Your cruise ship cabin is your home away from home on any voyage you take, so it’s important to be sure you’re drawing the most value from it. Even if you don’t plan to be in your room for most of your trip, there are cruise cabin tips and hacks you’ll want to heed and cruise cabin mistakes you’ll want to avoid in order to make the best of the time you do spend there.
From wasting space and making a mess of the area to running short on electrical outlets and accidentally setting off the smoke alarm, there are plenty of mistakes cruisers make when it comes to their at-sea digs. Here are 15 you might be making and what you should do instead.
Booking the Wrong Cabin Type for You
Full enjoyment of your accommodations starts with booking the right one for you, which is, perhaps, one of the biggest cruise cabin tips. Take stock of your budget, who you’re cruising with and whether you’re sensitive to noise, light or motion.
Carefully consider your travel party. If you’ve got kids, sofa beds or pull-down bunks might be just fine, meaning you can get away with one cabin. However, if adults are the entirety of your group, you might want to book two rooms near or connecting to one another so you have more space and aren’t waking up with a sore back each morning.
Additionally, if you’re cruising to a place known for its scenic sailing – think Alaska or the Norwegian Fjords – you might do well to book a room with a balcony or at least a window so you can catch the phenomenal views from the comfort of your cabin.
Are you a light sleeper? Cabins to avoid might include ones with natural light or anything near galleys, elevators, the kids club, the fitness center, the atrium or the pool deck.
If you’re prone to motion sickness, stick to accommodations near the middle of the vessel, and avoid higher decks.
Waiting Until You Board to Request a Bed Configuration
When booking your cabin, you’ll often have an option to select whether you’d like one larger bed (if you’re sailing alone or with a partner) or two smaller twins (if you’re cruising with a friend or non-partner family member).
Although you can certainly ask your room steward to change the configuration once you’ve boarded, selecting your preferred bed setup ahead of time means less work for your steward on a busy embarkation day and also means your bed will be just the way you want it upon entering the room. Translation: You can immediately catch a few winks before lunch or an afternoon at the pool if you’ve had a busy morning of traveling to the port.
Not Boarding With a Carry-on
If you bring a large suitcase with you, you’ll need to leave it with a porter when you arrive at the terminal for boarding. Crew will make sure your bag arrives onboard and deliver it to your stateroom. However, depending on the size of your ship, your stuff sometimes won’t show up until after dinner.
Plan to pack a few items to keep with you in a carry-on suitcase, tote bag or backpack. We recommend a swimsuit and coverup with pool-appropriate shoes, some toiletries and a clean outfit for dinner. That way you can enjoy an afternoon of sunbathing and freshen up before your evening meal. You might also want to toss in a set of pajamas if you’d like to rest up or in case your larger bag is delayed even further in reaching you.
It’s also always a good idea to keep valuables (wallets and purses, jewelry, electronics), medications and boarding documents like passports with you. Never put them in checked bags.
Not Unpacking on Arrival (or at All)
Although it might be tempting to avoid unpacking, especially on short cruises, we suggest taking 15 minutes to do it as soon as you arrive in your cabin.
Putting everything where it’s easily accessible allows you to find what you need more quickly and avoid leaving your unworn clothing in a heap, thereby minimizing wrinkles. Plus, it means you can stash your luggage and leave your space feeling organized instead of cluttered.
Storing Your Luggage Anywhere but Under the Bed
Speaking of stashing your luggage, the best place for that is under the bed. That way, it won’t clutter the cabin or take up valuable real estate in your closet. Plus, it means one less item that’s a potential tripping hazard on your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Failing to Consider Available Outlets
If you’re sharing a cabin with two or more people or you tend to bring a lot of gadgets on your travels, know that electrical outlets can be limited. To avoid fighting over places to charge your phone, tablet and smart watch, you might want to bring European plug adapters that will allow you to convert European outlets – usually one or two per cabin – to North American ones.
You can also pack power strips, which will convert a single outlet into several. Just avoid strips with surge protectors or extension cords. Ships don’t allow them onboard, and security will confiscate them if they’re found.
Forgetting Key Extras
Some of the best cruise ship cabin hacks involve ways to make your onboard living space more user-friendly. You won’t want to forget some of the most tried-and-true options that frequent cruisers swear by, including:
Magnets
The walls in most cruise cabins are made of metal. Magnets are a great way to organize everything from paper copies of the daily schedule to dinner invitations and shore excursion tickets by keeping them off the desk/vanity and in one spot. You can also use magnetic hooks for extra places to hang hats, bags and wet bathing suits. Magnets also take up little space in your luggage, so they’re easy to bring along.
Pocket organizers
Whether it’s a toiletry bag that unfurls to hang in the bathroom or an over-the-door shoe organizer, having extra storage pockets handy is never a bad thing. Use the latter for socks, underwear, hats, jewelry and other accessories, toiletries or hairstyling tools.
A clothesline
Most cruise ship cabins have clotheslines in the bathroom showers, but they’re comically small – big enough to accommodate just a bathing suit or two. If you know you’ll have multiple sweaty workout clothes, wet bathing suits or laundry that you’d like to air-dry, consider packing a camping clothesline that you can string up elsewhere in your room. (Just be careful to avoid hanging anything on the emergency fire sprinkler.)
HDMI cable/adapter
If you like to wind down before bed with a movie or your new favorite binge-worthy show, consider packing an HDMI cable and an adapter. Connect it to your smartphone or tablet and then to your cabin TV to watch pre-downloaded entertainment on a larger screen.
It doesn’t always work, but when it does, you’re able to avoid paying extra fees for on-demand movies and bypass the ship’s limited channel lineup. If you purchase a premium Wi-Fi package and use a VPN, you might even be able to stream sporting events live.
