How To Enjoy a Cruise on a Ship

Chris:: The top five cruise tips from both Ponzy and myself and Ponzy is just of camera here. Ponzy: Hi! Chris: She does not want to be on camera for some reason. I don’t know why. So anyway, we have put this together. Number one, dine later if you can. That is just for a couple of reasons. Ponzy: Or earlier. Chris: Or mostly, later Ponzy: Mostly later. Chris: Off hours because if you go during peak hours, its going to be busy no matter where you are going on a cruise ship. We found out on this particular cruise line, that if you dine later, I mean like a couple… Ponzy: A special directions Chris: Well, No! A pretty much every restaurant is half off. So they have a special rate. Ponzy: You do not have to pay for the regular… Chris: Yes! You do not have to pay regular rate. Ponzy? I know- What do you - say it then? Ponzy: I am just saying that you do not usually have to pay for the regular restaurants [voice overlapped] Chris: Right! Their specialty restaurants obviously are the ones you pay for like a stake house or any other Ponzy: Italians Chris: Italians or whatever happens to be. So if you dine later, you can actually save money as well as not being fronted up by a ton of people. Number two, casual versus formal. Now this is a big deal. I thought Ponzy tooth and nail on this one for four cruises until we finally arrived in this 5th one. There is usually a formal night in most restaurants and like for dinner, you have to dress up like a jacket, you cannot wear even jeans, it has to be slacks. Ponzy: Do not really dress up with jeans, a colored shirt and a jacket. Chris: Right! Dress up that is what I’m saying. You cannot even wear jeans up to these places. No tennis shoes or anything. Ponzy:: You can wear jeans once like… Chris: Anyway, so be prepare. If you are going on a regular cruise, there is probably going to be a formal like you are going to want to bring along some kind of dress clothes with you. Just plan on it and all on that to, check to make sure the cruise that you are going on how they do dining arrangements. This one, the cruise was on its free style cruise. We are the only ones in the cruise line industry, because some lines they will assign your times, they will assign your tables, in some cases the table you are assigned, you may have to eat with the same people everyday during your cruise and sometimes they mix it up. I mean it just depends. So you find out how they do things before you sign up depending on your comfort level.Personally, I am in love with this free styling thing because we can choose whoever, wherever, whenever, etc. And by the way, as I am looking at the video I am reminded that I am a little dark here in the foreground because I wanted to highlight the background. Unfortunately, it is really bright out, a little overcast right now but this I thought would be more important than this. Number three, book excursions early. The whole idea of cruising is that you can go from one place to another to another to another and everyone follows you and then get up the whole experience follows you. Booking excursions earlier rather than later will A. Guarantee you get the trips you want and B. Guarantee you get the times that you want. You have got to be very careful about that. Ponzy and I, we have learned over time not to over book. This time around we cannot book any excursions until we got to the ship and I think we are going to hit pretty much everything that we wanted to. We want to do a helicopter today and then tomorrow whale watching and I think, we are just taking it nice and casually which is important. Usually over extend ourselves and gets a little hectic. This is the vacation we should relatively- Ponzy: Relaxed! Chris: Relaxed! For cruises, book excursions early. If you do, do not overbook. Number four, if you can, get a room with a view. I know that the rooms inside the ship without a window or cheaper and even the rooms with the port halls are way cheap. That was the first cruise that we took, was the room at the port halls like, this is it? It really was not special but then from then on, we scrimped and saved to make sure we could get rooms with a deck, like our own private porch, basically I do not know if I am going to pick it up and move it over here. Ponzy, you are going to be in the video. Ponzy: That is fine. Chris: Okay. So we got around some lounge chairs, there is the wife. Ponzy: And table with four chairs. You can have breakfast outside. Chris: Yes! So you can order breakfast, you can usually leave something on the doorknob and have breakfast on your pad privately. We did not do that this morning, so we did not get in time Ponzy: Yes. [inaudible] Chris: So it is kind of nice having a room with a view. I think changes the experience entirely. Otherwise, were are you going to go? I mean you are going to somewhere else. It is nice to be having privacy on your own room where you can stream up to the internet. Of course if I have neighbors listening today, they have no idea what I am doing right now. Number five, you may have seen this here. I am not wearing this right now because I need it. I am just wearing it for the show. This is not a wristwatch. It is a band that you wear on your write and it sends out electrical pulses at timed settings that will keep from feeling sea sick. So, if somebody suffers from motion sickness, you may think about picking one of this up before you head out. I ended up buying this a few years ago and I have never used it. I have never really used it before. Ponzy: I used it in Alaska. Chris: Ponzy has used it before with motion sickness because she cannot help it. The thing is that with this, it is adjustable, the power is adjustable depending on settings. You have got set it exactly on the spot where you can feel it at most and you will know exactly when it is on and when it is off. But if you do not have one of these and you do not want to spend money on this, at least pickup some Dramamins before you come and Ponzy was telling me that they know have this patches that you can wear, which work more effectively apparently than the Dramamin, or the pills or anything else like that. So this is something to consider even if you are not someone who…. (AUDIOCUT)