Cruise advice

I posted this reply below a few months ago on another cruise topic and people said it was helpful.

It gives basic advice for a first time "cruiser"

I did my first cruise a few years ago, and done a second since.

Some advice:

Consider if you want to leave from a UK port (Southampton for example) or fly and pick up a boat overseas. Going from a UK port means you can drive or train there and take more luggage. Flying means slightly more hassle and less luggage.

A UK cruise company like Cunard or P&O means you have UK mains sockets, and most of the passengers are British. Money is all in UK pounds.

Consider how long you want to go away for (6 days, 8 days, 10 days, 12 days etc)

Look at the activities on the ship, particularly with young people with you (your 16 year old).

MOST IMPORTANT. When looking at an itinerary see how many SEA DAYS there are. Most cruises stay at a new place each day, but sometimes the next port cant be reached in a day so you get a sea day. The more sea days the less places you see (and I find sea days rather boring).

We did a Norwegian cruise but it took almost 2 days to get up to Norway from Southampton (partly due to bad weather at sea) and about as long to get back. We only stopped at 5 places on an 8 day cruise.

Cunard and P&O are the same company, We did one cruise with each. Cunard are a bit more "up market" than P&O but we enjoyed both cruises.

While a cabin with a balcony is more expensive that an "indoor" cabin it is so much nicer to have a balcony.

Beware of Covid. Someone we know has just done a cruise and someone on the boat got Covid. They had to stay in their cabin. If it spreads round the ship ALL passengers would have to stay in their cabins.

Consider a cruise from Southampton that goes down the West coast of France and Spain and Portugal (stopping off at various places on the way), You get nice weather the further South you get. We were in Seville in November and it was 30 degrees.

Ships normally leave the "home" port (say Southampton) at about 5pm and travel over night. If the first port of call is close you will wake up in a new place. You then normally have all day in that port with the ship leaving at 5pm to go to the next port. So the cruise goes on, though sometimes it takes longer to reach a new port so you get a sea day. So you mainly get from say 9am to 5pm in each port of call. Some cruises (though rarely) do spend 2 days in a port like say San Francisco or wherever.

Note that when the boat stops SOMETIMES you are in or near a town so can walk or taxi in to the nearby town (like we did in Lisbon) but other times you are in the middle of nowhere so need to book an excursion from the ship (which costs money and they are not cheap). The cost of these trips does mount up.

Also don't book a trip every day as often they start very early and you don't want to keep getting up at 5am on a holiday. We booked for one trip but on the ship decided not to do it, but did not get our money back.

If there is a excursion from the ship you REALLY want to do then book it up at home BEFORE you go on the cruise (you can do this online). Many popular trips can be fully booked up before the cruise even starts so once you get on the ship it is too late.

If you do walk or taxi in to the local town DONT be late back to the ship or it will go without you (the cruise companies have to pay more if they are late leaving the port so don't like to overstay their visit). It does happen and people ARE left behind

Cruise ships have "formal" restaurants where you sit at a table and you order food and it is brought to your table by a waiter, These are included in your cruise price but there will also be further restaurants that specialize like Thai, or a Steak restaurant, where you can pay a little extra and you can get a better service. I have never done this as the "free" food is usually excellent.

But they also have less formal "self service" restaurants where there is a huge choice of different types of food and you help yourself. I prefer these less formal dining areas as you can sit there as long as you like (usually with a sea view) and spread your meal over a number of hours going back for extra food or drink.

On board you can basically eat and drink any time you like, there is probably food being served somewhere on the ship day and night.

There will be a host of activities on board the ship, some will be free but others you will have to pay for.

Large ships usually have large "theatres" where they put on shows (musicals, magicians, comedy etc). These are usually VERY popular so get there AT LEAST 30 minutes before the show starts. If you don't the theatre may already be full, or you may have to stand at the back.

Look at the Cruise Critic web site, loads of information on there about cruise companies, the ships, the places the boats stop etc. I did loads of research on there after we had booked our cruise.

cruisecritic.co.uk/ (edited)

Glad I could help.

