If you’re getting ready to take your first cruise, you may have been planning and prepping for a while now.
Many cruisers book their cruise months or even a year-plus in advance, and there’s plenty of info on your chosen cruise line’s website to help you plan further, from sample dining menus to full-out maps of each ship, deck by deck. However, do you truly have an accurate idea of what to expect?
These are the eight things that the cruise line isn’t going to tell you.
In This Article:
1. You Can’t Just Walk Onto the Ship, to Your Stateroom, With All Your Stuff
Embarkation day isn’t quite as simple as just arriving at your port and then hopping onto the cruise ship. There’s a lot that has to happen between cruisers arriving at the cruise terminal and the ship actually setting sail.
Just as is the case when you travel via plane, when you travel via cruise ship, certain security measures are taken. As such, additionally like when you travel via plane, you’ll basically have both carry-on luggage and checked luggage.
Now, while the cruise line may inform you of this distinction — they’ll probably email you some luggage tags that you can print out and add to your checked luggage — what they won’t tell you is that actually getting your checked luggage can take some time.
Port Canaveral Cruise Terminal (Photo Credit: JHVEPhoto)
Here’s how it works. You take all your luggage with you to the cruise terminal. There, you leave the checked luggage with the porters. Then, you take the carry-on luggage through a security check point, before you go onto the ship. Behind the scenes, your checked luggage is being processed, sorted and delivered to your stateroom.
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Staterooms, meanwhile, are usually still being cleaned and readied, because the last batch of cruisers just left the ship maybe a few hours ago. As such, your bags don’t go immediately from the terminal to your stateroom, and you can’t even access your stateroom immediately upon boarding.
So, what are you doing in the meantime? Once you board the ship, you can sometimes drop off your carry-on luggage at your stateroom (such as is the case if you have Carnival’s Faster to the Fun Pass, for example). Otherwise, you have to carry it around with you, until your stateroom is ready.
Carnival Cruise Cabin (Photo Credit: Emrys Thakkar)
Once your stateroom is ready, you can head on over, but you still may not have your checked luggage there. It might be as late as the first evening of your cruise, before you get your checked items.
As such, plan accordingly and pack everything you might need in your carry-on. Think a change of clothes, medications or even your swimsuit, if you’d like to take a dip before dinner (something a lot of cruisers do!).
Do note that getting your luggage can take longer than average if the security team believes that your bags may contain something prohibited. As such, brush up on your cruise line’s prohibited items before you pack.
You may just be surprised at some of the prohibited items (for example, Royal Caribbean asks you to leave your perishable foods, CBD products and travel steamers at home, among other items).
2. Some Areas of the Ships Can Get Really Crowded — and we Mean Really Crowded
The cruise line isn’t going to tell you that some of their ships’ coolest features are also sometimes the most difficult to access. Alas, that’s sometimes the case.
That gorgeous-looking pool deck with all the water slides and seemingly endless loungers? Yeah, it’s not going to seem quite so pristine on warm sea days.
Pool decks and lido decks are the most notoriously busy areas of the ship, particularly on days when your ship isn’t visiting any ports and the weather is nice. And it’s not just the pools that can get really crowded.
Lido Deck on Carnival Panorama (Photo Credit: Ritu Manoj Jethani)
The jacuzzies get pretty crowded, too, as do the loungers. In fact, some cruisers are known as “chair hogs.” They’ll show up to the pool deck early, find one of the best loungers in one of the best spots on the deck, and they’ll leave some belongings on several chairs, indefinitely, essentially claiming a spot, long-term.
Luckily, some cruise lines are cracking down on this practice, to make things more fair for everyone.
In early 2024, Carnival Cruise Line started enforcing a no-saving-pool-chairs policy, wherein crew members monitor the pool deck and, if they see a seemingly abandoned chair “reserved” with a towel, book or pair of flip flops, they go put a sticker on the chair.
The sticker lets the chair’s occupant know that the crew will remove those personal items within a certain time frame — around 40 minutes — unless the chair is claimed.
While you personally can’t really do anything about chair hogs, though, you can get around some of those pool deck and jacuzzi crowds. Just plan to hit up the pool on a port day.
When most of your fellow cruisers are out exploring, you’ll find that all the coolest parts of the ship are relatively empty, so you can have a jacuzzi and the pool nearly all to yourself!
3. Certain Cruise Ship Cabins Can be Quite Noisy
Similarly, when you’re picking a cabin or suite for your upcoming cruise, while the cruise line may be nice enough to mention whether or not your particular cabin comes with an obstructed view, they’re probably not going to give you a noise warning.
Instead, it’s up to you to brush up on which cabins on a cruise ship are often the noisiest, and then look at the cruise ship’s deck plans to determine if your cabin will be among those.
Wonder of the Seas Boardwalk Cabin (Photo Credit: Melissa Mayntz)
So, what do you need to look for?
Avoid cruise ship cabins that are one deck below areas with lots of foot traffic and activity. Think pool decks, jogging tracks and sports courts. Likewise, avoid cabins near areas where people tend to congregate, like elevators or stairwells.
