What's your worst cruise mistake?

[Matt]

Alright friends, time to fess up to the worst rookie mistake you made on a cruise, even if you aren't a first time cruiser!

Please share the single mistake/slip up/fail you made on a cruise, so that we can all learn from these mistakes!

[Zacharius]

Eating in the MDR as much as possible the first cruise. Then realizing we really don't ever want to eat there again for future cruises

[coneyraven]

Our biggest mistake was not looking at the holiday calendar before we booked a cruise.  In other words, we booked Brilliance over the Easter holiday this past April.  Way too many young kids for our liking.  Our kids are older so when we like to cruise, we like it a little more settled down, a little more mature.  Had we known it was going to be Easter, we would not have booked that date.  We tend to gravitate more towards holiday's that are more "adult oriented", as opposed to "Family Oriented", like Halloween and New Years Eve.  Now, you may ask, why didn't we just move the date..... one word answer...non-refundable.

At the end of the day, we still had a GREAT time, met some awesome folks and were able to cruise with old friends,  what's not to love about being on a cruise, but, it just wasn't what we tend to go towards in having a fantastic cruise experience for the two of us.

[panda123]

My first cruise was on a 50 person plus group cruise for a wedding: I did no research on the ship, beverage options, shore excursions, (didn't know cruise planner existed, as everything but drinks and shopping was taken care of)......I just did what my in-laws said/suggested. 3 night Bahamas cruise, my husband and I racked up a $450+ bar tab (didn't include the extra juice, coffee, bottled waters, we also had), got stuck doing activities we didn't like because we didn't know other options existed. Only plus; over half of the group went snorkeling in cold rough water and had a terrible time, while we chose to sit on the beach with an all you can drink $20 coconut and go shopping (had a blast!)

[MikeSD]

Renting a Jeep for a self excursion in Cozumel. Finding a nice secludes spot for some snorkeling only to come back to find all our stuff including jeep stolen. Boy was that stupid, but we were young, in love, and CLUELESS, LOLing at myself.

[Dan Curtis]

20 minutes ago, coneyraven said:

Our biggest mistake was not looking at the holiday calendar before we booked a cruise.  In other words, we booked Brilliance over the Easter holiday this past April.  Way too many young kids for our liking.  Our kids are older so when we like to cruise, we like it a little more settled down, a little more mature.  Had we known it was going to be Easter, we would not have booked that date.  We tend to gravitate more towards holiday's that are more "adult oriented", as opposed to "Family Oriented", like Halloween and New Years Eve.  Now, you may ask, why didn't we just move the date..... one word answer...non-refundable.

At the end of the day, we still had a GREAT time, met some awesome folks and were able to cruise with old friends,  what's not to love about being on a cruise, but, it just wasn't what we tend to go towards in having a fantastic cruise experience for the two of us.

Not checking the calendar or should I say not knowing when the super bowl was, cruised out of Miami on super bowl weekend, starting calling motels a month or so in advance for a pre cruise stay, the Holiday in we had stayed before and paid around 160 bucks was 400 bucks for one night, called other motels, either no vacancy or outrages prices, final ask one motel and said super bowl weekend, we even paid double for the cab ride to port, finally found the dumb for 250 a night and regretted that after we arrived, rookie mistake for sure.

[Geoff P]

The first cruise we went on I didn't do a lot of research at all, ship, itinerary, excursions, none of it...we had a good time of course, but learned my lesson to do more research to really get the most out of our experience.  For our second cruise and now our third on upcoming have done much more research and planning ahead of time and its been so much better.

[SteveinSC]

My first couple of cruises, at our stops, I just got off the boat and walked around the port area. BIG MISTAKE. I wasnt taking advantage of all the stop had to offer!!! In my other cruises, I started booking excursions and taking taxis and really venturing out. COMPLETELY changed how I viewed, not only the itinerary, but the whole cruise. 

[AndrewPunch]

See Below:

 

 

[Va4fam]

About 15 years ago, a friend booked a cruise for all of us going from Philadelphia to Bermuda.....in APRIL.   Rough seas, bad weather, expensive cruise fare =big time rookie mistakes.

 

[RockerDom31]

Biggest mistake - waiting so long to go on my first cruise!!

Otherwise...getting to the port at 9am was a mistake. Next time, we are aiming for 11!

[Ditchdoc]

Exiting the ship, a cross wind blew my $50 Tilly hat off my head into the drink between the ship and the dock. 

[rjac]

1 hour ago, RockerDom31 said:

Biggest mistake - waiting so long to go on my first cruise!!

Amen to that Brother!!

