You're listening to the Cruise Tips TV Unplugged podcast. Today we're sharing our Cruise planning
timeline. We're going to help you with what to do the day, week, and months before your cruise.
Welcome to Cruise Tips TV Unplugged. I'm your host Sherry and we invite you to join our Cruise
Loving family as we travel the world creating cruise videos and vlogs. In this podcast,
we talk tips, tactics, and strategies to help you make every cruise your dream cruise.
All right, so I'm not going to say anything because this is our third try at this because
I've been too funny. Even too funny this morning and I didn't approve of your jokes.
Your jokes got vetoed. Yeah, so so note to self. Never be too funny on the podcast.
So we're talking about some seriously valuable information here, right?
I think so. I think it's valuable information and I'm one of those people though and I know
there's going to be listeners who can relate where I need to get the list out on paper.
If it's stuck in my head, I'm not going to sleep. Can anybody relate to that where you're like
laying in bed and you're like, oh, I just remembered something I need to pack for my cruise or,
oh, I just remembered something I need to do for my cruise. And until you get it out on paper,
it's going to drive you crazy. So that's why we created this list.
So this podcast is all about alleviating that stress, right? So these people can sleep now.
They can sleep now. You can sleep knowing you have a pre-cruise checklist.
So roll with it. Let's roll with it. As per usual though, when we have the opportunity,
we like to thank those of you who leave reviews on our channel and show Aqua left one back in
December. And of course, the title Mr. Cruise Tips TV is a throwback to the early podcast days.
When we made an Apollian Dynamite joke and the joke never died. So the title of this one is
Tots. Yeah. Tots. And they say so full of cruise wisdom. Thank you for all the
cruise tips entertaining yet valuable tips. So for those of you who haven't listened all the
way back to the beginning of our podcast many years ago, we had at some point have been joking
about that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where he puts the tater tots in his pocket. And it started a
it started a review revolution where people would go on to iTunes and leave their review. They would
put the the title Tots and it just became like a funny inside joke. So now it's not an inside joke.
It's everybody's joke. And if you want to jump on board, leave us a review and title it Tots.
And people will be like, why on earth does it say Tots? We are just full of esoteric pop culture.
Yeah. So although that is a really funny movie, I love it. And it's just so
whack and out there and unlike anything else. So I'm big Napoleon Dynamite fan. I'll about you,
Tina. All right. Let's move on. Okay. So here's how we're going to break down the pre-cruise checklist.
We're going to talk about those things that you want to do at the time of booking.
So for some people, that might be two years before their cruise because you book two years in advance.
For others, that may be 60 or 90 days. But at the moment that you book your cruise,
some things you want to do, then we're going to go into a list of things you should do about
a month before your cruise, then we're going to pop it down to one week before the cruise and
then a day before the cruise. I've been thinking to Mr. Cruise TV. This would be a great YouTube
series. I just need to think about how to execute that. But I'm thinking we'll break it down into
chunks and make it into a YouTube series so people can kind of... YouTube chunks.
You do. Yeah. Sounds delicious. Sounds like a stew. Oh gosh. All right. Well, let's start with things
that you should do at the time of booking. And of course, some of these may be a matter of opinion.
Some of you may not do these things right away, but I personally think that you should do all of them.
The first thing that you should do, and now this is more important than ever,
is confirm your travel documentation. So for most people, that means checking your passport to
make sure that it has not expired or is not set to expire or renewing it or just straight up
getting a passport. Now remember that certain travel destinations require that your passport
does not expire 90 days or even six months after your departure from that country.
So like Europe and Mexico both have rules about your passport. So you really need to check with
those policies and make sure that you're not going to be denied boarding. That's important.
I feel massively important. I thought that you just stopped the podcast and go check.
Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I check our passport
explorations all the time and actually somebody in our family. I don't know if it's junior or if
it's you and me. I can't remember which one of us. I think it's you and me. I think you and me at
the end of this year need to get them sent in for renewal. But this is really scary right now,
you guys, because passports are taking up to 12 weeks right now. So when you send that passport
in, you have no passport while it's getting renewed. So you really got to plan your trips very carefully
and just kind of dance around that whole that whole process. But get ahead of it. That's the most
important. If if nothing else happens, guys, if you get nothing from this podcast today, please get
ahead of that. Next, Mr. Cruz, you got to purchase your travel insurance right away.
