You can make your first day much easier if you take care of these things before you leave home.
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00:00I'm Dan Klein, Executive Editor of Come Cruise With Me.
00:04You can visit us on the internet at comecruisewith.com or comecruisewith.me.
00:09I am on the beautiful Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas at the Mason Jar Bar with our travel agent partners.
00:16Dennis Post is sitting next to me, Amy Post is over there.
00:19They own Postcard Travel Planning.
00:21We're going to talk a little bit today about what you need to do when you get on the ship
00:26and what you'd like to do when you get on the ship.
00:29We have another video that talks about all the things you can do before you leave your house.
00:35So it's really important on Royal Caribbean.
00:37You can watch the safety videos when you get up in the morning.
00:40You can do the safety questionnaire 24 hours before.
00:43It's important to do all of those things, to just remove the clutter.
00:47Just have as little, have luggage tags on your bag if you're going to check them,
00:51just to avoid the porter writes the number wrong and then your bag doesn't get where you're hoping it's going.
00:56But when you get on the ship, there's one thing you have to do right away.
01:00Technically, you could wait to do it, but you should do it immediately,
01:04and that is report in at your muster station.
01:07Dennis, do you want to explain what a muster station is
01:09and sort of the newfangled way they're doing the muster drill?
01:12Yes, so the muster station is, it's actually required by maritime law.
01:17It falls under SOLAS, which is Safety at Light at Sea.
01:21And that was created many, many years ago,
01:24and it's adapted by all the international countries, including in the United States,
01:28the Coast Guard enforces it.
01:30So a muster station means that you would actually go to your,
01:33first off, you'd watch the safety briefing.
01:35The safety briefing would tell you where all the exits are, where to go in case there's an emergency,
01:39where the lifeboats are, where your life jackets are, and so forth.
01:42And then the muster station is actually where you would assemble in an organized fashion,
01:46so that if there was a true emergency, you could go to that area
01:50and then you would go by number and they would board the safety lifeboats
01:54and everybody would get off the ship safely.
01:57So let's talk about how they used to do the muster drill,
02:00and frankly, how some cruise lines still do it.
02:03So in the old days on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity,
02:06you had to go to your station at a specific time.
02:10Your muster station is often outside.
02:12You'd be standing in the hot sun.
02:14You're not allowed to look at your phone.
02:15You're not allowed to bring a drink with you.
02:18And you are waiting for the slaggards and jerks who aren't showing up.
02:22And the cruise ship, they have to scour the ship, bring these people.
02:25So you might sit there in the hot sun for 30, 40 minutes before they do the safety demonstration.
02:30Now the way they do it on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Celebrity, I believe,
02:36but not on MSC, Disney, and some other cruise lines,
02:39is you watch those videos, or if you don't watch the videos, they'll do them just for you.
02:44They'll do the demonstrations.
02:46And then you go to your station, you pull up your app,
02:49and literally they just check and make sure you're you.
02:53And then you know, they give you a little spiel about coming here
02:55and getting any medicine if you have time to do it.
02:58But that's all it is.
02:59So once I'm done with my muster drill, sometimes there's business to take care of.
03:04It's getting a little bit better as Royal Caribbean now allows,
03:07when you book the Ultimate Dining Package, the Unlimited Dining Package,
03:10in theory you can make all your reservations.
03:12But if you book a shorter dining package or just a single night,
03:15if you haven't made the reservation, you need to go to either a specialty restaurant,
03:19the main dining room, sometimes in front of the buffet there's a stand,
03:23and make your dining reservations.
03:25Because if you don't do that, things will fill up and you'll end up eating dinner at 9.30
03:30or not being able to go to places you want.
03:32So those are the things you have to do.
03:34Now, there's a couple of things you can do, but it depends on the cruise line.
03:38On Celebrity, you can go to your room, drop off your bag and your carry-on bag,
03:43or just your carry-on bag, take your room key and leave.
03:46You are not supposed to stay there and take a nap or take a shower.
03:50Your room steward is still working on your room, and it's a wonderful courtesy that they're doing for you,
03:55but you can't do that on Royal.
03:57On Royal Caribbean, I usually check my luggage and bring my carry-on bag,
04:02because you're not able to do that.
04:04So your mileage may vary, but then we get to the good times.
04:07Then your vacation has started.
04:09I do, and we're going to hear from Dennis on this too,
04:12I do one of two things first.
04:15Either I go to my favorite bar on the ship.
04:18If there's a bespoke bar, like here we are at Mesa Jar, which is on two ships,
04:22I will go and have my favorite drink or at least say hello.
