Have you ever wanted to take a cruise somewhere but don’t know what to expect? I’ll share with you my personal experiences of cruising in hopes it helps you plan your trip!

I have been on three cruises all with Carnival Cruise Line. My first cruise was when I was in middle school when I went with my friend and her family. My second cruise was our honeymoon and my third was a couples trip we took with friends.

How to Book

I booked both of our cruises online through the Carnival Cruise Line website. I somehow got a Carnival travel planner when I booked our honeymoon so I also contacted her about the couples cruise we took, but you don’t need to speak to someone in order to book you can do it via their website. Cruises are great because they aren’t super expensive and being from Colorado, USA it’s hard to access countries just based on my location. We were new to traveling as young adults so a cruise was a great place to start! Back when we went on our honeymoon we spent around $2,500 which included both of us for a week to Mexico. Mind you this was eight years ago so prices have probably gone up. It was nice because they offered different locations to go and I picked based on where we wanted to go. It’s also nice because you don’t have to plan for transportation or hotels in the counties you are visiting because you stay the night on the ship. If I remember correctly when you book your trip you need to enter your passport and drivers license information.

Where To Go

Depending on where you are located there are lots of places for you to go! For our honeymoon we went on a cruise that ported out of Long Beach, CA and went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. When we went with our friends we ported out of Galveston, TX and went to Cozumel, Mexico, Belize City, Belize and Roatan, Honduras. There are many other ports, for example Florida that go to the Caribbean. There are also many cruises to Alaska and Canada which are also on my bucket list! Someday I would also like to do a Viking or Norwegian cruise in Europe!

Things To Do

Depending which cruise line you are going through, there are different things to do but most of them offer the same things! There are lots of pools for kids and adults. We really enjoyed the Above 21 area where there were pools just for adults with bars and lounge chairs to relax peacefully. Some ships offer outdoor games on the decks like chess and shuffle board. Some also have mini golf, basketball, volleyball, etc. Most ships have a casino where you can gamble and different bars that offer different activities. There are lots of shows onboard throughout your time there for adults only, families and kids only. They will send out a schedule so you know the locations and times of the different shows and activities. On our honeymoon we went to a comedian show and it was actually the guy who played Raven Simone’s dad on That’s So Raven. We got picked on because we were the newest newly wed couple. It was super fun. Also on the ships we went on they had art shows that sold paintings. Some of the art shows were invite only but attending another art show. They offered us free champagne and we did end up buying some pieces of art that we both really wanted and they were listed for a good price.

Food and Drinks

The food was super good on all the cruises we went on! I feel like it’s trial and error of finding the places you like the most but there are a ton of different food options. They have cuisine from all around the world offered on the ship which is nice because you have options. You also can eat whenever you would like and what works for your schedule with most of the restaurants. Some aren’t open 24/7 but you can always find something open. For formal dining for dinners you can go to the main restaurants they have that is included in your ticket or you can pay more to go to the fancier restaurants. We just went to the regular formal dining that was included and it was delicious. When you book you can either decide a certain time you want to eat dinner every night or you can have a timeframe if you are not sure what your plans will be. You can also choose to sit with your own party or if you would like to sit with others you can. Towards the end of our honeymoon we sat with another couple and it was super fun getting to know new people. While at the dinner places that is included with your ticket, we were able to order multiple orders of the entrees we really liked. We really enjoyed the steak and lobster so we were able to get two orders of both entrees and it did not cost extra! You can also order room service but it does cost extra. The soft serve ice cream was super good and we would get it all day every day! They had multiple machines around the Lido Deck.

Make sure you bring some fancy attire on your cruise because you are expected to dress up for dinner. They also hold a fancy evenings that everyone needs to wear appropriate attire. I’ve seen people not wearing appropriate attire and were turned away from the dinner. So make sure that’s not you and you pack accordingly! -Kylie

Drinks on the ships were very expensive! We do not drink a lot so we were fine with having one drink a day. The average cost was about $15 per drink. Some cruises offer a drink package that is like $600-$900 per person for unlimited drinks (but really they limit you to about 14 alcoholic drinks a day). If you also do a drink package be aware that if one person gets it then everyone in the cabin has to get it as well. We did the math at the time and you would have to drink like 7 drinks a day to make it worth the money. We did not find this worth it to us because we do not drink that much. I believe that sodas were also included in that package but my husband and I don’t drink that much soda either.

We did not know this until our cruise we took with our friends but the cruise line automatically adds like a 20% gratuity onto you tab at the end of your trip. So if you are tipping people (like your maids and waitstaff at dinner) throughout your trip make sure you go to the customer service desk the morning of the last day (get their early) and take the automatic gratuity off. Now if you don’t want to worry about tipping people throughout your trip, you can leave it on and not have to worry about it. We were tipping people throughout our trip so we did not want to pay more money and took it off but we had to wait in line for hours with all the other people who did the same thing. -Kylie

Rooms

There are different kinds of rooms you can get when you are booking your cruise. We always get a king size bed and we do not have kids so we don’t have to worry about having more beds. We were spoiled because on our honeymoon we just had a regular state room but a couple days before our cruise, they called me and told me that since it was our honeymoon we could upgrade our room to a balcony suite for $200 more. My parents paid the extra so we could have a balcony and now we always have to have a balcony when we cruise. It’s so nice having your own private space. To order room service and have a nice cup of coffee on your balcony, it’s really wonderful. It also helps with not having motion sickness. On the first cruise I went on in middle school we had a little circle window and I had motion sickness every time I was in our state room. So in my opinion it’s totally worth the extra to get a balcony room.

Excursions

You have two options when booking excursions (activities at the places you are going). The first one is purchasing them through the cruise line. We did this on our honeymoon since I was new to traveling. It was expensive to purchase through them but it was convenient and I knew they were legitimate and what our plan was. The second option is waiting until you get off of the ship at the port and figure out what you are going to do there. Most ports have little booths that are trying to get you to book their experience. We did this on our cruise with our friends. My husband is good at haggling and was able to get good deals for us at these little booths. In Mexico we were able to get transportation to a private beach (round trip), snorkeling, and a free drink for $30 a person. In Belize we learned from a man in one of the souvenir shops that you only take a taxi if they have an official taxi badge and are showing you that badge before you get in the car with them. We found a wonderful taxi driver named Rose and she was also our tour guide and she took us to the Mayan Ruins. In Honduras we went zip lining through the jungle that dropped us off on the beach. For us we enjoyed waiting until we got off of the ship and deciding what we are going to do there so we could get things at a cheaper rate than what the cruise line was offering.

Make sure you are always back to the doc to get on the ship at least an hour and a half before they tell you the ship is leaving. You do not want to be left behind and they will leave you behind. -Kylie

Is cruising something you want to do? Which places are on your bucket list?