As I usually do when preparing for a vacation, I spent many
weeks researching before our cruise. I
must have read 50 different posts on Pinterest:
10 Things You Must Pack for Your Cruise, 7 Rookie Mistakes People Make
on Their First Cruise, 15 Things Most People Don’t Think to Pack for Their
Cruise, etc, etc. So, I took my regular
vacation packing list, whittled it down and made adjustments that I thought
would apply to our cruise, and then took all of the suggestions I read and
changed or added to my list again. Once
onboard, I quickly realized I had purchased a number of things that were not
necessary for our cruise and some I couldn’t use at all. I made many returns to Walmart and Amazon
when I got home, lol! Some of those
things might have worked or been essential for other people, but not for
me. I took a Carnival Cruise on the Inspiration from Long Beach to Catalina
Island and Ensenada, Mexico from Monday to Friday and we had an ocean view room,
so maybe if I had taken another cruise line or even had a different cabin my
experience would have been different. Also,
we were traveling with five children and had two cabins that were next door to
each other (there were no adjoining ones left).
Here is what I learned.
Things I
did need/use:
Carnival’s HUB app
This was essential! It
was so helpful and it works even if you don’t purchase their wifi. I know this for sure because my I let my
daughter use the wifi I had purchased for myself (one device can use it at a
time) and the app still worked great.
For anyone with a smartphone, the Chat feature (for only $5 per person
for the whole cruise) was awesome! One
of the blogs stated that the Chat feature doesn’t give you notifications, but
that is incorrect. I got notifications
just like I would for texts or any other messaging app. The app has detailed maps of every deck, and
listings of all of the onboard activities.
I loved that you can “heart” your favorite activities, and the app will
notify you when the next one is coming up so you don’t miss out! You can also check your spending on the app,
which was especially helpful for the kids.
I gave each of them an allowance and once the money was gone they
couldn’t charge any more. I had tried to
set up the allowance before we sailed, but I kept getting conflicting
information from various Carnival customer service agents. All you have to do is go to guest services
once you are on board and they can easily set this up for you. One last thing—if you download the HUB app
before you sail and put in your sail date, it will show you a countdown until
your cruise starts. My kids had a great
time with that! Then, once you’re on
board, click “I’m onboard” and you can start using it. Don’t wait, though—download it before you sail.
If you’re going to Ensenada, bring cash!
They take US dollars. I
recommend having small bills as well. We
didn’t do much tipping on board except for our steward—Carnival can add the
tips to your account and you can even request to tip extra to members of the
crew who gave especially good service.
Folding fabric baskets for toiletries
I get mine at Dollar Tree so I don’t feel bad if they get
destroyed. You could also get nicer
ones—just make sure they are the kind that fold flat so you can easily pack
them in your suitcase. The bathrooms are
small and there is no counter (just two narrow shelves), so I kept my
toiletries in my basket and kept the basket on one of the closet shelves until
I needed it.
We used the wine glass they provided for our toothbrush holder, lol!
Folding fabric hamper for dirty clothes
You can buy them at Walmart wherever you buy the regular
laundry baskets. It folds into a small
circle that you can pack flat. Those
cabins are tiny (compared to an average hotel room), so it was very helpful in
keeping clothes off the floor!
This is how it looked when we were leaving.
Ziploc bags in various sizes
I bring them every time I travel and always find many
uses. For instance, my son loved the
arts and crafts at Camp Ocean and one day he came back with a little colored
sand contraption. It seemed to be
sealed, but I wasn’t taking any chances and put it in a Ziploc just in
case. I also use them for any toiletries
that can leak.
Travel Space Bags
This is actually my own tip that I didn’t read on any
blogs. Space Bags are super helpful for
putting dirty clothes in to take home.
You just seal it up and fold down the top to push out the air. It saves room so you can fit any souvenirs
you bought! Make sure to get the ones
that say Travel, because the other kind require a vacuum cleaner to suck out
the air.
Power strip
We actually might have been OK without one in our cabin (I
only had my daughter and youngest boy in my cabin), but I know Michael and our
three older boys used theirs a lot.