04:26Or if I happen to know some crew on the ship, I'll figure out, usually in WhatsApp,
04:30talking to them, hey, where are you working during muster?
04:33Are you at a bar? Are you at a regular station? Are you checking people in?
04:36And I'll renew acquaintances.
04:37It's always nice when you can go say hello to someone you know.
04:40Dennis, what do you do first thing when you get on a ship?
04:42So first thing is pretty much what you said.
04:44We first orient ourselves on the ship, the main area.
04:48We find out where our muster station is.
04:50If we have any issues with our sail and sign card, we can go right to customer service.
04:56We find out where the restaurants are, some of the venues that we want to visit,
05:00and also we look for a workstation.
05:01We kind of find an area that we like that maybe we're going to work from
05:04where we have good cell service and so forth.
05:07Then possibly after we get all that done, like Dan, you said, the fun begins.
05:11We'll go get ourselves a nice relaxing drink, a glass of wine.
05:14If the kids are with us, grab a soda or whatever.
05:17And then we start to enjoy the ship.
05:19And then either grab a slice of pizza, go to the buffet, relax.
05:23But the last thing I would say on this that I try to tell people is to sail away.
05:28Any port that you go out of is amazing.
05:30So if you go to the top deck, sail away.
05:33Find out when they're sailing away.
05:34Go up there with your relaxing drink, your family, whatever,
05:37and just enjoy the views as you go out to sea because that's amazing.
05:41I think it's also important, if you've never been on the ship before,
05:46the Royal Promenade or the main drag on a Royal Caribbean ship,
05:50or I forget the name for it in Celebrity,
05:52but those areas are going to be very crowded.
05:55All the ancillary areas aren't.
05:57So it's a really good time to explore the upper decks, the pool decks,
06:01where's the adult pool.
06:02If you smoke, where's the smoking section.
06:05Where are you going to watch sail away from?
06:07Like on Celebrity, I like to watch it from Sunset Bar
06:09because Sunset Bar is on the back of the ship.
06:11You can see all the other ships leaving port.
06:14Sometimes there's really special hidden spots.
06:17So getting to know it, getting to figure it out.
06:19Dennis, anything else you do first day?
06:22No, that's it.
06:23We get to our room, we drop our bags off, like you said, Dan said, very important.
06:26The other thing that we learn is that we pack our stuff through now.
06:30We used to bring stuff on and we used to carry too much,
06:33and you couldn't have fun.
06:34You couldn't do the exploring like Dan is referring to.
06:37So we just pack it through.
06:38Your stuff is going to be there.
06:39Make sure you print all your documents ahead of time, your luggage tags,
06:43and your stuff will be in your room.
06:45It used to be late night.
06:46Now they're there 1, 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
06:48It's amazing.
06:49It used to be you dropped your bag off at the porter,
06:51and sometimes on night one they would have looser rules in the dining room
06:56because you didn't necessarily get your clothes in time.
06:58Now I've never had my bag later than 3 o'clock,
07:01and that's usually I'm getting on pretty early compared to most people.
07:05Unpacking right away I also think is a good idea
07:09because then you sort of have the sense of your room.
07:12If you have any questions, you can e-mail me at dan at comecruisewith.com.
07:17If you would like to book a cruise, send me an e-mail
07:20and I will introduce you to Dennis and Amy, our wonderful travel agent partners.
07:24What can they do?
07:26Not only can they answer your questions and get you the best deal possible,
07:29they can also help you figure out what you want,
07:32help you realize that maybe it's more important for you to have a drink package
07:35than it is to have a balcony.
07:37Maybe you want to be in the suite area.
07:39Maybe you want to do specials.
07:41Whatever it is, they will take the time,
07:43and we can actually give you a link where you can make an appointment
07:46to actually meet with Amy.
07:48Visit us at comecruisewith.com.
07:50Shoot me an e-mail.
07:51All our contact information is there.
07:53Amy is walking into the shot here if she wants to wave and say hello.
07:56We thank all of you.
07:58Comecruisewith.com.
07:59We will see you soon.
08:00Thank you, guys.
08:01Anything?
08:02What do you do first when you get on a cruise?
08:04I make sure that they have dining specials
08:06because, you know, we've had some dining specials this cruise,
08:08so that's great.
08:09But schedule that appointment, and we will hopefully only follow that.
08:12And we will talk about dining specials in another video.
08:14Yes, we will.
08:15Thank you, everybody.
08:16Comecruisewith.com.