Internet and Phone Use Connecting at Sea
Staying in touch with fellow passengers at sea and friends and family on land is easier than ever. Most ships now have branded apps that allow cruisers to chat with each other onboard and super fast high-bandwidth Wi-Fi that makes communicating at sea much easier than it used to be. Internet speeds can vary significantly by line and ship, depending on location, available bandwidth and other factors. Most cruise lines don't offer speeds that can support streaming services like Netflix or Spotify. However, a few cruise lines are changing the at-sea connectivity game with relatively affordable high-speed services that support video and music streaming.
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You might expect loud noises, close quarters and crazy maneuvers in the dance club onboard your cruise ship -- but not in your cabin. Even if you don't plan to spend much time there, it should be a restful and private place so you can maintain that much-needed vacation stamina. To help you do so, we've compiled a list of cabins you'll want to avoid booking if closet-like dimensions or scraping chair sounds overhead aren't appealing to you. Heed our advice, and you might be feeling a bit less claustrophobic and a tad more refreshed come disembarkation.
Your cruise ship room -- or cabin -- is your personal haven at sea. You can go there to escape the pool deck and buffet crowds, or invite friends over for a lively party. Curl up on the balcony with a good book, or turn out the lights and drift to sleep rocked by the waves. You can decorate it, hack it and even expand it via interconnecting doors to the room next door.
But there are some things you just shouldn't do in your cruise room. Free. Money. Are there two more beautiful words in the English language? While money doesn't grow on trees, increasingly it can be found somewhere else -- on the high seas. Call it an incentive, call it a bonus; whatever you want to call it, onboard credit lets you spend more freely with less guilt. You've paid your cruise fare, and now you can splurge on those enticing extras -- Swedish massage, specialty restaurant, an excursion to snorkel among shipwrecks -- without busting your budget.
Not many need convincing as to why onboard credit -- money automatically deposited into your onboard account-- rocks, but finding out exactly how to get it and where you can spend it is a bit trickier. We found eight ways to hit the OBC jackpot and offer even more suggestions on how to burn through it, although you probably have your own ideas already. If your cruise departs from a port overseas, or is too far away to drive to, you'll have to face the skies and fly there.
Question is: When is the best time to fly in for a cruise? Some try to save on spending for a hotel room by flying in the morning of their cruise's departure, but is it worth the stress of facing a delay should one occur? For those on a tight budget, or with limited vacation time, deciding when to fly in for their cruise can be a tough choice. We weigh the pros and cons of flying in early for your cruise vs. flying in the day of, so you can make the most of your cruise and your vacation time. There once was a not-so-savvy seafarer who didn't feel right unless she took two steamer trunks crammed with outfits on every cruise. This, she learned, was not a good idea.
Besides incurring the wrath of her male traveling companion, who pointed out that he would have to wrestle with excess baggage through airport terminals and beyond, she quickly tired of cramming her belongings into tiny closets. The now savvy seafarer follows this packing rule: Thou shalt put into one's suitcase only that which will fit neatly in the allocated cabin storage space. Following that advice is getting easier because, for the most part, cruising has become a more casual vacation with relaxed dress codes. Plus, with airlines charging to check bags, it's just plain economical to pack light. To do so, you need to have a good sense of what you’re going to wear on a cruise so you don't pack your entire closet. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a probe last year into six of the biggest online hotel booking sites, Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, ebookers and trivago over concerns that the websites were giving false impressions to customers.
The CMA's investigation discovered this to be true! It's one of the most common cruising questions: When is the best time to cruise Alaska, Australia, the Caribbean, Canada/New England, Hawaii, Europe or the South Pacific?
The answer depends on many variables. For example, fall foliage enthusiasts will find September and October the best time to cruise Canada/New England, whereas families prefer to sail in summer when temperatures are warmer for swimming. The best time to cruise to Alaska will vary depending on your preferences for viewing wildlife, fishing, bargain-shopping, sunshine, warm weather and catching the northern lights. The last thing anyone wants to think about while they are on vacation is dealing with problems. In this article several subjects are discussed and offer excellent information on each. Here are a few of the subjects:
The last thing most of us think about when we plan a cruise is the list of elements that can go wrong before and during our vacation. But, as Robert Gallagher, Senior Vice President and CEO of AIG Travel reminds us, "…there are many risk factors unique to cruising." Flight delays caused by weather or a mechanical problem can keep us from arriving to our embarkation port in time. The airline can lose our checked bags. We can get sick before we board or, even worse, mid-cruise. We might even make a boneheaded move in a port of call that makes us miss the ship and need to catch up to the in the next port of call. Plus, a host of other general issues can scuttle a vacation, such as the illness or death of a family member, cancellation of plans by a travel companion, job loss, airline delays and lost baggage.
Those reasons and so many others are why travelers seek insurance coverage. It provides that extra bit of calm and control we all crave. More importantly, it prevents you from losing money due to unforeseen circumstances and travel emergencies, and insurance fees are typically just a small percentage of your vacation expenditure. MyFuncations Note: This is an excellent article. It was originally written for cruise travelers, but the information is so in-depth and timely it benefits all travelers. Please take time to read. |
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