How to plan for any cruise - Travel Talk #2

Welcome to episode two of  Travel Talk on The Travel Agents podcast! Today, we'll cover everything you need to know about planning the perfect cruise vacation.

We'll dive into the key components of how to plan for a cruise:

• Cruise Line Differences: Learn how different cruise lines, like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Carnival, handle dining and excursion reservations. Discover why timing and cabin class can significantly impact your cruise experience.
• Excursions: Get insights into how your choice of cabin on cruises, especially river cruises like Viking, influences your excursion options and booking priorities.
• Ports: Understand the importance of knowing your embarkation and disembarkation ports. Major cities like Rome and Venice often have ports far from the city center, necessitating additional transportation planning.
• Flights: We’ll discuss cruise packages that include flights and the potential pitfalls. Learn why upgrading your flight package can save you from inconvenient connections and seating issues.
• Arrival Timing: Discover why arriving in your departure city at least a day before your cruise can save you from the stress of missed connections and ensure you start your cruise on time.

As always, we're here to help with any questions and assist with your travel plans. Reach out to us, at our travel agency, Chima Travel. Tune in for expert advice and tips to ensure your cruise vacation is smooth sailing from start to finish.

Transcript

00:02
Welcome to episode two of our Travel Talk series. It's actually just going to be me today, Brian's traveling, but we want to keep the content rolling. So we decided we're going to go ahead and create content even when one of us is unavailable to record. So today we're actually going to talk about everything regarding planning for a cruise. These are short episodes, bite-size, if you will. So we wanted to cover some key components.

00:29
to cruise planning and what you might want to consider when you're looking at planning or going on that cruise vacation. So number one, first and foremost, is that every single cruise line has a different methodology when it comes to reservations, excursions, so on and so forth. So your bigger ocean line cruises, your Norwegians, your Royal Caribbean, your Carnivals, cruise lines like that are actually going to have massive dining rooms, yes, of course, but.

00:57
they are also going to have reservations in place. So what these reservations are going to allow people to do is within, let's see, eight to 10 months, these bookings become available and they allow it so that their clients can go on and make reservations for their dining preferences ahead of time, as ahead as eight to 12 months out. That's how soon you can actually.

01:22
make reservations for your dining preferences. And that's for again your bigger ocean lines like Royal Caribbean. So let's say for instance you purchase a voyage with Royal Caribbean and your voyage is like two months out. What does that mean? Does that mean that you're going to be stuck with really bad dining options like 9 p.m. or 4 p.m.? Not necessarily. What it really means is that you might have to wait in line just a bit.

01:48
for those six o'clock, 6.30, prime time dining options when you're on these cruise lines, but that doesn't mean that you're out of luck. It doesn't mean that you have to have those reservations in order to dine on these cruise ships at those particular moments, but it's really important to understand that there are going to be reservations that you can make for those main dining options for every cruise line. And of course, the bigger the cruise line, the more likely

02:16
that those dining options are going to be sold out. So make note, and as travel agents, we actually have an extensive list and well-taken notes of when these cruise lines open up their dining selections, as well as their excursion selection. And that's another point. When you're looking at excursions, that's a big component to a lot of these cruises. Now, they're a lot more popular with maybe more so smaller ships in those river cruises.

02:43
because that allows you to go deeper into the cities that those river cruises are going to, as opposed to maybe a Royal Caribbean is only going to a few locations, because most of the time, there's gonna be sailing on the ocean. So with excursions, your selection is going to be determined more often than not by the room that you're in. So let's take Viking, for example, which is the most popular river cruise and small ship

03:13
provider out there, your room selection is going to be based on what room you're in. So if you're in the top room category, you're going to be able to select your room 60 days prior to your sale date. And then that's going to be the owner's suite. And that goes all the way down to the veranda.

03:43
any excursions, you have no priority reservations, it's just a regular veranda. So with Viking there's multiple classes in their categories. You have the deluxe veranda, there's the penthouse veranda, the penthouse junior suite, explorer suites and oceans, or sorry, the owner's suite. And each one of those are going to allow you to pick excursions as well as dining options prior to your voyage, with the exception being that lower category.

04:11
the veranda. You can't select anything in that lower category. You can only book things on while you're on the ship if you're in that veranda category. So this is when things with cruise ships can get maybe complicated for lack of a better word because there's so many moving parts, so many things that you have to make note of when it comes to actually planning for these cruises. You have to understand.