There are some rules about when you need to purchase that travel insurance. And in some cases,
you can purchase it up to as late as, you know, right before your cruise, as long as a storm hasn't
been named, you'll still be fine. But we, along with our travel agent, recommend that you purchase
that travel insurance pretty much immediately when you book your cruise. So that's number two.
Number three, this is also a good time to start researching and booking your flights.
Some people should research their flights before they even book the cruise too, because why go on
the cruise? If the flight logistics aren't going to work out, so I would actually challenge you
to research your flights before you book the cruise, maybe book them after, but know that this is a
good time to do that. You might also consider looking at researching and booking a pre-cruise
hotel at this point. You might also consider checking out parking in your port of embarkation at this
point at the time of booking kind of up to you. You could potentially, depending on how late you
booked, you might even enter your citizenship information into the cruise line website,
especially if you booked late. If you booked two years in advance, you're not going to do this at
that point. And now you're going to just start watching for deals on the website too, right?
You're going to start watching for those drink package, internet, and excursion deals that may
not be available for purchase yet, but start looking at them, watching for them. And you're also
going to want to start budgeting. So when you book that cruise, if you don't already have a budget
in place, now is the time you want to start thinking about budgeting for gratuities, excursions, and
all of those other extras and start really thinking about how you're going to make that work. Then you
want to open up your calendar, whatever kind of calendar you use, and make a note of your final
payment date for your cruise. You want to write that down, get it somewhere where you can remember
to make it happen, and of course your travel agent will remind you about that as well. And start your
research, get onto those forums and websites and apps, and start having fun researching. That's
half the fun, isn't it? Yeah, you know, this is good information, and you are on a roll. I like it.
I like it when you get into this zone that you're in right now where you're just going,
because then I don't have to do anything but watch you. Oh, great. I'm getting you out of the
work today, huh? Yeah. Getting you out of the role of being funny because Lord knows I'm not funny.
So that's kind of, to me, Mr. Cruise some CV, that's the stuff you have to do right when you book.
The rest of it can wait for the most part in general unless you book your cruise last minute.
But let's bump it down to what you should do about 30 to 60 days before your cruise. I might
even say you could do this stuff 30 to 90 days before your cruise. So we're going to say,
let's do, you know, a one to three month window of time. And the first thing that you want to do
during that window of time is register on the Cruise Lines website. So get your credit card
entered in there, go into that Cruise Personalizer or Cruise Planner, get your children's center,
waivers done, enter your citizenship information, and also note your special preferences in the
website. So 30 to 90 days or so before your cruise, you want to do that. At this time too,
you're ready to start booking restaurant reservations and entertainment reservations on
some Cruise Lines. And every Cruise Line is different, but you could probably do that at this point.
You might also be able to prepay, not prepay, oh boy, this is a tongue twister,
prepay your gratuities. You could do that. Some people do that at the time of booking,
they just, you know, wrap it into the cost of their cruise. What's an example of a cruise line
that would allow you to book that in advance? The gratuities? Yeah, the whole thing. I think
all of them allow you to prepay the gratuities. So carnival, you could add it on, princess,
it comes with princess plus. How about your dinner reservations and shows?
Dinner reservations and shows. Okay, good question. Royal Caribbean will be a good example of that.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, maybe shows might have to be done in the app a little
closer to the time, but dinner reservations might be able to be done a little earlier.
Carnival, you can do your dinner reservations. Shows not so much on it carnival, but, and definitely
not on Princess, but dinner reservations on a lot of these Cruise Lines. Now, if you've booked
some sort of an all inclusive package, like if your cruise fare includes gratuities and a drink
package, you wouldn't need to be worrying about buying those items just yet. But yeah, this would
also be a good time to make sure that you've got that drink package purchased. If you didn't
purchase your drink package before, when you were researching it now is the time to do that.
