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11 Costly Cruise Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them!)
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Jan 28, 2025
Discover the 11 Costly Cruise Mistakes that cruise passengers make most often, And how you can avoid making them. Drawing on the 73 cruises I have done to date, and the mistakes that I either made or seen other cruisers make, this is the list of things you need to be aware of to make sure you do not waste money, spend too much or have to fork out a lot of extra money when cruising. SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY: Buying my Cruise T-shirts: http://bit.ly/TFTStore Booking your next cruise with CRUISEDIRECT.COM: http://bit.ly/TFTBookCruise WATCH THESE POPULAR RECENT VIDEOS: 10 Cabins to Avoid: https://youtu.be/PgTGLma919A European River Cruise Watch-Outs: https://youtu.be/oqhz54wStyk 5 Cruises To Avoid: https://youtu.be/CNiPzK4IRWA Alaska Cruise Need-to-Knows: https://youtu.be/Tn7dpNw5kSI Things Cruise Lines Don’t Want You to Know: https://youtu.be/cs5UKha9ALc Rules Passengers Break Most: https://youtu.be/djZLZ3XV_f0 Things You Can’t Do On A Cruise Any More: https://youtu.be/zas6F4wMD0Q Should You Pay Cruise Gratuities: https://youtu.be/QBYzqxXjEXQ Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 60+ cruises. Follow Tips For Travellers on:
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0:00
what are the eleven most common and
0:02
costliest mistakes that cruisers make
0:05
and how can you avoid them I'm Gary
0:08
Bainbridge this is another of my tips
0:09
for Travis cruisers make a lot of
0:11
mistakes that cost them a huge amount of
0:13
money you're about to discover what they
0:15
are and more importantly how you can
0:16
avoid or mitigate against them the first
0:19
of these is the following
0:21
not having travel insurance a lot of
0:24
people go on cruises and they don't see
0:26
the need for travel insurance however if
0:28
something goes wrong it could cost you
0:30
an enormous amount of money many
0:32
thousands and thousands of dollars of
0:35
cost it's worth taking out a travel
0:37
insurance policy it's not going to cost
0:39
that much in the scheme of things but if
0:41
you fall ill on the ship and they force
0:43
you to disembark all the costs are yours
0:45
of the hotels the hospitals getting back
0:48
home none of us plan to fall ill or have
0:52
something happen to us when we're on
0:54
vacation however if it does the
0:57
costliest mistake you could ever make is
0:59
not having travel insurance one of the
1:02
biggest on costs on a cruising vacation
1:05
is excursions you could be spending a
1:07
hundred to two hundred dollars per
1:09
person per day on excursions so one of
1:11
the costliest things you could do is not
1:13
look at the alternatives even if you end
1:15
up going with the cruise line some of
1:17
the things that I love to do is hop on
1:19
hop off buses they're really inexpensive
1:21
they'll often come to the cruise port
1:23
and they give you commentary and they
1:25
take you around and normally bring you
1:26
back to the cruise port so hop on top of
1:29
busses great alternative to look at
1:31
secondly there are independent providers
1:33
that will provide very similar
1:34
excursions to the cruise lines normally
1:36
for much less and with smaller groups a
1:38
lot of those will also Building
1:40
guarantees that if they don't get you
1:41
back to the ship in time they will cover
1:44
the cost of you catching up with the
1:46
ship the other thing to bear in mind is
1:48
most cruise lines will have port talks
1:51
port guides and a lot of the ports will
1:54
have tourist information desks at the
1:56
port
1:57
so are the Costas things you can do is
1:58
not look at alternatives to cruise line
2:01
vacations it could save you a lot of
2:04
money and you could do some amazing and
2:06
very different things one of the
2:09
costliest mistakes that you could make
2:10
is not switching the roaming off on your
2:12
mobile phone
2:13
if your phone connects to foreign
2:16
countries networks where you don't have
2:18
a deal with your provider or it even
2:21
connects to the ship maritime system you
2:23
could find you're spending $6 per
2:26
megabyte you're spending 75 cents to $1
2:29
per call it could cost you an enormous
2:31
amount of money particularly we've got
2:33
apps running in the background so really
2:35
important when you're on a cruise
2:36
switch off roaming and rely on Wi-Fi
2:40
saying that also be extremely cautious
2:42
about being connected on a cruise most
2:46
cruise lines charge for Wi-Fi can cost
2:48
you anything from 40 cents up to 75
2:51
cents or more per minute if you want to
2:53
mitigate or get around that you can of
2:55
course buy packages however you could
2:57
easily be spending $200 for one device
3:00
across a week-long excursion
3:02
how do you get around that well a couple
3:05
of things you do you either just when
3:06
you are sailing at night you except
3:09
you're not going to be connected and
3:10
save that money so when you get to port
3:13
you can either use the port Wi-Fi or
3:15
coffeeshops Wi-Fi or what you could do
3:18
is choose a cruise line which includes
3:20
Wi-Fi so for example I'm actually
3:22
recording this onboard silac cruises
3:24
they include Wi-Fi new Virgin voyages
3:26
includes Wi-Fi many of the premium lines
3:29
include Wi-Fi within the fare I think
3:32
increasingly we're gonna find the demand
3:34
