Any tips for someone going on a carnival cruise soon?

Any tips for someone going on a cruise soon?

• I'm going on a cruise soon, and it's an 11 day 10 night cruise, so what important stuff must I bring along with me other than passports, cameras and phones?

• Answer:

  Pack for the various activities of the cruise including exercise wear, swim wear, formal wear, casual clothes for the daytime and sports/resort casual clothes for after 6:00 PM. The dress on ship is casual, meaning shorts and swim wear is OK, until 6:00 PM. After then the dress is sports/resort casual; meaning clothes like you would see a person wear in a business office. After you pack look at what you have and try to eliminate as much as you can; think mix and match tops and bottoms and plan to wear each piece twice; or do laundry on ship . Pack shoes for the various activities like beach shoes, sandals and/or flip flops, sneakers and good walking shoes, and shoes to wear sports casual and formal. You cruise will probably have 3 formal nights and you can dress as formal as you want; suit or tux for men, party dress, gown, or Sunday best for women. People will be dressed in all of those options. Make sure that you have any prescription medicines for the entire trip plus a week. Pack toiletries, including deodorant, tooth paste, mouth wash, after shave, razor, floss, etc, Your cabin will have towels and soap provided, including pool and beach towels, and a hair dryer. It will also have a generic hair shampoo so you do not need to bring that unless you like a specific brand. make up a mini-emergency medical kit with a few band aids, Neosporin, aspirins, cold tablets, antacid tablets, Q-tips, cotton balls, nail clip, etc. Pack my clothes using those vacuum travel bags (cost about $20 for 3 at Target) so that I can get more in my bag and also so that if the airport security folks (TSA) opens my bag they can see stuff without rummaging through my things. Prepare a carry-on bag: including your MP3 player and its charger and headphones, your camera and its charger or extra batteries, a couple books to read; a security pouch to hold my money and credit cards and passport and ID while traveling and/or off the ship; a large insulated cup with a seal able lid. Other tips: -Take a small carry-on bag for the last night of the cruise. On the last evening you will be required to put your luggage outside your cabin by about 2:00 AM so that they can start taking it down to the lower deck for offloading the next morning. So you will need a small bag for your toiletries and your clothes that you sleep in. When you pay for your cruise it includes all of your meals, breakfast, lunch dinner, snacks, and free room service; you can use all of the facilities on ship like the gym, rock climbing wall, pools and hot tubs, etc, and all of the shows and the disco and lounges are free also. You get free coffee, tea, milk, juices, and punch but you have to pay for alcoholic beverages and soft drinks. Cruise lines allow each passenger age 21 or older to bring on board at the departure port one bottle of wine or champagne. So bring one or two for your cabin. Most cruise lines will push drinks on you, especially the first couple days. Buy the drink of the day which is usually cheaper, by at least a dollar or more. Also ask for your drinks in a plain glass rather than the souvenir glasses they will be offering. This will save you about $1.50 per drink. The cruise lines will offer a lot of interesting tours but they will be expensive. You DO NOT have to buy tours to get off the ship in port stops. You can go off on your own and many times in Caribbean and Bahamas ports you can find cheaper tours on the pier. Lots of places in the Caribbean you can get to a beach by taxi much cheaper then the ship's tours. There is plenty of free food on ship 24/7 so there really no reason to pay to eat in a specialty restaurant in ship. You'll not be able to eat all of the great free food. The specialty places charge a fee between about $10 and $25 per person per visit. Just eat the free food; it will be great. Cruise lines will take lots of photos of you boarding the ship, getting off in ports, at dinner, on formal nights, around the ship. These will be very expensive ($10 to $25) so take your camera with you all of the time and take your own photos and ask other passengers to take photos of you, they will gladly. The ships have internet service but it is very expensive; likely about $50 to $60 an hour. Wait until you get to a port stop and find an internet cafe. Ask the wait staff and your cabin steward because they generally know where they are. The internet cafes on shore generally charge between $2. and $5. for an hour. Don't turn your cell phone on except when in a port stop. If your phone is on while you are at sea and connections it makes for even text messages will go through the ship's cell tower and that charge is VERY expensive.