So what if you decide I'm just going to wait to purchase my drink package on the ship? What
potential pitfalls could you have there? I think that's a terrible idea. In fact,
you're giving me a segue to talking about our most recent video that we just posted on YouTube,
which was things that are just a terrible waste of money on a cruise. And that is one of them booking
your drink package when you get on board. The biggest pitfall is you're probably going to pay
more for it. On Royal Caribbean, you most certainly will pay a lot more for it. Most Cruise Lines
offer a little discount for booking in advance. It's also a pain, right? It's a hassle. You
typically will have bought some drinks before you have the package. So you might be upset and
bitter about that. Really, truly, you never want to book a drink package on a cruise ship. I can't
think of a single time when that be appropriate. I just have no, I have no examples when you would
want to do that. So always book the drink package at this point. This would be pitfall.
Waste of wasting money. Yeah, wasting money. Yep. And killing the vibe on your cruise, right?
So such a bummer. Okay, where were we? We were talking about, we talked about
prepaying gratuities, right? Now you want to get back into getting serious about researching and
booking those cruise excursions to before you're probably just lingering around on, you watched
our video about how to research and book shore excursions on YouTube and you're like, okay,
I've gotten into the Facebook group for my cruise. I've been on Cruise Critic. I've been on CruiseLine.com.
I'm on the ship made app and I'm in my roll call. And I like, I know what everybody else is doing
and I have an idea for what I want to do now. It's probably time to put those deposits down and pay
for those suckers and get them secured at the 30 to 90 day point. It's also probably a good time
to get in there and make sure that you have your your parking all squared away. Maybe it's airport
parking. Maybe it's parking at the cruise terminal. Maybe it is booking your hotel that you're going
to be staying at before the cruise and making sure that they have parking or a shuttle or finding
out if you're going to need to take an Uber or a Lyft to your cruise port. All those things are
probably good. You might also at this point be booking transfers. So from your home to your airport
or from the pre-cruise hotel to the port, you're going to book those transfers on the CruiseLine
website if that's a way you want to get to the ship. Yeah. Also, if you don't have luggage,
now is a good time to buy luggage because you won't be in a rush and a 30 to 90 days in advance of
your cruise. It's a good time to shop for deals on luggage. We always recommend going to discount
stores. Ross, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's have wonderful luggage and they often have name brand luggage
sets that match. Almost every weekend I pop into TJ Maxx and I just like scoop it out, walk through
the luggage aisle and undoubtedly right when I walk in my store, I glance over and I see like a
perfect shiny set of three pieces of luggage that are all the same brand. They're all the same color
and they are so inexpensive compared to buying full price at a department store or even online.
There are also excellent deals on luggage on Amazon and of course we have them in our Amazon
store. You guys know the website already. It's amazon.com forward slash shop forward slash cruise tips TV,
but we have some killer deals on luggage and we update those often. There's some three-piece
sets. There's carry-on only. There's everything you need. So let's say that you don't know anything
about luggage and you're going to one of these stores like Ross or or Marshall's or TJ Maxx.
Can you recommend any brand names? Yeah, for sure. If you see Samsonite on sale, that's a really
nice luggage brand. If you see Delcey, grab it and pay the full price, pay whatever price you can.
Delcey's a phenomenal brand. It luggage is a great bargain brand. American Touristor is another
bargain brand. I'm trying to think of some other brands. There's also, it's funny, there's also
these brands that kind of come and go. Like you'll see celebrity brands for luggage. You'll see like
Nicole Miller, Jessica Simpson. You know, it'll be just some celebrity who put a line of luggage.
In that case, if you're not sure about the quality, pick up the suitcase and stand it on its wheels
and rotate it, spin it. Try to get a feel for how the luggage spins and how it'll feel in the airport
and also open it up. Unzip it, open it, look at it, feel the zipper, see how they work and you'll
get a general idea. Probably a good idea to just stick with the name brands, right?