and pressure by cruises because they
3:36
want to be connected is Wi-Fi costs are
3:38
coming down another really costly
3:40
mistake could be buying a drinks package
3:42
I have a whole series of videos about
3:44
drinks packages which go into this in
3:46
more detail however drinks packages
3:48
could cost you anything between 60 and
3:50
$100 per day you have to drink a huge
3:54
amount to really make them worthwhile so
3:57
actually one of the things I recommend
3:58
is avoid the drinks packages and buy
4:00
drinks ad-hoc you find you're probably
4:03
going to drink less you're gonna spend
4:05
less and you're gonna save more money
4:06
drinks packages could be very costly in
4:09
my view avoid them one of the costly
4:12
mistakes that some cruisers have made is
4:14
not paying attention to what is ship
4:17
time and audible time don't let your
4:20
phone automatically find the time zone
4:24
manually set it to wherever you are
4:26
because
4:27
you could find that ship time and the
4:29
local destination time are different
4:31
times
4:32
if you miss the all aboard time and
4:34
you're not on a ship excursion the ship
4:37
will leave without you they do not wait
4:39
for passengers that come back late the
4:41
only exception to that is if you are on
4:43
one of their organized excursions so if
4:46
you don't pay attention to the time you
4:48
have made sure that your mobile phone is
4:50
on ship time and you miss it you could
4:52
end up being one of those people that
4:53
appear in videos running down the key
4:56
side as the ship pulls away very
4:58
importantly make sure you're on ship
5:00
time and you know what the all aboard
5:02
time is to avoid the costing mistake of
5:04
trying to get yourself to the ship at
5:08
the next port another way of avoiding a
5:11
really costly mistake on a cruise is to
5:13
take this with you this is the daily
5:16
program on the daily program it will
5:18
always be either the ship telephone
5:20
number or the port agent really
5:23
important either take that with you or
5:25
what I do is I take a photograph every
5:26
night when I get the daily program so
5:28
have a picture on my phone of the port
5:30
agent this is really important because
5:32
if you get lost something happens you
5:35
have an accident or perhaps you miss the
5:37
back time on an excursion and the guide
5:40
or the bus leaves without you you know
5:42
who to contact to make sure first of all
5:44
what is the exact right port you need to
5:46
go back to and how to get there
5:49
and also to alert the ship that you have
5:51
a problem whatever that may be whether
5:53
it's an injury or you're just running
5:55
late there is a small chance that if you
5:56
running late the ship will wait for you
5:57
so I've been on a cruise if at the last
5:59
cruise I was on where a couple of got
6:01
separated and lost from an excursion and
6:03
they didn't have the port details with
6:05
them they found a taxi it cost them
6:07
hundreds of dollars they actually went
6:09
to the wrong port there was more than
6:11
one port and eventually they did manage
6:13
to track down somebody who managed to
6:15
contact the ship but it was a very
6:17
convoluted and very expensive process
6:19
there were many hundreds of dollars out
6:21
of pocket embarrassed and they just made
6:24
it eventually to the ship on time so
6:26
always have that with you it's an
6:27
absolute great insurance policy if
6:29
anything happens if you are a solar
6:33
traveler so you travel on trips by
6:35
yourself one of the costing mistakes you
6:37
can make is go on a ship that doesn't
6:39
have
6:40
cabins or Yugo ownership which isn't
6:42
promoting and offering low supplements I
6:45
often travel by myself on cruises and
6:47
one of the things I do if I'm booking is
6:48
I look for two things first of all I
6:50
look for ships and itineraries that have
6:52
solar cabins and also what I tend to do
6:55
even more is for all the cruise lines or
6:57
routes that I want to go I keep an eye
6:59
out and set up alerts and talk to the
7:01
agents about alerting me when that
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Cruise Line is doing low or no single
7:05
supplements you'll find many of the big
7:07
cruise lines will offer that so I'm on
7:09
Saagar at the moment they have 109 solo
7:13
cabins I think something like 20% of the
7:15
ship is solar cabins most new ships when
7:18
they come into service nowadays have
7:19
sort of cabins because it's a big
7:21
growing demographic but other ships have
7:23
example the last cruise I was on was
7:25
Seaborn
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they don't have solar cabins but
7:28
throughout the year on different
7:29
itineraries they slash the single
7:31
supplement right down to either no or
7:33
very low supplements so one way of
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avoiding a huge big cost if you're a
7:37
solo traveler is make sure that you
7:40
follow either ships with solar cabins or
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you look and alert and talk to your
7:45
agent about making sure you know when
7:47
they're low single supplements a really
7:50
costly mistake you could make is by not
7:52
washing your hands if norovirus breaks
7:55
out on a ship and you get it you will
7:57
find that you are quarantined to your
7:59
cabin so that passes and it's a pretty
8:02
miserable experience you spend all this
8:04
money you've saved up you've got on your
8:05
