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9 Things You Can Take From A Cruise Without Getting Into Trouble
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Jun 25, 2024
What can you take home from your cruise without any fear you're doing the wrong thing, either morally or legally? This question hit me while I was packing at the end of a recent Cunard Queen Anne Cruise, as in the disembarkation letter a section was highlighted with a list of items that I was not allowed to take home, warning that if I did there would be penalties. I did a double take, as it included items I often take home from a cruise. It got me questioning what we can take from a cruise these days without any fear of getting into trouble.
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What can you take home from your cruise without any fear you're doing the wrong thing
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either morally or legally? This question rarely hit me while I was packing at the end of a recent
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Cunard Queen Anne Cruise. As in the disembarkation letter, a section was highlighted with a list of
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items that I was not allowed to take. Warning that if I did, there would be penalties. I did a double
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take as it included items I often take home from a cruise. It got me questioning what we can take from a
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cruise these days without any fear of getting into trouble. Obviously there are things we know are wrong
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and blatantly illegal to take. Like those passengers who attempted to take $12,800 worth of artwork
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they'd removed from the art gallery on their Carnival Legend cruise. It was clearly wrong
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Anyway, welcome aboard. I'm Gary Bemmerich and here's what I've discovered you and I can safely
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take home, starting with what we can take from the cabin without being charged or getting into trouble
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Now I always used to take home from cruises those miniature toiletry bottles in the bathroom
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And across the years I've taken home some great toiletry brands including Loxetan
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Borgari aqua di palma and molten brown I would take them home to use when traveling or to give to my mom a little momentum from my cruise
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However, now the cruise lines have shifted into larger refill bottles lines like Kuhnod do not let me take those home
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So if I took their large Pellehalagon's toilet bottles home they were warned I would be charged in that disembarkation letter
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So while I did not pack the toiletries there were though a couple of other things
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in my cabin that I did take home. First some bottles of champagne and wine
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When I boarded there was a fancy welcome bottle of Laurent Perea champagne in the
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cabin and during the cruise as a diamond loyalty member I got sent another bottle of
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fancy sparkling wine. Now I don't drink alcohol but I packed both of the
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those to take home to my sister who loves champagne. That is perfectly fine to do. Also, as I was
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cruising in a Queen's Grill suite as a birthday treat cruise, one of the perks is to choose
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two large bottles of alcohol to have in the cabin. In the past, I've chosen a bottle of liqueur
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like drambui to take to our mother and a bottle of baillies to take to my sister. Once again
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on this cruise I decided to take those home Now if you do have included wines and drinks you can theoretically take those home because they all part of your package obviously within reason
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The other thing that I love taking home from a cruise and I did from this one are the branded
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pens. Many cruise lines have cabins with beautiful branded pens, as QNod did, along with a small
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QNod branded pad. I always take those home because I love to have those as mementos
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and that again is perfectly fine. On QNard, I even had some fancy personalized stationery to take home
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As I was travelling in Queens Grill, you can ask for writing paper with your name and cabin
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number to be printed. I did and I took that home. But most cruisers that I've been on, they have branded envelopes, writing paper and postcards
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in the cabin, which you can take home without any issues, partly of course because the cruise
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lines want us to be using, for example, those postcards to help promote the cruise line
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Another item I've had on previous cruises that I've taken home of some premium lines like
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Windstar and Disney are the little cable tidies that the cabin steward used to tidy the charger
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cables for things like my mobile phone. They're really rather handy to have at home and when
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travelling. Also on some premium lines like Silversea I was on recently, they left glass cleaning
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cloths in the cabin which are also handy to use at home. I always take home with me all the daily
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programs, port guides and leaflets. I love collecting those. I enjoy going back over the years
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and looking at past cruisers and I use them of course to research some of the videos that I make
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When I couldn't take home from my Kuhnard Queen Anne cabin without being charged with things
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like the beautiful fluffy dressing gowns, branded umbrella or binoculars, I could though ask
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to buy those. However, I could take home the slippers. Those are single person use slippers
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And although I generally don't use them off to myself, it's also one of the things I used to take home for my mum
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She used to love getting those little slippers from the different cruises, again as a memento, to wear around the house
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Although I couldn't take home the sheets and the pillows, did you know that several cruise lines will actually sell you those
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For example, I was on Oceania recently and they left leaflets in the cabin on how to order the bed and bedding for home