Few more things.

When the ship docks at a port you don't HAVE to get off the ship, you can stay on board all day. Some people like this because the ship will be fairly quiet as most people are on excursions. As the ship is fairly empty it is a good time to take advantage of some of the activities on the ship while it is quiet.

Also you need to decide if you buy a drinks package of some sort. Buying individual drinks will mount up over the length of the cruise so you can buy an alcohol package or even a soft drinks package for the kids. Note if one adult buys an alcohol package they may insist BOTH adults buy an alcohol package (to stop the one person getting free drinks for both adults). Some companies do offer "free" drinks packages as part of the deal for taking a cruise so hunt around for deals.

I don't drink alcohol so bought a soft drinks package so was able to get a coke or whatever at any of the bars on the ship at any time, as many as I wanted. Useful on a hot day as it seems you are going in the summer.

Also make sure you have a credit card as most of the stuff you buy on the ship is paid for by the wristband or whatever that they give you. The money spent is then added to your credit card account and they put it all on your card on the last day.

Finally if you are going in the height of summer and if you decide to go down South to Spain or Portugal it will be VERY hot when you are walking around in the town or city where you have stopped. As I said we went to Seville in November (lovely place) but it was 30 degrees and almost too hot to walk around. Hate to think what it is like in the summer.

Also note Seville was about a 90 minute coach journey from the port (each way) so if you do plan to take any excursion (to any place) read the details carefully as it may be miles from where the cruise ship docks.

I would highly recommend cruise nation. We booked our cruise with them for Easter holidays. It was £1500 each for flights to New York with 3 nights hotel stay plus 11 nights round the Caribbean. Plus a outside balcony. Obvs cheaper if you don't want a balcony. (edited)

We did our first cruise (just the wife and I) last June on P&O´s Arvia - This is a great family ship, and even though we like the peace, the ship is large enough to cater for all. During July / August it cruises the med from / to Southampton - drink prices are similar to that of UK pubs, so drink package although available, not neccessary.

We enjoyed our cruise so much we just disembarked P&O´s Azura last weekend, and are going on Arvia again in April...... much prefer Arvia.

We booked direct on the P&O website as they give you 24hrs to find a cheaper price which they will match - seascanner is usually the cheapest. It´s a quick, easy process and we prefer dealing with P&O directly - if you book through an agent they won´t talk to you, it all has to be done through that agent.

I would say the best advice has yet to be given, which is to work out what you want from a cruise, as this determines what cruise line is going to work for you.

I'd argue you can group people into three camps - traditionalists who want to cruise for the sake of being on a ship and floating about the place, people who want to cruise to experience the ship and the activities on board (so essentially treating it like a resort holiday) and then cruising to experience loads of new places at once.

There are overlaps, but each cruise line will generally suit one of these categories perfectly.

If you want to cruise to experience merely sailing about then Cunard then is a great cruise line as their ships are what I'd class as boring and you can spend over a week trapped at sea on their transatlantic crossings bored to death so much that you end up classifying wearing a suit to dinner as the on-board entertainment.

These lines tend to be adult-only so you won't have to worry about ending up booking this type of cruise.

If you looking for family-fun and a ship filled with activities for younger people then the best line for this is Royal Caribbean (apart from their really old ships, anyway). Then you have the likes of NCL with their go karts and stuff. Carnival also offers family-fun ships, though they do not sail these in Europe.

If you're looking for the ship to be a high quality transportation device to visit multiple places then lines like Celebrity or Princess are ideal. They aren't totally boring ships, but aren't super fun either and you won't find water parks and go karts.

Lines like MSC and P&O I'd say are kind of a blend of ship and exploring. They're not super-fun ships, and again like other lines the older ones are more boring, but the newer ones do have some stuff going for them, and because the focus isn't on the ship as much this tends to make them cheaper as building and running those whizzbangs costs money.

@guilbert53 thanks mate...very helpful. has definitely cleared up things I was looking for. I don't think we can do more than 7 days max 8 days on cruise, so will follow the advice and start looking