Guest Post by Live life in Style: Packing for Cruise

Hi Everyone! I’m Shasie of Live Life in Style. I am a new follower of Rose here at Austin Sun Drops, but I wish I had found her blog a long time ago!! I’m here to guest post while she is hopefully having a fabulous time on vacation. :-)

 

My guest post will be on cruise vacationing and sharing tips on packing for a cruise.  I love traveling and last year I went on a Western Carribean Cruise with my friends from college to Cozumel Mexico and Grand Cayman Island. We boarded our Royal Carribean  Cruise Ship at the port of Ft. Lauderdale.  My friends who I was traveling with all lived in Philadelphia, PA and I lived in Houston, TX so we met at the airport at Ft. Lauderdale and started our adventure. But before I got on that plane, I had the hardest time trying to pack for this cruise!

Seriously Shasie? How can anyone have a hard time packing for a cruise, all you need is a bathing suit and flip-flops right? I'll tell you why. There is so much going on during a cruise! Shore excursions, pool days, ship days, dinners, etc. Here is my list of what I recommend for a cruise as far as packing and travel tips!

Disclaimer: This list is mostly for sunny, warm climate cruise trips. There are many cruises and some may take you to Alaska where you will need a VERY different list! Ha ha!

Shore Excursions – if you are doing an adventure one you’ll need a backpack, bottled water, tennis shoes, hats, possibly snacks, and something to carry all this crap in.  I also recommend booking all of your shore excursions directly through your cruise ship.  Even though you can find cheaper ones on your destination’s website, the cruise doesn’t reimburse you if they arrive late and you miss your excursion, and you just don’t know how “legit” those other offers are.

Wore this for Shore Excursion at Grand Cayman. Had my bathing suit on underneath and flip-flops in my backpack.

Pools & Beach – You might want to bring your own towels because I think most cruise ships only give each guest one towel per card and you have to return that one before you get a new one.  You’ll also need multiple bathing suits because if you were like us you might go to the hot-tubs and pool more than one time a day and I hate putting on a wet bathing suit.

Pack Small - unless you are in a suite like Rose had on the Titanic you will need to bring the smallest of everything because there is not a lot of space in cruise cabins.  You will more than likely take everything out of your suitcase and squeeze it into the closets and dresser drawers and then stuff your suitcase under your bed, but as far as space in the bathroom for toiletries bring travel-size of everything even hair brushes and combs.

Outerwear - Air Conditioning is on BLAST on cruise ships so you’ll want to bring jackets. I know--Who needs a jacket in the middle of July? But seriously in the evening it gets cool and they never seem to adjust the A.C.

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Essentials

• Sunblock & bugspray. (We ATV'd in the jungles of Mexico...enough said, right?)
• Sunhats & Sunglasses
• Flip flops, water shoes, summer sandals
• Passports
• Backpack
• Over the shoulder bags and little wallets. You don't want to be bothered with huge handbags!!
• Beach Cover-Ups for walking around the ship
• Alarm Clock - Some cruise ships don't have alarm clocks in the room, so you'll need to bring a mini one
• Water Bottle  - Water is free on cruise ships so you can fill up your bottles before going to shore.I recommend one with a strap like shown below.

Wrinkled Clothes - Our cruise ship did not allow irons in the cabins so there is no way to iron your clothes. If your clothes are wrinkled you have to leave them for your guest room attendant to take them to the ship launderer. They will do everything, wash, press, tailor, but you have to pay for it separately and you just fill out the tag with your clothes and it's returned to you. Make sure you do this in enough time for the occasion you need it for.  Don't wait an hour before you need your dress pressed for your formal dinner...ha-ha, like I did, and luckily my guest room attendant worked magic and I got the below dress returned to me perfectly pressed in time!

 Dinners – On most ships, you will be “required” to dress up for dinner so now you have to bring nice cocktail dresses or nice dinner attire. Like you can’t show up in your bathing suit top and cut-off shorts. So I had to pack a cute dress for everyday of the cruise. I chose to do a dress because less space needed for one item in my suitcase.

On Shore -the time on shore is shorter than you think between the time when you actually get off the ship and have to be in line to get back on the ship. If you are booking an excursion and still want to explore the shore of your destination on your own time, book a short excursion or skip a shore excursion altogether.  We almost missed actually laying out on the famous 7-mile beach because our excursion took sooo long!!And not...the cruise ship WILL leave you if you are not back on time!

Working Out - Most people gain about 7 lbs on a cruise vacation, but this can easily be avoided by making "sometime" to attend the cruise ship's gym!! I know...Who wants to workout on vacation? But it's something different to be on an elliptical looking over the ocean and gorgeous sunrises and sunsets!! Plus they always have some great class offerings!

Cell Phone-Unless you want to pay an exuberant fee for using your cell phone out at sea, call your cell phone companies ahead of time to see what your options are for using your phone internationally. I chose not to buy any international plan and just went with my cell phone turned off. This will make it difficult to communicate with your fellow cruise travelers so make sure you learn the ship and pick times and locations to reconvene if you go and do different ship activities.

Going Out - You will also need "going out" clothes. If you plan on attending the night life activities on the ship or even on shore if you are doing one of those stay on shore overnight cruises. Most ships have multiple entertainment venues, from chill bars, to karaoke/comedy shows, to actual night clubs. You will need looks for this too!!

I will leave you a few collages of the rest of the looks I wore on the cruise. 

Well I hope you enjoyed my posts, and that these tips were helpful to you! If you have any questions for me or just want to check out my blog, here is my url: www.live-life-in-style.com or you can email me at shasielove(at)gmail(dot)com.


Luv,

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