[CruiseGus]

and  then not booking another cruise immediately

[KaydenDeen]

Booking a trip at the end of hurricane season thinking it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a storm to affect my trip. There ended up being a storm out at sea and the ship was rocking and rolling. I am prone to getting sea sickness, but thought that over the counter medicine would be sufficient. There wasn’t enough Bonine on that ship to get me through that vacation. 
It was such a horrible experience that I *almost* gave up cruising for good. 

[WanderPam]

The worst thing I did was consider cancelling our Explorer cruise because I took negative reviews too seriously. So glad I didn't because we had the most amazing 2 week cruise ever !

[melski94]

Biggest mistake:  Taking a Carnival cruise! That was our first cruise for our honeymoon!  It took 15 years to try cruising again!

Biggest RC mistake:  Not double checking dates and being one week off for a 3rd party shore excursion.  6 ships were in port and there was no chance of getting on another excursion!   Luckily, the company was great and refunded my deposit.

[melmar02]

Trying to do it all. I'm all for seeing and experiencing everything, but DH wants a laid back relaxing vacation...big fights may have broken out on our second cruise. I'm much more "go with the flow" now.

[KWofPerth]

Letting my sister-in-law convince me that we shouldn't drink the water onboard and needed a bottled water package. And waiting till boarding day to buy it.

[wllm1969]

8 hours ago, Ditchdoc said:

Exiting the ship, a cross wind blew my $50 Tilly hat off my head into the drink between the ship and the dock. 

Thank you for sharing. I will have to watch my hat when I get off ship.

[Buzzard05]

Paying for a balcony room...then forcing myself not to miss anything on the ship, that I never gave myself the time to just sit and enjoy the balcony I paid for.

[berkeleykel]

Lost my Set Sail Pass while at port in Corfu. Didn't realize it was missing until we went to go through security at the terminal to re-board the ship approximately 30 mins before last call. Thankfully I had my passport with me to use as an alternative ID - don't know what they would have done if I hadn't had it.  But even with the passport they made me wait until they had cleared the full line of people at the terminal before letting me through.  Then we were shuttled in a port vehicle directly to the ship, where the port employee confirmed my identity with Royal.  Maybe we just looked like VIPs getting a special car ride direct to the ship rather than having to make the 5 min walk.  But we felt embarrassed! In the rush and the stress my husband dropped our son's iPod getting out of the car and the screen completely shattered . 

So...keep a special eye on your Set Sail Pass while off the ship! Honestly I haven't the slightest clue what happened to mine.

[Neesa]

#1 My biggest mistake was not researching my stateroom type on my first sailing. I opened the door and gasped, 3 of us had to share this space? It took two days to get acclimated as I get physically affected by tight spaces. Now I research everything before plunking down my money!

#2 Doing a B2B thinking I was well aware of the on/off procedure from the previous years B2B. Picture security inside the terminal chasing a woman who is oblivious to the fact they were coming after her, oh that was a hoot! I was pretty much horrified, as for my family they of course stood back and laughed their you know what's off.

[ellcee]

Same as some others have posted - not doing my research before my first RC cruise. I did a little but didn't understand how to. I was shocked at all of the extra charges. Now I get it and understand it's a business.

A year and a half later I found this site and now there are no huge surprises anymore.

[JasonL]

Didn't use to pre-purchase as much as possible before the cruise. Also didn't pre-book activities. Of course I didn't have any money for extras back then, but  still it's a very common rookie mistake

[JasonL]

Biggest mistake wasn't in my first cruises though, it was with my first cruise with kids. We knew what cruising was for us and we took those expectations into our first cruise with our very young kids. We love cruising with the kids now, but the first one we didn't enjoy because we didn't get our minds right that the experience is different with kids. 

#don'tfeelguiltydumpingyourkidsatadventureoceanasmuchaspossible 

[Marc Van Niekerk]

Biggest mistake was probably on our first cruise.  We had arranged air travel and cruise through a travel agent and flights were the same day as the cruise.  The travel day was so tiring and stressful due to weather and traffic getting the airport, finding our transfer from airport to ship, etc. that once cabins opened we went to our cabin and passed out, completely missing sail away.

[FManke]

19 hours ago, RockerDom31 said:

Biggest mistake - waiting so long to go on my first cruise!!

 

Ditto!

[Ogilthorpe]

In no particular  order:

1. Sailing with a line other than RCL

2. NOT getting the beverage package

3. Waiting to get onboard before making shore excursion reservations 

4. NOT checking my casino points and debarking a few points  short of a free cruise

5. Not checking the school vacation  calendar prior to booking

6. Waiting way too long to find this site

[Jack_Lime]

First Time Cruise!! Set sail yesterday.

The only mistake I made was OVER PLANNING. RCI had the cruise planner on the app a week before set sail. And I obsessed with it, planing to do Everything.

All that planning was a waste of time, just lounging around is too much fun on this boat.  If I could give any advice to other first timers, Calm down and enjoy yourselves. Eeven if you miss that "one special event", so much more is going on you will be fine.

