Royal Caribbean Rookie Mistakes To Avoid!

Hey, everybody. It's Matt from RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com, and today I wanted to share some common pitfalls to avoid for first-time cruisers. Let's talk about 10 mistakes not to make on your Royal Caribbean cruise. After all, going on your first Royal Caribbean cruise is exciting, and it'll be a lot of fun, but people that are new to cruising can often make mistakes along the way. It's only natural. When you're new to anything, mistakes can happen. The good news is you can avoid these 10 common mistakes to ensure that your first Royal Caribbean cruise is awesome. These aren't the only mistakes you can make, but I feel like these are the ones that I hear the most about, and certainly these are the ones you can guard against. Let's start off with number one, not researching your ports before the cruise. When you get off your ship and into the ports of call that your Royal Caribbean cruise will visit, you don't want to be at a loss for what to do. The internet is a wealth of information for figuring out the best activities to do in every port that you'll be visiting. In fact, by virtue of the fact you're watching this video right now, you're already off to a great start by researching your cruise, and researching in advance will give you the chance to figure out what your group can do and what would be available to you. Winging it, as we call it, can be adventurous, but being informed about your choices in advance gives you a major advantage, especially if you're interested in an activity that has limited capacity. Next, not bringing a passport. Let me be as clear as I can. Get yourself a passport. Cruises leaving the United States have the option for Americans to sail with either a passport or a birth certificate, but if things go wrong in another country, the difference between having a passport and not having a passport is tremendous. If you have a passport, you can leave that very minute to go back to the United States or really anywhere else. You just go to the airport, present your passport, pay for your ticket, and you're on your way. Without your passport, you'll have to go to the U.S. embassy or whatever embassy you happen to be going to as a resident, go through a lot of red tape to get a visa to be able to go back to your home country. Let me put it this way. It's not fun to go that route. While expensive, passports are still the best way to get you on board your cruise, and it is a fantastic investment as a traveler in general. Number three, not using a travel agent. When it comes to cruising, I love using travel agents because they make my life so much easier. A good travel agent that specializes in cruising can really help make your first Royal Caribbean cruise a big success. They will help you navigate you throughout the entire booking process and be your guide to what makes the most sense to your family. Early or late dinner? Travel insurance or not? Which day to arrive? These are all great questions that require personal input. When it comes to making changes to your reservation, such as pricing at different staterooms, changes in fares, adding more people to your reservation, or anything else requiring speaking with a Royal Caribbean, the hold times for the phone can be downright awful. But if you've got a travel agent, they'll do all that legwork for you. In addition, a good travel agent will work you to get the best possible deal on your cruise, not only today when you're booking, but every day until your final payment date. They can save you money in addition to time, and did I mention that travel agents should cost you absolutely nothing extra? That's right. Royal Caribbean pays them a commission, so you don't have to pay them anything extra, nor should you use any travel agent that charges you anything extra. If something were to go wrong during your cruise, contact your agent, and it's now their problem to solve. Always enlist your agent to handle issues on your behalf. Now the next one is really interesting. Also, sailing to the wrong place. What I mean by that is you've got to pick an itinerary that makes sense for you. Which itinerary you pick is so important, so make sure the one you pick is right for you and your family. Very short sailings, like three to four nights, may be appealing for a first-timer who's never cruised before, but those that have sailed before will tell you that's actually too short of a sailing. Five to seven night sailings seem to be a better balance in general and give you a real sense of what cruising is like. Likewise, where you sail to is important. Try picking an itinerary that stops in ports of call that really interest you instead of just choosing the cheapest fare available. There are so many ports that Royal Caribbean ships visit these days, but make sure they're in line with the sort of activities that you enjoy. The Caribbean is full of beautiful beaches, while Europe is more about urban exploration. The bottom line is look at the sailing that's going to be of interest to you, and also don't just assume that the shorter sailing is the right one. In fact, when you go on the shorter sailings, I often feel like you get on the ship and as soon as you kind of figure it all out, you're off the ship all too quickly. The slightly longer sailings are definitely the way to go. Another rookie mistake that you definitely don't want to make is picking the wrong stateroom. Price is not the end-all be-all of choosing the right Royal Caribbean cruise, but it certainly is important, and the stateroom you pick out first will be important as well. In general, staterooms in the middle of the ship are the most desirable for their convenient location as well as the least motion-felt by the ocean. For first-time cruisers, staterooms in the very front or rear of the ship can save you money, but you may not find it as enjoyable being there. In addition, paying a little extra for an ocean view or balcony stateroom may be worth the money for the extra space. Don't underestimate the importance of a few extra square feet when it comes to stateroom size. The next mistake you don't want to make is skipping the specialty restaurants. Royal Caribbean specialty restaurants, which have an additional cost to dine there, are among the best dining locations at sea, and frankly, you're missing out if you don't try one or four. You can always dine at the complimentary restaurants, but working in a specialty restaurant on a few nights of your cruise can really give you a nice change of pace and exposure to cuisines that aren't available elsewhere for free on board. Royal Caribbean specialty restaurants are wonderful, and it's hard to go wrong at any of them, so it's worth spending a little bit more to eat there a few times. Next is picking the wrong ship class for you. Royal Caribbean has over 20 ships in their fleet, and there's new ships coming online all the time, but the reality is not every Royal Caribbean ship is perfect for everybody. I've loved exploring many of the ships Royal Caribbean has, but there's no question in my mind that the ships that are either new or recently refurbished are among the best choices for first-time cruisers. The reason is the newer ships have the most new amenities and offer the largest variety of activities on board. For families especially, the newer ships have larger kid spaces and more for them to do. I'm a fan of the Oasis, Freedom, and Voyager class specifically as good choices for first-timers. The next mistake we don't want you to make is only booking Royal Caribbean excursions. Royal Caribbean offers a lot of great excursions that are easy to book and offer tremendous convenience, but it often comes at a higher price. Booking excursions on your own can be a great way to have more choices and save you some money. We're not saying never book with Royal Caribbean's excursions, but at least consider third-party excursions for their tremendous value and often smaller group size. This next one is a small one, but something I think that's often overlooked is tipping on top of the auto gratuity. Gratuity is an important thing in the service industry and everyone should do it. But Royal Caribbean adds an automatic gratuity to pretty much everything you spend on board from alcohol to spa treatments to food. When you buy something with your CPAS card, look at the receipt before adding a tip because most often there's already an 80% gratuity added on. And while over tipping is something to avoid, you do want to make sure that you are tipping for good service, especially waiters, porters, and attendants. Of course, if the Royal Caribbean crew member did a tremendous job, then please feel free to reward them appropriately. And finally, the thing you don't want to do is fly to your cruise ship on embarkation day. If you have to fly to your cruise, do not book your flight for the same day your cruise ship leaves because you're only setting yourself up for a potential problem. Veteran cruisers will always fly in at least one day before their cruise leaves and that's to avoid travel nightmares that the airlines are notorious for. Delays, weather, and breakdowns happen consistently. So don't let those kinds of inconveniences cause you to miss your cruise. Getting in a day early will give you plenty of time to get past any travel delays you encounter with the added bonus of beginning your vacation a little bit earlier. So hopefully this helps because those are some easy to avoid rookie mistakes that you definitely don't want to make while planning your Royal Caribbean cruise. Let us know what your thoughts, let us know which mistakes you've made in the past or ones that you've avoided. I can't wait to read them in the comments. Thanks for watching. This is Matt from RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com and be sure to give us a like and subscribe so you don't miss out on any of these super awesome videos. Until next time, we'll talk again soon.