Hangover Prevention

[spursfreak21]

Does anyone recommend those hangover prevention pills you see at drugstores? Anyone use them and do they make a difference?  My wife and I don’t drink too often but want to take advantage of our DBP and not suffer the consequences the next morning. 

[fonemanbob]

Hydrate with lots of water.  Take Advil at bedtime.  And eat food and snacks.  Also don`t use the excuse I`m not driving so I can have 1 more drink.  Nothing worse than having a hangover on a sea day or getting sunburned because you were too  blitzed.  Lastly don`t know anything about the hangover pills.  Sorry.   

[mattymay]

In my experience those pills do nothing. As much water as possible and some food before bed is the best prevention I have found.

 

[KathyC]

Some people use the electrolyte powder you put in water bottles.  

[Traveler]

hangover happens because three main things : 

1. Dehydrated - prevent it  by drinking water between each alcohol drink you take and drinking at least one bottle of water before going to sleep.
2. Alcohol poisoning - prevent it by know your limit , not mixing drinks , better consume clear alcohol without added artificial colors.
3. Missing electrolyte - eat between the drinks , drink some juice .  

[TravisMA81]

Hair of the dog!!  Do the ships sell Gatorade or other sports drinks?  Are they included with the drink packages?

[Bbjunkie]

I have a friend on our last cruise that swears by hangover pills.  She also was good about drinking lots of water.

[packercruising]

Space out your drinks. You will probably start earlier in the day than you would at home. Everyone is different. 

[CFL]

4 hours ago, TravisMA81 said:

Hair of the dog!!  Do the ships sell Gatorade or other sports drinks?  Are they included with the drink packages?

The Coca-Cola freestyle machines on board have Powerade and those are included in the beverage packages. 

[Ray]

Finally a subject i am an expert on lol 

Best cure for a hangover is not to get one :) 

(1)  know your limits and know when to stop!

(2) know what you can and cannot drink! i cannot touch whisky, can drink any other spirit but even just 1 whisky makes me sick, same with Guinness, i can have 2 pints but a 3rd gives me a thumping headache in behind the eyes next day. 

(3) Drink milk in the morning and before going to bed ( order the free room service breakfast and get extra milk to keep in refrigerator) drinking milk helps keep your potassium level up, eating Banana's or having a Banana milkshake is just a good.

(4) Dont mix your drinks that much

(5) pace yourself, you dont have to knock them back in seconds

(6) If all of the above fail and you wake up feeling rough then you need a hair of the dog. 

(7) if hair of the dog fails then just get hammered again that way you wont noticed the hangover from the day before :) 

[PhantomWolf]

Former bartender here...you are basically ingesting poison and your body is supposed to be angry with you after a night of heavy drinking.  There is no "cure" but you can do some things that will lessen the pain.

1.  Hydrate: before, during, after.

2. Nutrients: vitamins, electrolytes, sure a banana wouldn't hurt.

3. Have some food in you to help slow the absorption of the alcohol.  (your body can only process/get rid of so much in an hour, it will stay in your blood until then)

4. Know your body! If you have personally been victimized by tequila in the past...maybe avoid that shot at the end of the night.  Vodka or wine gives you headaches...you know what to do.

5. Be safe and enjoy everyone!!

[CGTLH]

1 hour ago, PhantomWolf said:

Know your body! If you have personally been victimized by tequila in the past...maybe avoid that shot at the end of the night.  Vodka or wine gives you headaches...you know what to do.

Such a truthful statement! Some stuff impacts everyone differently. I know one spirit disagrees with me greatly. Everything else seems to be fine, even when mixed.

[HeWhoWaits]

On ‎7‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 12:21 AM, Traveler said:

hangover happens because three main things : 

1. Dehydrated - prevent it  by drinking water between each alcohol drink you take and drinking at least one bottle of water before going to sleep.
3. Missing electrolyte - eat between the drinks , drink some juice .  

Take advantage of the freestyle machines - get yourself some PowerAde to ease both dehydration and electrolyte deficiency.