 

My "Anti-Mistake" = Drink package, free espresso, free smoothies, and all the beer. Sure I may not have made the best deal, as I didnt drink much on embarcation day - Doesnt matter, the non-stress over how much I spend is wonderful.

[WhiteSoxFan]

First cruise we booked all our excursions thru the ship.   All early departure and even booked 2 in one port.  We were worn out from getting up early for all these excursions every port day.  We figured it out the next time that a mix of ship and self-booked/self-exploring is a better way to go.

[timm804]

Not checking a deck plan to see what (and how loud) would be above our cabin.  

[sk8erguy1978]

Where do I begin?

1. First cruise ever was a 3-day country themed cruise with popular comics & country artists. Three of us booked an interior cabin and split the cost ... $3000 bucks. I can get a 7 night Caribbean, with drink package and have change left over for that price. As others have said, we did no research and had NO idea how anything worked. Drinks, food, what was included, what wasn't, etc, etc, etc. However, it's what gave us the bug so...
2. Overindulging with adult beverages on day one ... I make this mistake every cruise :).
3. Not arriving to the port as early as possible, took an NCL cruise out of NYC in 2011 and the line to check-in took probably 2 hours.
4. Booking a cruise to take us to our destination wedding (Bermuda) in September ... Ironically, we had the calmest seas I've ever encountered. 

Those come to mind immediately, I am sure there are a ton more.

[ChessE4]

On 12/4/2019 at 2:01 PM, Matt said:

Alright friends, time to fess up to the worst rookie mistake you made on a cruise, even if you aren't a first time cruiser!

Please share the single mistake/slip up/fail you made on a cruise, so that we can all learn from these mistakes!

I am going to have to say worrying too much--trying to manage a chaotic, unpredictable series of experiences instead of having a "general plan" and then "going with the flow".  Micromanagement just doesn't work on a cruise.

[Skatepunk]

Taking a princess cruise as our first cruise and not becoming addicted to cruising sooner

[ptod]

This is not my mistake - but let's go with not having a general packing list for the basics needed on the cruise.

My DH was a little irked that I wanted to review the basic clothes that we had packed for one cruise....so I just let it go.  Come to find out that he completely forgot to pack any underwear - none, nada, zilch.  All he had was what he wore to travel.

Did I mention that this was a 15 day Panama Canal cruise?    

It made for a memorable cruise.  We were sailing with his parents and to this day we have never told them what happened.  That cruise was in 2006.

Needless to say, underwear is the first thing we both pack and we try not to burst out laughing when we do so.  

[Pima1988]

Nobody flame me for this.

Biggest mistake was our 1st cruise (The Med) and we booked an interior cabin.  Did not sleep well at all because I was afraid that I would oversleep since we had no daylight, thus ever few hrs I would wake up and look at the clock.

Second biggest mistake, but not really a mistake in the end.  Looking at the itinerary more than the size of the ship and their amenities.    In the end, since it was port intensive (1 cruising day) it all worked out, but if we had more sea days we would have been frustrated from lack of options.  

[coneyraven]

17 hours ago, timm804 said:

Not checking a deck plan to see what (and how loud) would be above our cabin.  

We were totally guilty of this .... on our first cruise, we booked an interior directly under the R Bar on Grandeur ..... fortunately, about the time we were headed to bed was the same time the entertainment moved up to the VCL so it never became an issue.  In fact, we stayed in the same cabin 2 more times after that.

[MikeK]

11 hours ago, ptod said:

This is not my mistake - but let's go with not having a general packing list for the basics needed on the cruise.

My DH was a little irked that I wanted to review the basic clothes that we had packed for one cruise....so I just let it go.  Come to find out that he completely forgot to pack any underwear - none, nada, zilch.  All he had was what he wore to travel.

Did I mention that this was a 15 day Panama Canal cruise?    

It made for a memorable cruise.  We were sailing with his parents and to this day we have never told them what happened.  That cruise was in 2006.

Needless to say, underwear is the first thing we both pack and we try not to burst out laughing when we do so.  

  I told my wife that according to RC rules,  women are not allowed to wear underwear.  I did keep a straight face but she still didnt believe me

[sk8erguy1978]

On 12/4/2019 at 10:15 PM, WanderPam said:

The worst thing I did was consider cancelling our Explorer cruise because I took negative reviews too seriously. So glad I didn't because we had the most amazing 2 week cruise ever !

Explorer was our 1st, 2nd, 7th, & 8th Royal Caribbean cruise. We met two friends on the 1st back in 2007 who we are very close with today. It was our second cruise overall and confirmed we really enjoyed cruising and Royal Caribbean. That ship holds a special place with me for the experiences we had on-board. Glad you enjoyed her, she's a great ship.