Lanyards
I got these for about $1 each from Walmart. If you are cruising with kids, it is so much
easier if they have their Sail and Sign cards on their lanyard. They don’t use it that much (although they
are required any time you get on or off the ship), but I found it so helpful to
be able to just look at the kids and be assured that they each had their card
just by looking at them and seeing it around their necks. I had only brought three for my younger boys,
assuming that my teenagers wouldn’t want to wear one. I was wrong.
My daughter wanted one, too, and I had to pay $6 for one onboard. It might have even been nice for my husband
and I to have one, too. It was a hassle
to get it from my purse every time I dropped the boys off at their kids’ clubs
or picked them up.
Dramamine
This is the only sea sickness medicine we used, even though I
brought others (meclizine, ginger pills, and Motion-eze). For me personally, I noticed the motion of
the ship when we were waiting for the elevators when we first got on. I remember thinking, “Yikes, what have I
done!?” But once we got to our cabins
and went to lunch, I completely forgot about it and I was fine. You can definitely feel the motion of the
ship on occasion (it was worst on the morning of our sea day), but I never
needed to take anything. My husband and
two of my boys took a Dramamine once or twice.
Dressy clothes for Cruise Elegant night
We are not getting family pictures done this fall like we
usually do, so I brought nice clothes for all of us (like what we would wear to church), hoping that the pictures
they take of us that night would suffice.
It worked pretty well! Many
people were dressed up fancy that night.
They had about 10 different backgrounds for nice pictures. Most of them are catered to couples and not
big families like ours, but I really liked the ones we had taken and I bought
two of them. You can get posed pictures
with various backgrounds every night.
Workout clothes
We actually went to the gym twice and it was great! There were plenty of machines for
everyone. Note: to get to the gym, you
have to go to the spa and walk through the locker area.
Hair Dryer
One of the emails Carnival sent me had packing tips and they
mentioned not to bother to bring a hair dryer.
I thought that was weird because I had read that only the fancier rooms
like suites provided a hair dryer. I’m
glad I read that, because we did not have a hair dryer and I was so glad I
brought mine.
I wish I had brought something that I could lay across the
bathroom sink for doing my makeup and hair.
I don’t know what it would have been, but I’ll think of it for next
time! There is only a one small shelf by
the mirror and no counter space in the bathroom.
Things I
did not need, most of which I returned
Magnetic message boards
I read so many articles that said cabin walls are made of
metal. I was so disappointed when I was
unpacking and I opened my two magnetic message boards for the cabin doors, only
to find out that they wouldn’t stick! I
couldn’t return them because I had already opened them! Oh well, they are now on our refrigerator.
Magnetic hooks
Same reason as above.
Shoe organizer
So many people mentioned taking a shoe organizer, insisting it
was essential because you wouldn’t have anywhere to put your stuff. I don’t know what cruise they were on, but we
had plenty of closets and shelves and also a desk with drawers and we didn’t
even use all the drawers!
Nightlight
There were multiple small lights around the cabin that could
act as nightlights. We each had a small
light with a switch by our beds.
ID holders
The lanyards are helpful, but the ID holders weren’t
necessary. The Sail and Sign cards
already have a hole in the corner so you can easily hang it on your lanyard
clip.
Luggage tag holder
Others might find these helpful, but we carried our own
luggage on and off the ship so I wish I hadn’t opened my luggage tags that I
ordered from Amazon. I had purchased
Faster to the Fun, which I highly recommend, so we were promised that our cabin
would be ready as soon as we got on the ship.
It was so nice to go straight to our cabin and unpack, and then freely
walk around the ship without having to lug our backpacks. We had the earliest
boarding time of 12pm (more like 12:30 by the time they let us on) and it
worked out really well. We also carried
our luggage off the ship. The morning of
debarkation, we went to the meeting place at 7am, and even though we had to
wait a little while, we were pulling out of the parking garage by 8:10am.
Towel clips
Another recommendation was towel clips, because it gets windy
on the deck. I saw these at the Dollar
Tree so I picked up two packages. Maybe
if we had been on a cruise in the summer months this would have been more of an
issue, but we had no use for these clips.
We did spend time at the pool and water slides, but the pool towels they
give you are nice and thick and don’t blow away.