White board
Most cruise lines now offer free messaging features on their mobile apps, allowing travel parties to stay in touch during their sailing, even without purchasing Wi-Fi. But, if you’re someone who likes to disconnect when you sail, a magnetic white board is a great way to let others in your group know where you are, which restaurant you’ve chosen for dinner, which show you’re attending that evening or what you’re doing on the next port day. Stick it on the outside of your cabin door, and leave messages for your travel companions.
Using Your Keycard to Operate the Lights
As cruise lines strive to make their vessels more environmentally friendly, many have adopted the European system of keycard-operated stateroom lights and power outlets. When you enter your cabin, you’ll need to put your keycard into a slot in order to activate the electricity. But, what happens if you’re heading out for a meal, an activity or a day ashore and you want to leave one of your devices in the room to charge?
Most of the slots will accept any card of the same size as your keycard. We recommend an old store loyalty card that you can leave behind while taking your cruise keycard with you. (Just don’t use insurance cards, credit or debit cards, or anything else you’d miss if you accidentally left it behind on disembarkation day.)
Leaving the Bathroom Door Open When You Shower
If you leave your bathroom door open while showering, steam from the hot water can set off the cabin’s smoke alarm. We have absolutely made this mistake and learned the hard way. Imagine our embarrassment when we had to answer the door, soaking wet and in a towel, only for three members of the onboard fire emergency team to ask if we had been smoking.
If your stateroom’s bathroom door doesn’t have an auto-close hinge, make sure to pull it shut behind you before hopping in for a shower.
Flushing Unflushable Items Down the Toilet
Every cruise ship cabin toilet has a tiny sign above it, warning you not to flush things that shouldn’t be flushed. Some are obvious – we’ve seen diapers, food and even toys depicted – but wipes that claim to be flushable aren’t. Neither are feminine products or prophylactics. If you must dispose of needles, ask your room steward for a sharps container.
Flush only toilet paper and bodily fluids down the toilet. Otherwise, you could end up clogging not only your commode but also those of cabins near you and risk embarrassment if the vessel’s maintenance staff discovers you’re the culprit.
Misbehaving on Your Balcony
Unsurprisingly, balcony do’s and don’ts often top the list of cruise cabin tips. If you’ve booked a balcony cabin, there are certain things you should never do in your little slice of outdoor space.
First, remember that your balcony is not private. Avoid sunbathing nude, and refrain from engaging in private activities while you’re out there. Further, you should never throw anything overboard or leave loose items (which could blow overboard) out to dry while the ship is moving.
You should also keep in mind that what you do on your balcony could affect fellow passengers’ enjoyment of theirs. In other words, don’t blast loud music or have excessively loud conversations there. Also don’t smoke. Because hot ash could blow back onto the vessel and cause a fire – the biggest danger to any ship – smoking isn’t allowed on cabin balconies. Plus the smell can waft onto neighboring balconies, forcing others to breathe it in if they wish to remain outdoors.
And, finally, don’t leave the balcony door open. Cabin HVAC systems are designed to shut off when the balcony door is open. On older ships, neighboring cabins’ systems could shut down also. The worst part, though, is the alarming wind tunnel you’ll produce if you open the main cabin door at the same time your balcony door is open. Always close the balcony door behind you, whether you’re going out or coming back inside.
Making a Mess of Your Room
We get it: You’ve paid for use of your cabin for the duration of your sailing, and you should feel comfortable in it. You’re on vacation, and you might not relish the idea of cleaning up after yourself. However, your room steward is not your maid. Their job is to do general cleanup by fixing the beds, replacing your towels and wiping up minor messes.
Consider folding and putting away your clothes and picking your dirty laundry up off the floor before leaving your room. And if you’ve ordered room service, don’t leave the tray full of dirty dishes in the hallway. Either call room service to pick it up from your cabin, or leave it in there until your steward makes their daily rounds.
Misusing ‘Do Not Disturb’
If you plan to be in your cabin for an extended period of time or you prefer to sleep in, don’t forget to put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door or activate the switch if there is one. This will allow you to avoid awkward interactions where your steward thinks you’re gone and attempts to come inside to clean.
Conversely, don’t forget to remove the sign or light if you’d like cabin service when you leave for the day. Your steward won’t be able to enter if it’s on, which prevents them from doing their job.
Stealing Robes or Towels
We all love a fluffy robe, but that doesn’t mean you should slip the one you find in your stateroom closet into your suitcase when you disembark – unless you’re OK with paying for it. Robes are on loan to you for the duration of your voyage. If you take them with you, expect to see your final onboard account balance increase. The same goes for beach towels branded with the cruise line’s logo.
If you truly do love your robe or towel, it’s better to ask your room steward or inquire in the onboard shops instead of lifting a used one. You’re going to be charged either way, so why not snag a fresh, new one?
Not Meeting Cabin Deadlines
If you’re someone who doesn’t want to wrangle a large suitcase when disembarking, you’ll need to be packed and have your bags outside of your cabin door by a certain time the night before the cruise ends. Pay attention to this deadline.
Also make sure to leave yourself a pair of clothes to wear when leaving the ship the next morning, or you’ll be clearing customs in your pajamas.
Finally, pay attention to the time you’ll need to leave your room on the morning your sailing ends. It’s usually at least an hour earlier than the latest disembarkation time. This is to allow the cabin stewards ample time to turn over the rooms before the next group of passengers boards. Make their lives easier by adhering to those time limits.
Comments
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The post Cruise Cabin Tips & Hacks: 15 Things You’re Still Getting Wrong (Do This Instead) appeared first on EatSleepCruise.com.