[Zacharius]

Water. Always water. I drink one glass or water per alcoholic drink, side by side. Not "I had five drinks, now I need five glasses of water". Nope, get a water every time you get a drink, and sip on them both. It makes a world of difference.

[bossdog421]

We did a "scientific experiment" with Charcoal pills.

 

About 12 of us went on a trip. We drank really hard, like we shouldn't have drank that much hard. Half of us took the charcoal pills (multiple doses) the other half didnt. 730 am the charcoal guys were up making breakfast, laughing and ready for the day. 930am we started seeing the others stagger out, a few of them didnt even go out to riding that day because they just wanted to stay in and recover

 

For the amount i drank I should have been hung over, but i wasn't. I keep a bottle around now.  It's not a 100% but it helps.

[Constantino]

dont ruin your trip due to feeling obliged to over drink to "get your moneys worth".  You likely spend $2k+ to be on a cruise, seeing ports, perhaps more on excursions.  Dont spend half a day or more hugging a toilet.

 

There is no cure for a hangover. 

hydration is important, but mostly it works because if your drinking water, you are not drinking alcohol.  

drink to a pleasant buzz, then maintain.  Cruises are a blast, make sure alcohol doesnt ruin it.

[Marlena]

I second activated charcoal! 

[Miguel]

Liquid I.V. has worked well for me. I even take it before I jump on flights to Europe and I feel hydrated through most of the flight.

https://liquid-iv.com/

[Fuzzywuzzy]

[monctonguy]

On ‎7‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 11:08 AM, bossdog421 said:

We did a "scientific experiment" with Charcoal pills.

 

About 12 of us went on a trip. We drank really hard, like we shouldn't have drank that much hard. Half of us took the charcoal pills (multiple doses) the other half didnt. 730 am the charcoal guys were up making breakfast, laughing and ready for the day. 930am we started seeing the others stagger out, a few of them didnt even go out to riding that day because they just wanted to stay in and recover

 

For the amount i drank I should have been hung over, but i wasn't. I keep a bottle around now.  It's not a 100% but it helps.

Tell me more about these Charcoal pills and where you can get them please!

[coneyraven]

I find drinking a bottle of water (or two) at the end of the night works tremendously well for the next

[pezgirl]

When I was debating getting the deluxe package, I was talking to a friend who said that what she does is everytime she orders a drink she also orders a bottle of water and she makes her self drink the water.  That is my plan. 

[bcarney]

On 7/4/2019 at 3:36 PM, Ray said:

(7) if hair of the dog fails then just get hammered again that way you wont noticed the hangover from the day before

TEAM 7!!!

[DDaley]

On 7/5/2019 at 6:00 AM, Zacharius said:

Water. Always water. I drink one glass or water per alcoholic drink, side by side. Not "I had five drinks, now I need five glasses of water". Nope, get a water every time you get a drink, and sip on them both. It makes a world of difference.

YES! My friends and coworkers always make fun of me at pool parties for simultaneously having a cocktail tumbler and a water bottle with me constantly! Also I find that when I mix myself a vodka/vitamin water cocktail, an inch of so of water at the top never hurts. 

Cruise plan is a lot of vodka-water-splash-o-juices and just one or two sugar monstrosities a day.. those mudslides will GETCHA 

[Orange Crush]

I've never known any pills to help.  The only thing that has consistently worked for me is "pacing & spacing."  A bottle of water after every cocktail or glass of a wine before ordering the next one.  Bottled water is included in the drink package!  Make heavy use of that.  Take frequent breaks, go find snacks.  I stockpile extra waters for the room too.

[monctonguy]

2 hours ago, Orange Crush said:

I've never known any pills to help.  The only thing that has consistently worked for me is "pacing & spacing."  A bottle of water after every cocktail or glass of a wine before ordering the next one.  Bottled water is included in the drink package!  Make heavy use of that.  Take frequent breaks, go find snacks.  I stockpile extra waters for the room too.

So what your saying basically is...I am screwed....