For the most part, yes, unless it's an extremely low price and you're like, look, I just need a
cheap bag and I don't care too much. But you want a quality bag because you're going to be rolling it
through potentially an airport and onto a cruise, a cruise ship and all that good stuff.
True. And did you mention Costco? Oh, I didn't mention Costco. Because we bought
that set and we still have it and we beat that set up. We still have it. It's probably 15 years old.
When I beat it up, I mean, there's no damage to it, but boy, we took it everywhere.
Is that brand Ricardo? I think it's Ricardo from Costco. We got a three-piece set and the little
carry-on that it came with was this wonderful adjustable, expandable carry-on and it just really
has survived the test of time for us. So Costco's another great one. That's a good tip, Mr. Cruise
of Stevie. I like it. I try. You try. You try. Okay, so you've purchased your luggage, right?
And now is also a good time to check with your doctor and order potentially. Potentially,
you may not need this. You might want to order extra prescription medication refills. If you're
going on a longer cruise, if you're going somewhere international, I would strongly suggest you take
double the amount of medication that you think you might need just in case there's some kind of a
trip delay. One thing that happened during COVID friends was that we saw with the Diamond
Princess situation, people became stranded on a ship. This is a rarity and it will continue to
be a rarity. But one of the biggest problems those people encountered was that they ran out of
medication and they ran out of very serious life-saving medication. And the Japanese government had to
intervene and try to help out. Okay, so you've ordered your medication refills, you've checked
with your doctor, you've got a little extra medication. One tip that I heard someone else give on a
YouTube channel today too was to take a photograph of your medication. So let's just say you're not
taking your original pill bottle. Take a photo of the pill bottle and take that with you in case
you need to get extras and you're out of country or something like that. Okay, next thing you want
to do is shop for travel necessities. This is a good time to start thinking about what toiletries
you might want to take, what over-the-counter medications you want to take. We talked about
prescription medications, but now what kind of over-the-counter stuff could you potentially need
over the course of a week? Could it be cold medicine, pain, reliever, tummy medications,
heartburn medications, things like that you want to make sure you pack with you because buying them
in the gift shop will be for sure ridiculously expensive and potentially maybe impossible to find
things that you need. So toiletries and over-the-counter medications, an absolute must at this point.
Now you might also start doing your packing or setting aside outfits in your closet where you're
like, hmm, I think I want to take this. So you just take the hanger and put it in one side of your
closet and start getting those things sort of accumulated and ready to rock and roll and
in that corner of your closet. And lastly at the 30 to 90 day point, I think this is a good time if
you intend to get a pet or a house sitter. This is a good time to confirm that person and make sure
that they are able to help you out with your pet sitting or house sitting. Okay, Mr. Cruz,
Sub-Sub-Sub-Sub-Sub-S. So that was 30 to 90 days before the cruise. Now we're going to jump over
and talk about what to do one week before your cruise. So you at this point, you've booked
everything. You've booked your hotels, right? You've booked your flights and now you're starting to
kind of do the confirmation process. One week, one week out. That's when you start panicking,
isn't it? Because you haven't done any of the other steps that you've been talking about.
Yep, exactly. So it's panic time. Panic time. No, you're not panicking because you have this
list. So you're ready to go. So at this point, it's time to confirm your shore excursions.
So you've booked those shore excursions most likely. You've got them all scored away, right?
And now you want to email that provider or call them and just make sure everything's good to go.
And you want to print out your confirmations for your shore excursions so that you can take
them with you or put them in a folder on your phone of some sort. Now you're also going to confirm
your pre-cruise hotel. Always a good idea to confirm that. And you're going to print your
cruise boarding passes and luggage tags. This of course can be done sooner or it can be done later,
but it's probably a good idea to get those printed out and ready to rock and roll.