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If you want to avoid the actual noise of the ship itself, steer clear of cabins on lower decks. If you don’t want to hear noises from adjoining cabins, don’t book a cabin that can technically be a “connecting” cabin, as you’ll be able to hear more noise through the locked connecting door.
4. You’re Going to Need to Prep for Your Day in Port
Other than trying to convince you to purchase the cruise line’s excursions, your cruise line isn’t really going to hold your hand as you prep for your day in port. You’ll need to consider a few things, to ensure you have the best time possible.
For example, you’ll need to take a few things with you, off the ship. You’ll need your cruise line’s card, like your Royal Caribbean SeaPass card or your Carnival Sail & Sign card. Take some form of money, as well as your passport or other ID.
Cruise Ships Docked in Cozumel, Mexico (Photo Credit: Marathon Media / Shutterstock)
Then, once you’re actually on land, you need to pay attention to the time. Consider setting a watch to local time, so you know exactly when the cruise ship is going to leave port. Don’t think that the ship will wait around for you, before it departs. You need to be back on time (and ideally with time to spare).
Because of this, consider either sticking to the main tourist areas around the port, for your explorations, or booking a third-party excursion that will easily get you back to port with plenty of time.
5. Ports of Call May Not Actually Happen
And while we’re on the topic of ports of call, it’s important to realize that, even though a certain port might be on your cruise ship itinerary, it’s not guaranteed that the ship will actually stop at all of the listed ports.
In some instances, a cruise might skip a port altogether, and go on to the next destination on the itinerary. In some cases, the cruise might skip a port and replace it with another destination nearby.
There are myriad reasons why this might happen, but one of the most popular is weather. Poor weather can make getting to the next port on your itinerary unpleasant or even unsafe.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship in Bad Weather (Photo Copyright: Cruise Hive)
Other reasons a captain might choose to skip a port include political disruptions, problems with the ship, medical emergencies on board and/or port closures.
If you don’t get to visit a particular destination that you really were looking forward to, during your cruise, don’t fret. You’ll still get to enjoy another destination or at least a fun sea day (which is why it’s important to book a cruise on a ship that you actually think you’ll enjoy!).
You can also always come back and take another cruise to the skipped destination, later.
6. There’s a Risk You Might Get Sick
It really makes sense that a portion of travelers on most cruises do get sick during the course of the cruise. You have thousands of people crammed into one spot, living in tight quarters and all going to the same restaurants and entertainment venues.
However, consider that, since there are thousands of people on a cruise ship, if a few get sick, that’s still not that many of the overall cruisers. Even the most-publicized incidents of cruise ship illness outbreaks typically only affect a hundred cruisers or less.
Cruise Passenger With Motion Sickness (Photo Credit: GBALLGIGGSPHOTO)
For example, in June 2024, Cruise Hive reported on a Celebrity Cruise wherein nearly 70 cruisers fell sick with norovirus, during an Alaskan cruise. However, that particular cruise ship, Celebrity Summit, was carrying 2,264 guests — so only about 3% of passengers fell ill. If you were on that cruise, you’d have a 97% chance of not getting sick at all.
Still, while the odds are in your favor in general, you can still take extra measures to keep from getting sick while on a cruise. Wash your hands frequently. Carry (and use!) hand sanitizer. Take plenty of vitamins before and during your cruise, and follow general good health and hygiene habits.
7. Cruise Ships Aren’t Crime-Free
You may want to think of a cruise ship as a floating resort where everyone is happy and having a great time. You may want to think the best of all your fellow cruisers. However, while the cruise line may portray its cruises as all happy, all the time, a more realistic look will show that cruise ships do come with a dark side.
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While, yes, most cruise passengers are just like you — looking to have a great vacation with no trouble whatsoever — other, nefariously opportunistic cruisers see travelers that are isolated in one singular location and often intoxicated to boot. That makes crime much easier.
Cruise Ship CCTV
Luckily, while this is something you should be aware of and prepare for (by following basic safety precautions like not getting overly intoxicated, not wandering into dark spaces or rooms, not entering strangers’ staterooms, etc.), the overall crime rates on cruise ships are pretty low.
For example, the U.S. Department of Transportation requires cruise ships that embark and disembark out of the United States to report any incidences of crime, and, in Q1 of 2024, only 47 “alleged incidents” were reported: eight instances of assault with serious bodily injury, one instance of a missing person, 32 instances of sexual assault and six instances of theft.
The cruise line is there to make money. As such, they’re going to try to upsell you on a ton of different experiences and amenities. They want you to be tempted by the specialty dining options. They want you to feel as if you definitely need that drinks package.
Cruise Freebies (Photo Credit: Aerial-motion)
And the excursions! You won’t want to book one with anyone else! However, it’s worth noting that, no, you don’t have to really spend extra — or that much extra —money to have a great time on a cruise, even though the cruise line will be the last to tell you that.
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For many newbie cruisers, the complimentary dining options are more than enough and all the complimentary fun is enough to keep you busy for days on end.
Source: Cruisehive.com
