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8 Big Cruise Downsides, And How To Deal With Them
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Jan 28, 2025
What are the downsides of cruising? The worst things and negatives of a cruise vacation? I explore the issues that cruising causes and the challenges, hassles or issues that cruise passengers face - and how to best deal with them. Not everything about cruising is bad, of course, and so why not also watch my video about the best things and upsides of cruising: https://youtu.be/EkbfaXKQguM 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 78 cruises at time of making this video. Follow Tips For Travellers on:
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what are the biggest downsides cons or
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negatives of cruising
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I'm Gary Bembridge this is another of my
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cruising tips for travelers in another
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video I explored the positives the good
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things about cruising I want to explore
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the downsides and the negatives of
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cruising starting with this one probably
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the biggest negative that you hear of
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cruising is the concerns about the
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environmental impact and sustainability
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of cruising I've done a whole video
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looking at this whole area but it's
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clearly a question as people get more
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and more concerned with its air travel
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rail travel whatever kind of travel it
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is with the cruising industry there are
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aware of this and they know that they
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need to become better at this whole area
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so they have a goal of reducing carbon
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emissions by 40 percent in the next
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decade and they do all sorts of things
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with different types of fuel like liquid
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notified gas we can alternative fuel
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better recycling plug-in to power when
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they're in port rather than running the
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engines the other thing linked to
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sustainability and environment is over
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tourism that as these ships get bigger
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and bigger they call them all the same
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ports one of the risks are that a lot of
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the ports are getting kind of overrun
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with people and really busy again this
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is something that they know they have to
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address both from an environmental
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perspective but also of course from a
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passenger experience but you will find
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many of the places you go to whether
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it's Santorini Dubrovnik or some of the
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places in the Caribbean you can have
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five or six ships there and it can be
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crazy crazy busy so that's one of the
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downsides I think this is going to
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change as the cruise lines know that
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they have to create a better experience
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when you're in port and a better
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experience in terms of the whole
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cruising experience and the environment
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another downside of cruising one could
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argue is that people are traveling the
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world in a bubble once they're on board
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their ship they are in whether it's a
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more American or a more a UK whatever
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experience and they're not really
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connecting and engaging with the places
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they're visiting because they're not
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staying in our hotels always go to local
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restaurants they're traveling in a bit
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of a bubble so a little bit disconnect
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us you could argue that is one of the
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downside of cruising it doesn't really
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get you to connect very closely with the
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places that you're in of course there
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are things you can do you can make sure
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that you go on more excursions that
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connect you with people and your
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finding more and more the cruise lines
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are introducing kind of go local
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excursions but you do really get to
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connect and understand again a little
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bit under the skin of the places you're
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visiting the third potential downside of
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cruising is that you don't really spend
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a lot of time in any one place so at the
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moment most of the places you cruise to
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you'll get this early morning 8:00
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o'clock you might leave at four five six
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o'clock and so you're not really
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spending a lot of time now of course if
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you find you really like a place and you
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want to spend more time there you can't
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because you really fixed by the time the
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ship leaves of course if you're
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traveling alone based you may have more
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flexibility this is again I think
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another area that the cruise lines
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understand is a concern to the modern
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travel particular younger travelers and
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so what they're starting to do is to
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stay in port much longer so you'll find
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increasingly you're leaving ports 10 11
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o'clock at night and more and more
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there's overnight stays and I think this
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is the way the cruising is going to
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become more and more attuned to and do
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much more is longer stays more overnight
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stays so the people can really connect
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with it with the places they're going
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and experience not only the port in the
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daytime but also in evening there which
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are essentially going to do two or three
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things when they're in a port the fourth
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positive downside of cruising is if you
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cruise quite often until in the same
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area the attendees can get quite
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repetitive the reason for this is that
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there's only so many ports that ships
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can call on particularly the ships get
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bigger and bigger there's only so many
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ports that can really cope with the size
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of ships and have the infrastructure so
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you'll find if you go on a Mediterranean
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cruise for example you'll often call at
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the same port you'll be going to
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Barcelona Marseilles Monte Carlo
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governor Gigi Vecchio for Rome those
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same places and again in the Caribbean
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you'll find if you go on a Caribbean
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cruise you're often go to the same ports
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over and over again so if you cruise a
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lot it can get a little bit repetitive
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of course the things you can do with
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that you can choose different cruise
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lines you can go on smaller ships or
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bigger ships to try and shake it up a
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bit but there is a risk that if you
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cruise in the same place at the same
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time you could find one of the negatives
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are you calling on the same places over
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and over again one of the other
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downsides of cruising is you'll find
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that the cruise line certainly in their
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terms and conditions and the contract
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can change or cancel a port at any time
