to go in case there's an emergency,

01:39where the lifeboats are, where your life jackets are, and so forth.

01:42And then the muster station is actually where you would assemble in an organized fashion,

01:46so that if there was a true emergency, you could go to that area

01:50and then you would go by number and they would board the safety lifeboats

01:54and everybody would get off the ship safely.

01:57So let's talk about how they used to do the muster drill,

02:00and frankly, how some cruise lines still do it.

02:03So in the old days on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity,

02:06you had to go to your station at a specific time.

02:10Your muster station is often outside.

02:12You'd be standing in the hot sun.

02:14You're not allowed to look at your phone.

02:15You're not allowed to bring a drink with you.

02:18And you are waiting for the slaggards and jerks who aren't showing up.

02:22And the cruise ship, they have to scour the ship, bring these people.

02:25So you might sit there in the hot sun for 30, 40 minutes before they do the safety demonstration.

02:30Now the way they do it on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Celebrity, I believe,

02:36but not on MSC, Disney, and some other cruise lines,

02:39is you watch those videos, or if you don't watch the videos, they'll do them just for you.

02:44They'll do the demonstrations.

02:46And then you go to your station, you pull up your app,

02:49and literally they just check and make sure you're you.

02:53And then you know, they give you a little spiel about coming here

02:55and getting any medicine if you have time to do it.

02:58But that's all it is.

02:59So once I'm done with my muster drill, sometimes there's business to take care of.

03:04It's getting a little bit better as Royal Caribbean now allows,

03:07when you book the Ultimate Dining Package, the Unlimited Dining Package,

03:10in theory you can make all your reservations.

03:12But if you book a shorter dining package or just a single night,

03:15if you haven't made the reservation, you need to go to either a specialty restaurant,

03:19the main dining room, sometimes in front of the buffet there's a stand,

03:23and make your dining reservations.

03:25Because if you don't do that, things will fill up and you'll end up eating dinner at 9.30

03:30or not being able to go to places you want.

03:32So those are the things you have to do.

03:34Now, there's a couple of things you can do, but it depends on the cruise line.

03:38On Celebrity, you can go to your room, drop off your bag and your carry-on bag,

03:43or just your carry-on bag, take your room key and leave.

03:46You are not supposed to stay there and take a nap or take a shower.

03:50Your room steward is still working on your room, and it's a wonderful courtesy that they're doing for you,

03:55but you can't do that on Royal.

03:57On Royal Caribbean, I usually check my luggage and bring my carry-on bag,

04:02because you're not able to do that.

04:04So your mileage may vary, but then we get to the good times.

04:07Then your vacation has started.

04:09I do, and we're going to hear from Dennis on this too,

04:12I do one of two things first.

04:15Either I go to my favorite bar on the ship.

04:18If there's a bespoke bar, like here we are at Mesa Jar, which is on two ships,

04:22I will go and have my favorite drink or at least say hello.

04:26Or if I happen to know some crew on the ship, I'll figure out, usually in WhatsApp,

04:30talking to them, hey, where are you working during muster?

04:33Are you at a bar? Are you at a regular station? Are you checking people in?

04:36And I'll renew acquaintances.

04:37It's always nice when you can go say hello to someone you know.

04:40Dennis, what do you do first thing when you get on a ship?

04:42So first thing is pretty much what you said.

04:44We first orient ourselves on the ship, the main area.

04:48We find out where our muster station is.

04:50If we have any issues with our sail and sign card, we can go right to customer service.

04:56We find out where the restaurants are, some of the venues that we want to visit,

05:00and also we look for a workstation.

05:01We kind of find an area that we like that maybe we're going to work from

05:04where we have good cell service and so forth.

05:07Then possibly after we get all that done, like Dan, you said, the fun begins.

05:11We'll go get ourselves a nice relaxing drink, a glass of wine.

05:14If the kids are with us, grab a soda or whatever.

05:17And then we start to enjoy the ship.

05:19And then either grab a slice of pizza, go to the buffet, relax.

05:23But the last thing I would say on this that I try to tell people is to sail away.

05:28Any port that you go out of is amazing.

05:30So if you go to the top deck, sail away.

05:33Find out when they're sailing away.

05:34Go up there with your relaxing drink, your family, whatever,

05:37and just enjoy the views as you go out to sea because that's amazing.

05:41I think it's also important, if you've never been on the ship before,

05:46the Royal Promenade or the main drag on a Royal Caribbean ship,

05:50or I forget the name for it in Celebrity,

05:52but those areas are going to be very crowded.

05:55All the ancillary areas aren't.

05:57So it's a really good time to explore the upper decks, the pool decks,

06:01where's the adult pool.

06:02If you smoke, where's the smoking section.

06:05Where are you going to watch sail away from?

06:07Like on Celebrity, I like to watch it from Sunset Bar

06:09because Sunset Bar is on the back of the ship.

06:11You can see all the other ships leaving port.

06:14Sometimes there's really special hidden spots.

06:17So getting to know it, getting to figure it out.

06:19Dennis, anything else you do first day?

06:22No, that's it.

06:23We get to our room, we drop our bags off, like you said, Dan said, very important.

06:26The other thing that we learn is that we pack our stuff through now.

06:30We used to bring stuff on and we used to carry too much,

06:33and you couldn't have fun.

06:34You couldn't do the exploring like Dan is referring to.

06:37So we just pack it through.

06:38Your stuff is going to be there.

06:39Make sure you print all your documents ahead of time, your luggage tags,

06:43and your stuff will be in your room.

06:45It used to be late night.

06:46Now they're there 1, 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

06:48It's amazing.

06:49It used to be you dropped your bag off at the porter,

06:51and sometimes on night one they would have looser rules in the dining room

06:56because you didn't necessarily get your clothes in time.

06:58Now I've never had my bag later than 3 o'clock,

07:01and that's usually I'm getting on pretty early compared to most people.

07:05Unpacking right away I also think is a good idea

07:09because then you sort of have the sense of your room.

07:12If you have any questions, you can e-mail me at dan at comecruisewith.com.

07:17If you would like to book a cruise, send me an e-mail

07:20and I will introduce you to Dennis and Amy, our wonderful travel agent partners.

07:24What can they do?

07:26Not only can they answer your questions and get you the best deal possible,

07:29they can also help you figure out what you want,

07:32help you realize that maybe it's more important for you to have a drink package

07:35than it is to have a balcony.

07:37Maybe you want to be in the suite area.

07:39Maybe you want to do specials.

07:41Whatever it is, they will take the time,

07:43and we can actually give you a link where you can make an appointment

07:46to actually meet with Amy.

07:48Visit us at comecruisewith.com.

07:50Shoot me an e-mail.

07:51All our contact information is there.

07:53Amy is walking into the shot here if she wants to wave and say hello.

07:56We thank all of you.

07:58Comecruisewith.com.

07:59We will see you soon.

08:00Thank you, guys.

08:01Anything?

08:02What do you do first when you get on a cruise?

08:04I make sure that they have dining specials

08:06because, you know, we've had some dining specials this cruise,

08:08so that's great.

08:09But schedule that appointment, and we will hopefully only follow that.

08:12And we will talk about dining specials in another video.

08:14Yes, we will.

08:15Thank you, everybody.

08:16Comecruisewith.com.

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