Hangers
We had three different closet sections. One had shelves and a safe, and the other two
had room for hanging clothes and at least seven nice wooden hangers each. I travel with a garment bag so I had hangers
anyway, but for most people for a four night cruise that would have been plenty
of hangers. They probably would have
brought a few more if we had asked.
Highlighters
Many people said it would be helpful to have highlighters so
you can mark your favorite activities on the list they give you every day. However, like I said, the app has the feature
where you can select your favorites and it will even notify you when they are
about to start.
Our family had such an amazing time on our cruise! I am so grateful for the information I was
able to find, but now that I have been on a cruise I will know how to prepare
even better for the next one. 😊
General
Tips
Most of the information we needed was left in our room by our
steward. Our prepaid excursion tickets
were delivered the night before. Also,
for debarkation they have a big meeting you can attend to learn about your
options, and they play the video of it on their TV channel. They also put the instructions in your room
the night before.
Faster to the Fun (FTTF)
I went ahead and splurged on this. You are basically buying most of the benefits
of their VIP services. It’s $49 per
cabin. If it had just been my husband
and I, it probably wouldn’t have been as important. The first benefit we got was a quick line at
the terminal to check in and get our Sail and Sign cards. Although, like I said before, once we got
through that line we had to still wait another ½ hour because they didn’t board
until 12:30pm instead of 12pm. Also,
because we had FTTF, our cabin was guaranteed to be ready as soon as we boarded. We could have checked our bags and had them
to our cabin sooner because of FTTF, but instead we chose to carry on all of
our luggage and went straight to our cabin to settle in. The other benefit is that if you need to go
to guest services, you have a dedicated phone line and also a dedicated line at
the desk on deck 7. Finally, as I stated
earlier, you get priority at debarkation.
There were multiple options, but again we chose to handle our own
luggage and get on the road early. If
you decide you want it, buy early before it sells out.
Your Time Dining
We chose this instead of scheduled seating and I am so glad we
did. If there is a wait (one night we
had a 15 min wait and another it was 30 min), they give you one of those
contraptions that light up when it’s your turn.
The other two nights they got us right in.
Elevators
I could explain how the elevators work but it’s very confusing
unless you are there. And even if you
are there! Not all elevators or
staircases go to all the floors. Each
set of elevators has a map that will show you which floors it goes to (you can
also look at the lights above the door).
I often pulled out my phone and checked my HUB app for a map to find the
best route. We also tried to take the
stairs often to work off all of the extra calories!
Arrive the day before
Unless you live close by, I recommend getting in to Long Beach
by the night before. We stayed at the
Super 8 Long Beach and had dinner at Polly’s Pies nearby. Obviously, it’s not a fancy place, but it was
fine for us and they had a free breakfast with cereal, yogurt, bagels, waffles,
etc.
Excursions
Once we bought the cruise, they sent us an offer to get 20%
off excursions if we booked one in each port.
I don’t think they offered any other discounts later, but I could be
wrong. I’ve heard that you can get deals
once you are on board, but I’ve also heard that the good ones can sell out
early. Many people just went and did
their own thing. We went ahead and
purchased the excursions with the discount.
On Catalina Island, we split into two groups. I took my daughter and youngest son on the
Dolphin Runner Adventure. It was
wonderful! We saw so many dolphins! My husband took our three older boys
snorkeling and they loved it. My husband
said it was his favorite part of the whole cruise. In Ensenada, we went on La Bufadora
Adventure. I enjoyed it, even though we
felt a little bit swindled by our guide because she seemed to want us to only
go to the vendors she recommended. Once
you get to La Bufadora, you have to walk past a very long gauntlet of vendors
clamoring for your attention. I think
the vendors at the beginning had the best prices, but we found that out too
late and had to get back on the bus. Read
the reviews and see what you think. If I
had it to do over again and it was just my husband and I, I would definitely go
parasailing! We saw that from our
Dolphin Runner Adventure and it looked amazing!
If I think of anything else, I’ll add it to the list! We had heard some negative things about
Carnival Cruise Lines, but we didn’t find them to be true. There was so much to do for adults and kids,
the food was wonderful, and the service was excellent. We loved it, and I know you will, too!