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without giving you compensation now of
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course cruise lines are going to
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not just dude because they want to do it
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they're gonna have to do because of the
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weather which is the main reason or
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there's some other sort of disturbance
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political or whatever disturbance that's
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or health disturbance that stops them
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going there but you do find you could go
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on a cruise any certain places that you
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really really really want to go to but
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that port gets cancelled and there's
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nothing you can do about it of course if
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you're gonna land-based
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cruise those ways you can perhaps work
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around that and find a way of going
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there later or whatever but bear in mind
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if you're gonna cruise you need to be
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flexible and understand that the weather
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or other conditions can stop you gonna
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port and there is no compensation for
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that
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it's what the cruise line is allowed to
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do if it's out of their control one of
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the downsides of cruising is cruising
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related illnesses now the most obvious
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of those is seasickness and that does
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affect some people it depends a lot on
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the itinerary of course the things you
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can do for that and I would always
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recommend if you go on a cruise be
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prepared make sure you've taken with you
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the motion sickness or seasickness
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medication that you know works for you
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if you really are struggling you go to
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medical center and you can pay to have
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some treatment done it's like a little
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jab it's really really good
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the other one that a lot of people
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concerned about and worried about is
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norovirus now in practice the norovirus
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which is the vomiting and stomach bug
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it's incidence on cruise ships is
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definitely know high if I just blower
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that it is on land it just gets a huge
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amounts of publicity when it does happen
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on a ship because all the way it has to
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be documented and the publicity around
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of course it's very obvious that it's
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broken out best way of avoiding
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norovirus is wash your hands constantly
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with soap and water that is absolutely
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critical and try to then avoid touching
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public services and getting a renewal
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mouth but certain water constantly doing
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that is the best way to avoid it that's
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what I've done and it has definitely
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made a massive difference when there's
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been norovirus outbreak I've managed to
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avoid it one of the downsides that a lot
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of people say about cruising is you have
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often a lot of extra costs so what
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happens is you have a cruise fare and
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you think that's great and it's a great
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deal and I think what cruise lines
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really try and do is make sure that they
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have obviously the lowest there to try
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and get you onboard once you're on board
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though you can find there's lots of
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extra costs like you might have to pay
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gratuities or service
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which can be quite out of money can be
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twelve fifteen dollars per person per
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day or up if you know up from that if
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you're staying in a suite
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you have excursions to pay for you'll
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have drinks to pay for you'll have
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obviously other things you do where it's
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gambling or using the laundry or
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whatever those things are so there's
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lots of extra costs onboard one of the
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big ones of course also being Wi-Fi
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which can be pretty expensive so you'll
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find that one of the downsides of
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cruising is there are a lot of extra
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costs of course the way to do that is
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when you're looking at planning your
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cruise make sure that you've thought
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through all those things and see what is
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included now more more cruise lines are
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sewn to bundle things in so for example
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Virgin voyages they do include things
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like Wi-Fi gratuities some of the basic
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drinks all of the speciality dining is
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included and you find you can often buy
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packages or deals that in bundle those
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so one of the downsides or negatives
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could be that your cruise fare is not
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necessarily what your actual holiday is
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going to cost you for me one of the
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downsides of cruising is the whole
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embarkation and disembarkation process
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now of course if you're going a
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land-based holiday you may have more
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problems because you're in and out of
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airports council flights and that's
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quite stressful but because so many
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people are cruising particularly the big
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ports if you're going to Miami or Fort
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Lauderdale or in Europe you might be
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going to Barcelona or Rome or
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Southampton these can be quite busy
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crazy places for both invocation
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disembarkation there you can have 15,000
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people getting off in 15,000 people
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getting on so the process is quite slow
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now the good news is that technology is
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making it better and better so you'll
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find example on Princess Cruises they
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now have the medallion where you can get
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yourself ocean ready where you upload
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everything and pretty much you sail
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through your final Caribbean are
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increasingly doing things to get you
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through much faster using technology but
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embarkation process can be very slow
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very painful lots of ways around
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disembarkation when they're trying to
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get three four five six thousand people
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off the ship can be very long slow and
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drawn-out however in my view compared to
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chopping and changing through airports
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it's probably not as bad but it is
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potential downside of cruising those who
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they are the eight downsides or
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negatives of cruising of course there
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are many upsides of cruising and as
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have a whole video where I talk about
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the upsides of cruising as well I have
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loads more videos of cruising tips and
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advice so why don't you watch another
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one of those right now
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