7 Easy-To-Make Cruise Mistakes. Are You Making These?

Travel insurance is a must! My mother passed away in Puerto Rico on a Carnival cruise on the 4th day of an 8 day trip. Got sick on the ship, off loaded at the next port, died at the hospital in Puerto Rico and Carnival took care of my Dad (who was all alone) until my brother could get there. The insurance took care of everything, my dad never got a bill and actually had the cruise fare returned. I will never go without it!

Dear guests of cruise ships, you can forget about independent excursions and go to shore by your self :( and big thank you for your tips. Cruise crew call it "pool". So each department of the ship have some percent of this pool. For example in my contract I have salary 816$ and because your tips I will have 1000$ per month. And I salute for you guys, who give some tips by cash. Even 5$ tips it is ok. If you do not want give any tips you can say tganks for creww member just writting his name and department on front desk and describe how this crew members was helpfull to you. This action will be even more better than tips. Thank you and hope to see you all on cruise ship.

Not only do you need to put you PHONE in airplane mode, put your TABLET (and WATCH) in airplane mode too! If you have a roaming package, it it PER DEVICE and PER COUNTRY. On one trip, I packed my tablet in my bag without turning it to airplane mode and it cost $40 in roaming charges when we flew from Vancouver to Cancun because the red-eye to Toronto dipped into the US ($12) and the leg from Toronto to Cancun was technically the next day and cost $12 while crossing the US and $16 when we entered Mexico.

Gary, Always love your voice tone & volume. You are easy to listen to through your continuous videos. Of course, your British accent is also a big plus.😎👍 Thanks for all your tips.

Forget airplane mode. As soon as the last rope is untied my phone gets turned off and locked in the safe until I am back in the cruise terminal. I am on holiday!

When it comes to “double tipping,” if my room steward and/waiter is particularly excellent (I’ve never had any that weren’t at least very good,) I’ll give them an extra tip at the end of a cruise, but a couple times I’ve found, from chatting with a waiter/steward, that it was their turn to go ashore for a few hours off the ship in the next port, so I’d give them a nice tip the night before we made port, so they’d have a little extra money on them the next day, and although this has only happened to me a few times, each time it did, the people were extremely thrilled at receiving the tip, with one room steward literally almost crying as he thanked me profusely.

Great tips, Gary! My very first cruise I knew to put my phone in airplane mode and made sure to do so. What I didn't realize was that the phone I had at the time was notorious for randomly turning off airplane mode on its own. The way I found out was that one day I was sunning on the pool deck, having the time of my life, when I got a text from my phone provider telling me I was about to reach my data limit. Needless to say, my heart started pounding. They did have a number you could call without incurring additional charges and we figured it out. I got very lucky because they were aware of the bug and didn't charge me. It would have been about $700. Then they told me what to do and this is what I do now. Not only do I turn on airplane mode but I go in and also turn off mobile data and international data roaming.

Thanks for adding actual captions for the Deaf.

Another positive of booking excursions through local businesses is that most of your money goes to the communities you are visiting, rather than the cruise companies. I was living in an island country for 18 months which rarely gets cruises. I was fascinated (shocked) at the costs being charged when a cruise ship arrived. I think the passengers were being charged $10 or $15 for travelling around on the local minibuses (which themselves are an experience) which actually cost 25 cents per trip.I think it was to be taken to the best known landmark- which was a 15 minute trip and then a 5 or 10 min walk? To do it yourself would have been $1.

I've never been on a cruise nor are planning to go on one. But your videos are so entertaining as well as educational, I can't stop watching!

We like to tip our cabin steward $20-100 at the BEGINNING of the cruise, with the comment that this is in addition to the auto-tips. Additionally, at the end we hand an envelope with a note that says "in addition to the auto-gratuity, we wanted to show our extra appreciation with this $___"

I only book shore excursion through the ship because I am a nervous Nellie about independent excursions getting us back too late. It paid off when my sister and I cruised Italy a couple years ago. Our shore excursion bus to Monte Carlo etc got caught up in traffic and we were an hour and a half late getting back to the tender. Everyone was freaking out but I knew we were safe because the ship would wait.

Last year I knew 2 people who needed to be airlifted. One was $40,000 for the patient-did not include the trip for the companion- to be airlifted back to the states and it had to be prepaid. In addition, they had to get all medical bills paid before leaving. Family back home had to take out the loans to send the money. No trip insurance. The second person had the insurance for air lift and they only had to pay $10,000 for all the remaining costs associated with the incident. Still real money but not as bad as person 1

For a long time, I wondered what this French company Pinôt was, until I realized it was merely your two-syllable pronunciation of P & O.

Your tip to check current fares after booking is solid gold. So glad I watched this video! Thank you!

Gary as always your amazing advice is so welcome. I just placed a note in my phone calendar on the day we leave for Puerto Vallarta to put my phone in airplane mode, THANK YOU!!!

Thank you Gary! Love your videos- always learn such valuable information and so enjoyable to watch- really appreciate you!😁

In a way, this may be one of your best videos (yes I watch them all.) I've only been on two cruises and they were rather specialized, but I could have or did make some of those errors. If I do cruise again, I'm making a laminated CHECKLIST before booking to make sure I cover those points. Thanks for all you do.

Good point about travel insurance. I would in fact suggest you might spend an entire episode about choosing the right travel insurance if you haven't done so already. Thanks.

Thanks for listing the specific websites you use to look at other excursion options! We spend SO much time researching these