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Other cruise lines, including Lysak Princess, do that as well. Next I want to talk about what you can take from around the ship without any charges or trouble One of the things that I take back from many cruises are shopping freebies Most cruise lines while they in Alaska the Caribbean and the Mediterranean have
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onboard shopping advisors. Now they run a program to encourage and entice us to visit very specific
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stores in port, such as Effie Jewelry, Diamonds International, Del Sol color change, clothing and so on
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These companies have paid fees to be part of that program. So those advisors often place leafless
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and small freebie items in the cabin on embarkation days. They then run shopping talks during
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the cruise where they hand out more freebies. These tend to be charms to collect or simple
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necklaces, t-shirts and so on. Then in port, the shops on the program will hand out more items
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just for visiting them, again like charms or earrings. They can be fun to collect. Are they worth a lot
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No, probably not. But you can take them back from a cruise without any concerns at all
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The other thing which I like to collect and take home are the daily puzzle, crossword and
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Sudoku sheets. I never have time to do them every single day on a cruise, so I collect them up
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each day to do at home. I used to also, by the way, hands some of them onto members of my family
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who are probably more adept, certainly things like Sudoku than me, and they really enjoyed
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getting them when I came back from a cruise. The other thing which is also a little tip is the
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casino goes through loads of packs of cards and many cruise lines will give those away. So if you go
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either the front desk or the casino host desk and ask if you can have some of the packs of
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cards that they no longer need. They will often give you those to take home. Now in the past
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you can actually build a really nice collection of cruise line branded playing cards. So unfortunately
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most cruise lines today seem to be using just regular card packs. Another thing you can take
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off a cruise ship are the casino chips. Though as casino chips can only be used on board the ship
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they are basically worthless of it. So it may make less sense. However, I've made
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many gamblers that like to collect a casino chip from each ship they cruise on as a kind of
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memento. They of course cost you, but if you collect, say, low value chips of a dollar or so
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it's not too costly of a memento and souvenir. Talking of souvenirs, some lines do give
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these that you can basically take home. The main one for me is on Holland America, which on many
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of their cruises give guests a commemorative tile. It's a Delph-style tile, it's linked to their
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oranges in Holland and I have a small collection of those building up from the various cruises I been on Many cruise lines also include commemorative or collectible glasses or mugs as part of some of the drinks packages for example a refillable soda cup Now those at the end of the cruise you can take home
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On some lines like some of the river cruise lines I've been on and lines like Oceania
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and Viking that have removed plastic bottles they provide a refillable water
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bottle and refill stations around the ship. I can take the bottle home if I want to
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at the end of the cruise. I've also been to events where the line has given me a commemorative glass
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to take home too. For example, on a recent Holland America-South America trip, I was invited to go
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to a table hosted by one of the senior offices and we were all given a commemorative glass shot glass
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to take home at the end of that dinner. The other thing that some cruise lines do, for example
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on Viking cruise lines is use a device known as a quiet vox on excursions. These are little devices
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where when you're on tour the tour guides speaks into a little microphone and it transmits so you can hear the guide
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It's really handy in really busy, noisy tourist places, for example. Now they all come with a set of earphones, which again I can take away because there are a one-person use
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earphone. When I do a hop-on-hop of bus in port, they also have those as well
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Now, I often take these home and I keep those as a backup earphone in case I lose or forget to pack mine
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So for example, I've actually used them in the gym to plug into a station bike to listen to television or music while working out
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So they're kind of handy to have and take with you. Another thing I often like to take home is brochures
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At the Queen Anne Cruise Future Cruise offices, they had many myriads of brochures of future cruisers
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including four newly launched itineries. So I brought them home to plan my travels
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Of course, another thing I must take away is my cruise card. One of the cruise, it gets me on off the ship, it opens my cabin door and I use it to charge things
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But once I leave the ship at the end of the cruise, as the line doesn't want it, I basically
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have to take it home with me. It becomes a mentor and I know that many people collect them as reminders of the trips they
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have done. Is there anything that I've forgotten that people need to know about
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If so, leave that in the comments. But before you do that, why don't you join me over in this video where look at the things
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that most cruisers have no idea their Cabin Stewart can do for them, starting with the one
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that surprises people most. See you over there
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