[bossdog421]

On 7/10/2019 at 7:57 AM, monctonguy said:

Tell me more about these Charcoal pills and where you can get them please!

You can get them at any drug store, big box store or grocery store. Pretty much anywhere that has a supplement isle. If all else fails there is the almighty power of amazon.

 

It's in no way a proven hangover cure. Pretty sure most of the medical info on it actually claims it won't help with alcohol. But how activated charcoal works is it absorbs toxins preventing them from entering the bloodstream. Hospitals use a stronger / different type of charcoal for ODs and some poison cases.

 

The way i see it is that if it could help at all, why not? It's like 4-10 bucks for a bottle. Pair it will a nicely chilled bottle of water a couple times a night while drinking then cap it off with some Advil before bed. If anything remembering to drink some water while taking it could go along way towards staying hydrated which WILL help.

 

If i can help it i just try to set limits on drinking if i know i have something super important the next day. We all know a party or a cruise ship really promotes responsible drinking...

[ThyriC]

Hydrate hydrate HYDRATE!  Whenever you take a drink, take a bottle of water as well.  Before you have another drink, you must finish the bottle of water.

Take Ibuprofen before you indulge.  Keep it up on a 4 hour schedule for extended drinking periods.  Take more before you go to bed.  

Dont eat heavy foods when you plan to do serious drinking.  No fried foods, no greasy foods, no rich foods, etc.  Healthy tummy before you drink means happy tummy the next morning.

Pedialyte.  I saw Amazon had a deal yesterday on their single water bottle powder things.  Take this before bed and when you wake up.  Its all about staying hydrated.

Dont overdrink.  Remember its a marathon, not a sprint.  Keep the happy buzzed feeling going all day long rather than trying to "break even" on your drink package at night.  This will also prevent hangovers.  You want to enjoy EVERY day of your cruise, not just one and be laid up for the next day hungover and miserable and not breaking even that day.  And then when you even see a drink for the rest of your cruise, you'll be reminded of the misery and you wont want to drink, thus not breaking even at all, just because you tried to superhero the drinking game on the first night.  Dollar Shave Club actually had a nice article on day drinking and how to keep the feeling going all day long without overindulging or getting hungover.  And it did involve enough drinks to MORE than break even on the beverage package, but you want to go slow and steady. 

Eat in between your drinks.  Eat that healthy food.  Salad, fruit, lean protein.  That doesnt mean dont enjoy your food, but it does mean watching out at the Windjammer.  

If all of this doesnt work.  Hair of the dog honestly, it does help.  At least it'll get your head to stop screaming at you if its a severe hangover.  

 

With a hangover the headache isnt the alcohol, its the dehydration the alcohol can cause.  The stomach upset, that's your gut responding to too much anything in it as well as dehydration.  That's why most of these responses involve water and hydration of some kind.  In hangover "cure" places in Vegas (yes those exist)  they hook you up to an IV to hydrate you quickly.  They do help.  But you dont have an IV of electrolytes with you, so drink that water!  

 

Hangover pills DONT WORK.  They're mostly just the electrolytes that you're going to find in Pedialyte and the pills recommend drinking a fair bit of water with them.  Its the hydration that works, not the pill.

 

Remember to do all of this BEFORE and DURING your heavier drinking.  Afterwards is too late.  Your stomach will not be pleased if you try to power down a gallon of water while your head is screaming bloody murder.  

[MikeS]

I am 99% sure it is placebo but I take two paracetamol just before going to bed when drinking. I find it helps.

[natsleone]

Hangover prevention pills always help, atleast they have helped me. I always have them before i go for a night out, so glad i found them otherwise i'd always have the worst hangover the next day. You should try boozeburner, order them from their website https://booze-burner.com/

[Jill]

Party Smart works pretty well. Herbal pill you take before bed. 
 

Prevention is key though but we all slip up every now and then. 
 

My worst cruise ship hangover was debarkation morning on oasis. Those 4 chocolate martinis and 3 glasses of wine the day before made for an unpleasant end to an awesome week.