vacation and you could spend it feeling
8:07
really lousy and confined to your cabin
8:10
the way that you can stop norovirus is
8:13
by washing your hands with soap and
8:14
water also additionally using the hand
8:16
job but the real big thing is washing
8:19
your hands regularly with soap and water
8:21
little tip that one of the captains once
8:23
gave me as you wash your hands
8:24
sink to yourself happy birthday that's
8:26
long enough to do a really good job if
8:28
you don't you could have a really
8:30
miserable time and it could be very very
8:31
costly because you're basically throwing
8:34
away all of your cruise money by being
8:37
quarantined for me one of the biggest
8:41
mistakes that people make and one of the
8:44
costliest mistakes they make is by
8:46
choosing the wrong cruise line so for
8:48
example I've been on a cruise with
8:50
people who hated dressing up but they
8:52
were on a Cunard cruise
8:54
on a transatlantic where there were many
8:57
nights formal we were expected to wear
8:59
dark suit & Tie tuxedo beautiful gowns
9:03
and the people on the cruise hated
9:05
dressing up so they're on a cruise for
9:08
seven days doing the thing that they
9:10
hated enormous ly I've been on other
9:13
cruises where people don't like lots of
9:14
rowdy partying and they've been on fun
9:17
cruise lines with lots of partying belly
9:19
flop competitions and rowdy parties
9:21
around the pool because it was a cheap
9:24
cruise so really really really when the
9:26
closeness mistakes you can make is to go
9:28
on the wrong cruise line if it's not a
9:30
cruise line that's perfect for your
9:32
style of cruising you are wasting your
9:34
money on a cruise so really do your
9:36
research and importantly work with an
9:39
agent to help you make sure you get on
9:41
the right Cruise Line following on from
9:44
that there's another really big mistake
9:46
you can make and that's by not choosing
9:48
the right cabin for you now a lot of
9:50
people like guaranteed cabins because
9:52
you pay the lowest fare for a grade and
9:54
then the cruise line allocates the cabin
9:56
now that's great if you're not bothered
9:58
about where the cabin is located the
10:00
shape of the cabin if it's a little bit
10:01
quirky or unusual however if you're a
10:04
little bit like me and you like a really
10:06
quiet cabin you don't like to be by any
10:08
noisy areas or late-night venues then I
10:12
like to choose my own cabin and I'm
10:14
happy to pay a slight premium for that
10:15
my little tip is if you are worried
10:18
about cabins is choose cabins that are
10:20
surrounded on all sides by cabins so
10:22
above you below you to the left to the
10:25
right and until the opposite you are
10:27
cabins that's going to be the quietest
10:28
karmis cabin that you like to get and
10:31
also importantly when you're still
10:32
choosing a cow and make sure it doesn't
10:34
have an interconnecting door so you're
10:35
not getting in noise from next door one
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of the costliest mistakes that people
10:39
make on a cruise is they find yourself
10:41
in a cabin which they're unhappy with
10:42
because it's too noisy or it's near some
10:45
disruption or they don't get the night
10:47
sleep that they want if you don't mind
10:49
that of course then it's fine but it
10:51
could be a really costly mistake
10:53
understand what's important to you in
10:54
your cabin and make sure that you do
10:57
whatever it takes to get that cabin
10:59
another really costly mistake that I see
11:01
cruisers make particularly when they're
11:03
heading to countries are not for me with
11:05
is not an understanding what the
11:07
exchange rate is
11:08
and also an understanding what the
11:10
charges are for using their credit or
11:11
debit cards it's very easy to get
11:14
confused in a lot of the markets and
11:16
stallholders in places where there's
11:19
lots of cruise ships coming particularly
11:20
I know there's lots of foreigners will
11:22
bamboozle you and confuse you by
11:24
exchange rates so really make sure that
11:26
you understand the exchange rate of
11:28
course one of the things to do nowadays
11:29
with mobile phones is lots of apps that
11:31
work without using data that will
11:33
convert currencies for you very simply
11:36
and easily but really make sure that you
11:38
understand the exchange rate because I
11:40
have seen lots of people ending up
11:42
paying what ends up being the equivalent
11:44
of hundreds of dollars for something
11:45
that's not worth it also before you go
11:48
make sure you understand the charges if
11:50
any that your credit card or debit card
11:53
is going to do so a lot of the debit
11:55
cards and credit cards charge a foreign
11:57
transaction fee and these can mount up
11:58
and be fairly significant also the
12:01
exchange rate that you may get is not
12:03
always a great exchange rate so
12:05
sometimes it's better to actually have
12:06
taken cash with you or one of those
12:09
cards where you've loaded up cash so
12:10
you're not going to be affected by a bad
12:13
exchange rate by using your card those
12:16
are some of the big and most costly
12:18
mistakes that I see cruises making with
12:21
some ideas and suggestions on how you
12:22
can avoid them or mitigate them I hope
12:25
that's been helpful if it has why not
12:27
watch one of my many other videos of
12:29
cruising tips and advice right now
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