Now it's really getting down to it and it's time to pack too. Like you're a week out folks. Now some
of you are going to say, ah, I packed the night before my cruise. I'm telling you, I think you
want to start it about a week or sooner or you're going to regret it. So get packing, get everything
set aside into your packing cubes and ready to be put in the suitcases. And now is also a good
time to start looking at what you want to put in your embarkation day bag. You're probably going to
want to carry a very small embarkation day bag that you only need those necessities in. A very
light bag that you can keep with you while your luggage catches up with you. So those essentials
like sunglasses, medications, your wallet, your, your boarding passes, your passport, and anything
you might need on day one. For some people that might be a swimsuit to hit the pool, other people
want to play it really light. And they literally just take a purse with them with only the essentials.
But you have to make that decision and kind of think about your embarkation day bag.
Now is also a good time to notify your credit card company and your bank of your travel plans.
Some of them have eliminated the need for this. Most of my travel cards now tell us like you don't,
you do not need to notify us when you travel internationally. But I think it's still a good idea
to do this so that your credit cards and your bank cards don't put up fraud warnings or
get shut off while you're traveling. So we recommend that. Usually you can do it on the website these
days. Similarly, it's a good time to notify your cell phone provider that you are about to travel.
They can propose to you that you might get some kind of an international day pass plan or special
international plan to help you save money on text messages, internet, and all those things
while you're in port. Now while you're on the cruise ship, you should be using the internet
package. You should not necessarily be using the cruise, excuse me, your cell phone provider's plan
because that's probably not a good idea. But while you're in port, you might be able to get off of
the ship's Wi-Fi and actually get a stronger signal with your own provider. So call your cell
phone provider and ask them if they have anything called like international day pass. AT&T has it.
It's phenomenal. We use it every time we travel. They charge you, I think they charge us $10
for the first device per day. And then something like only $5 for the second device. So you can
really leverage that if you need to. Now is also a very good time to contact the post office and
tell them, hey, I'm traveling, hold my mail, right? So that you don't have mail backing up in your
mailbox, alerting neighbors that you're traveling, which is not safe, right? Or strangers. So get
that hold mail done if you have that service. Also, a good time to take a photocopy of the front and
back of your passport to take with you. Now that may not do any good whatsoever when you're traveling.
If you have an emergency, but I'm going to tell you right now, you're going to have a lot of peace
of mind knowing that you have a photocopy of the front and back. The back is important
of your passport. And of course, keep that somewhere separate from your passport in case you lose
your passport in the event that you need to then replace your passport. You would have at least
the numbers and all of that information. Also, a good time to run to the bank, get some cash for
purchases for tipping, get a good combination of ones and fives and twenties and have those all
nice and ready for your cruise. And you're going to need those on your first day when you're
going over and checking in and tipping your porter. So that's a good thing to do. Also, if
you're driving a long distance to port, now's a good time to get your vehicle checked. Maybe just
check those tires, make sure that they're properly inflated, check your oil and do whatever you need
to do to make sure your car is safe to get to your embarkation port. Also, prepare your flight bag.
This is a lot to do a week before the cruise. Mr. Cruise seems to be a heck of a lot. So prepare
that flight bag. And lastly, I love this tip. It's time about a week to a day before your cruise.
This one kind of straddles the one week to one day. It's time to download music and movies for
your flights so that you can avoid those data charges on airplanes and potentially too, guys,
think about the fact that sometimes when you're in the air on your flying, you lose that service
and you're not able to watch those in flight movies. So having them downloaded on Netflix or
whatever on your phone will give you some entertainment. That actually might be something you want to
do with just a day or two before because some of those expire. So you download them, but they're
only available for a certain time. But I would say a week is a good time to start thinking about it.
All right. Now we're really down to the wire, Mr. Cruise seems to be, we're going to
bump it up to the day before the cruise. It is on. And you are thinking, okay, I really need to
cross my T's, dot my I's, make sure everything is done. So we have about seven things you want
to do the day before your cruise. And that first thing is to make sure that your embarkation day
bag is totally packed, right? The one we talked about before, it is not only planned out, but it's
packed. You've got your passport boarding passes, luggage tags, your camera, your chargers, your
sunglasses, your medication, and maybe your swimsuit in that bag and you're ready to rock. That's done.
Next, you want to check in for your flight 24 hours in advance. If you're flying, make sure
right at that 24 hour mark, you check in for your flight and or print your airline boarding passes.
