I did a Carnival cruise out of Baltimore this year. Had a great time. (Our was the one that went to Half Moon Cay, and Grand Turk. If your ship goes to Half Moon, my main bit of advice would be to RUN not walk to the Excursion desk and demand a cabana. It’ll set you back $250 but it will make your whole vacation.
Don’t be afraid to try new things - go ahead and order the escargot (or whatever) at dinner. I usually held myself back to one fancy alcoholic drink per day, just because they do get expensive.
Yes, late returners from the cruise line-endorsed excursions. NOT Joe Blow who was bad with time management and is late back to the ship. They will leave without you. You need to be at least in line to get aboard by sailing time.
I once saw some irrate people left behind - the boat was still there, but the doors had closed and they wouldn’t open them back up. They pulled out, embarked, whatever, a minute or two after I started observing the scene, so I’m sure they had already waited, but they definitely left with 2 women screaming at them from the pier.
What I seem to remember is that the ship will wait for a cruise-sponsored excursion, but not folks who go off to do their own thing. It was touted as one of the advantages to booking the $50 snorkel excursion instead of getting a cab to the beach and renting your own equipment for a fraction of the price.
Back to the alcohol. Every cruise line is different, but usually you can bring a bottle of wine each in your luggage and you will be okay. If you have a flask on you I doubt they will take it, but maybe. My real advice is to order wine from their bon voyage selection. You can often get a good bottle for $25 and have them delivered to your stateroom, you can also order a bottle of scotch or whatever. This is much cheaper than buying drinks by the glass. Also corkage has always been included, meaning you can have the wine delivered to the dining room for your meals, and there will be no extra charge.
So your recommendation to the OP is to get chummy with the ship captain during the first evening, and then not worry about departure times but to do their excursions at their leisure? Sage advice…ignorance fought.
“your videos aside…” What does that mean? Please, ignore actual evidence of people being left behind, just because you said it was untrue?
Fill an empty Listerine bottle with gin or vodka and add a few drops of blue and green food coloring. They are not going to quaff your mouth wash. Or fill a camelbak and keep it in your backpack/purse when you board - preferably in a hard to find pouch, in a stuffed bag, with loose tampons next to it. This isn’t SDMB-banned criminal advice; you’re breaking policy, not law. The staff is concerned with weapons and hard drugs. Worst case scenario, you’ve lost a fifth of something. The Love Boat is not going to keelhaul your ass.
Maybe people who go to extreme lengths to avoid buying booze at ship prices can’t really afford a cruise? Everything does get X-rayed, and I rather suspect they’ve seen it all before.
As for restaurants, it depends on the line. For NCL there is a buffet with mediocre stuff, but the main dining rooms are reasonably good, with fast service. If you reserve and come early you get seated by the aft window, especially good when we left Malta.
We looked at the charge restaurants, but none of them seemed worth it. I suppose some are exotic if you come from Idaho, but in the Bay Area we can go to excellent restaurants for all types of food.
Check with the cruise line. We were on a Celebrity Alaska cruise in July, that was preceded by a land tour. The land tour guide told us explicitly that they allowed 2 bottles of wine per cabin to be brought onboard. No hard liquor and no beer, but wine bottles were ok. We brought a couple of 750ml bottles of hard cider, and had no problem.
And the drink prices were not ridiculously high, IMHO. About what you pay in a mid-priced restaurant–more than a dive bar, but much less than, say, Disney World. All the available pre-paid drink plans would have required us to drink non-stop from dawn to dusk (and this was Alaska in the summer) to make them worth it.
Personal experience leaving from Fort Lauderdale just last week. The port authority confiscated my liter “water” bottle because it had been opened. The cruise line (Carnival) did not check my replacement liter bottle at first port of call, so I was out about ten dollars worth of gin and missed one day of drinking on my own supply. (My vermouth was in a mouthwash bottle with my toiletries kit.)
I am accustomed to departing from New York and have never previously had an issue with my smuggling.
My Wife packed her extra in “Rum Runners” plastic flasks in our checked luggage, no problem. The line allows us one bottle of wine per adult in the cabin, carried in our carry-on luggage. The regulations state a 750ml bottle each; we have been carrying on 1.5 liter bottles without incident.
Most lines will confiscate unopened bottles and return them at the end of the cruise. Opened contraband will be disposed of. Don’t act or look like a jerk and you can get away with a lot.
For the cruise itself? Eat somethign different, play the trivia games. go to tea, sing karaoke, go to the show and the comedy club, go to the sing-a-long at the piano bar, sleep on a deck chair, and play a game of putt-putt on the top deck while underway in the wind. bring soem nice clothes to play dress-up for dinner, spend the rest of the day in your bathing suit or the robe from the cabin, bring a windbreaker for wandering the decks at night. Take advantage of room service, eat at the fancy restaurant for breakfast, and avoid the casino.
Or you can book at a level above steerage and get waved through both boarding and port inspection lines. I’ve never been hassled over bringing a bottle of my preferred bourbon or bringing purchases back on board.
As someone who’s never been on a cruise - and is unlikely ever to be - I ask the following:
On what basis can the ship prevent you from carrying wine, etc. that you bought and own to a stateroom you have paid for? Is there anything more to this than “If we make you agree to be searched as a condition of boarding, and if we confiscate your wine, we can make more money” ?
On what basis?
It is part of the contract you sign when you book the cruise. A private business (which a cruise ship is) has every right to restrict the behaviour of its customers, especially in a closed environment, in the interest of safety for all.
Shuffleboard, on a ship, takes on a whole new dimension. You can actually hit something is blocked by another by timing the ‘swinging’ side to side of the ship! Was great fun but YMMV as the seas were rougher that cruise and the shuffleboard was up on the highest deck of the ship.
On the don’t miss the boat - don’t miss the boat - they will hold the ship for a ship sponsored excursion - but they pay heavy fees to the port for sitting there, so they aren’t holding it unless they are going to be responsible one way or the other. They aren’t responsible because you decided to have one more margarita at Señor Frogs and then stopped because you saw some lovely emerald earrings you HAD to have on your way back.
On alcohol - some lines care more than others. Disney LETS YOU bring your own booze on board. They also have free soda. So know your ship.
Set your expectations appropriately on dining in terms of quality, but be prepared to eat like hobbits if you want. Get up and have room service, stroll up to the breakfast buffet, have a mid morning snack, go to the buffet for lunch, the snack bar at two and again at four, make your dinner seating, and then have room service at midnight. Most likely none of the food will be great, but there will be enough of it for you to be able to hibernate for the rest of the winter.
Look at your cruise schedule every day and bring a highlighter. If you are the type of person to wants to play trivia at two in the prominade lounge, see the magic show at seven, do a wine tasting at four, learn to swing dance at nine, learn to fold towel animals at eleven - you’ll have plenty to pick from - some free, some charged. Its fine to sit on deck or in your room with a book as well.
Agree on some way to contact each other onboard - using your cell phone will be expensive - even for texts. So if you want to split up so you can go to towel folding and they can go play bingo - and expect to meet up - agree that you will leave notes in your room or something with where you went. These ships are huge.
Which reminds me - I don’t know about Caribbean cruises, but in Europe shipboard internet service is absurdly expensive and slow. Tell people you won’t be available. That’s a plus for me.
grumble grumble It ain’t like the pre-Falklands QE2 anymore.