You may not need to print them. You might have them on the app, which is definitely what we do.
I cannot remember the last time I printed a boarding pass, but maybe that'll be good for you.
You also want to attach your cruise luggage tags to your check bags, especially if you're driving.
If you're flying, you might want to wait until you flight lands so that those don't get bumped off
by the luggage handlers or that luggage handling process, but get those luggage tags on your suitcase
and ready to rock and roll. If you haven't done it yet, it's also a really good time to download
the Cruise Line app. This really should be done way before the day before your cruise, so
I'm going to move it back to the 30 day list because most of us now check in using the app.
But if you for any reason have gotten through this process and you haven't downloaded the Cruise Line
app, you're probably going to need it at this point, so make sure that that gets done.
We also, on a personal note, like to tidy up our house the day before we go on a cruise.
So this is where we throw out our garbage. We wash our dishes, we lock our windows and doors,
we double check our windows and doors, we check our thermostat, make sure that it's off, right?
All of those things the day before your cruise, you really want to kind of just tidy up and keep
things, have things nice and clean for when you get home. Yeah, there's nothing more depressing
than coming home to a dirty house. It really is. Like dishes in the sink and oh no, you don't want
that. Mr. Cruise Dibs TV does most of the house work around here and he will usually even wash our
bath towels and have them tidy and nice and just hanging perfectly for when we get home.
It's so nice. And the sheets on the bed. Yes, because you miss that bed. You want it to be in
top form. Yes. Yeah. So do some tidying. I think that's a good idea. Then you're going to want to
charge your devices and cameras and get those chargers packed. Make sure that your chargers are
with you. Everything is charged up and ready to go for tomorrow. You're ready to get on that cruise,
but you're charged, right? Like you don't have to wait until the morning of the cruise.
And then the last thing you want to do is maybe just clean out your vehicle real quick
and pack some necessities in your vehicle. If you're doing a long drive, get some hand wipes in
there, paper towels, drinking water, snacks in your car, and you, Mr. Cruise Dibs TV, are now
your cruise ready. Do you think we forgot anything? I hope that was everything.
I'm sure there are other things, but a lot of them are probably specific to that person.
Yeah. Definitely. This is definitely a good starting list.
Yeah. But I have a question for you. Sure. Unless somebody was frantically writing all of this down
as you were talking, what is the best way to get this information from us? I don't know if I have
it on our website. So let me search it real quick. I think that it's in our masterclass.
I know it's in our masterclass. Well, there you go. That's right. Yeah. Go to cruisestipstv.com,
click on tutorials, and you can sign up for our course there if you're interested. But I do think
that we have in some, you know, over the course of the years, you probably have it on the website
somewhere in some form, but it's much easier to get as an actual, yeah, if you want it as a
download, you can get it in the course. If you want it step by step, yes, then the masterclass is
going to have all this information in theoretically more. Yep. Lots more. So lots of videos, lots of
printable resources. So the first module of that starts you off with four videos and three resources.
You learn how to choose a cruise line, find deals, book without stress, then you download the
state room essentials checklist and get into the Facebook group. And then in the second module,
it's more about planning, budgeting, and packing. And that's where you're going to find the pre-cruise
checklist is chapter two in there. And then chapter three is the onboard experience and
you know, everything from dining to tipping and Wi-Fi and saving money and downloading the
ultimate short a bag checklist. All that is in there. Beautiful. Yeah, that's pretty cool stuff.
Okay, friends, that is a wrap. In under 30 minutes, we gave you a cruise planning timeline to help
you know what to do the day, week, and months before your cruise. We hope you've enjoyed this.
Thank you so very much for tuning in to listen week after week. We appreciate all of you. Always
appreciate your direct messages following the podcast with your comments and questions. And
until next time, we'll see you on the high seas. Thanks for listening to CruiseTipsTV unplugged.
If you like our show and want to know more, check us out at cruisestipstv.com. You can also find us
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review wherever you're listening to this podcast. Subscribe to the show and tune in next week.
Until next time, we'll see you on the high seas.
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