04:35
when dining is gonna be available. And you have to understand when you're gonna be able to select those excursions. And each one of them have varying degrees of when you can select that dining option and those excursions. Big ocean cruises, you're going to be able to select your dining and your excursions well before your voyage date, anywhere from eight to 12 months. And with these small ships, you're looking at a much smaller duration. You're looking at maybe

05:04
two to five months out to be able to select your dining as well as your excursions. So another thing that's really important with cruises, especially with these bigger ocean line cruises, is understanding where your port is going to be. So let's say you're on a voyage for a Mediterranean cruise and you notice that your embarkation or your disembarkation port city is going to be Rome.

05:33
That doesn't mean that you're going to actually port in Rome. You're gonna port in a completely different city. So don't think that you're going to arrive in Rome and you're gonna be in Rome and be able to just get off the ship and go straight to Rome. No, you're gonna be about three and a half hours away from Rome and some of these main cities. Same thing goes with Venice. Venice just recently in the last few years have passed a law protecting its harbors and protecting the city from those bigger ships.

06:02
any kind of cruise ship really from coming into the port itself. So they have these new ports that are an hour away from Venice itself. So when you're planning your voyage and you're planning your cruise ship experience, you're going to want to make note of where your disembarkation port is going to be as well as your embarkation port is going to be. So you can plan accordingly if you need to schedule pickup times and things like that for transport.

06:31
Most cruise lines are going to either include transport as a part of their package or allow you to purchase transport as a part of your package. And I would highly recommend it. Highly recommend keeping everything in house when it comes to the transport. That way everything is up to standard. Everyone is fully aware as to when ships are going to port. They know exactly where to pick you up and know exactly where to take you.

06:58
So those are some really key components when it comes to planning your trip for these cruises because there's so many, again, there's so many moving parts, there's so many things to remember, okay? The last thing that I wanna mention is flights. Now, sometimes there are going to be cruise packages that include flight packages. Now, this is not a rule of thumb for every cruise line, this is gonna be a generalized claim.

07:29
you're gonna wanna pay attention to which cruise line is offering those free flight bonuses and understand where you're going to be. And if you're in New York City, you're gonna have a lot less complications when it comes to your flights, as opposed to someone who's in maybe, oh, I don't know, Topeka, Kansas, right? In the middle of America. What happens with a lot of these flight bonuses, these flight packages, is they just kind of select a flight for you randomly.

07:57
They don't look at what's gonna be the best timing, what's going to be the least amount of connections. They're gonna make sure that the flight cost is the cheapest possible. That's what they're looking for. So if that means getting you on a flight that has three connections in order to get to your final destination, they're gonna select that over picking something that only has one connection. So it can really...

08:24
create this nightmare scenario with flights. And on top of that, in some situations, if you're flying with companions and things like that, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be seated next to each other in these flights. So this is another factor to kind of keep in mind when you see those promotions. See if you can go ahead and purchase their plus package. There's always like an air plus package or something like that. That allows you to

08:52
pick flights beforehand so that you have total control of the flights that you select. And now these range pretty widely and I'm completely thinking of Viking cruisers right now. That's the big one where you see a lot of these packages. But again, this isn't a thing that's for every cruise. This is just a general idea when it comes to looking at flights for cruisers. This is something that you wanna keep in mind. If you're unsure of what the flight process is when it comes to your flight selection,

09:21
ask your travel agent, ask the person that you're on the phone with or on the computer with when you're making that booking, if you're doing independent from a travel agent, just make sure that everything's going to be planned to a tee because the last thing that you want is to have this free flight that's included in your package and then you have these incredibly long layovers, overnight stays, multiple connections. It's just going to make a massive damper on your cruise.

09:51
And the last thing, the last tip that I wanna say for cruising as a whole, regardless of whether or not you're doing an ocean cruise or a river cruise or an adventure cruise, whatever it may be, I always, we always recommend that you fly into your starting city at least a day before your cruise. So if you have these situations where your flight gets a cancellation or a delay in one of these connecting cities,

10:21
or even in your home city, you don't have to lose time on your voyage by trying to catch up. Because if you do that on the same day and your flight's canceled by 12 hours, you've already missed that first day of your cruise. So by arriving in that home city, that starting city, a day before your cruise starts, you're protecting yourself and you're protecting your time on your cruise. So these are some things to keep in mind. As always, we are travel agents. If you have questions, let us know. We'd be happy to assist.

10:51
And of course we can help anyone across the states make cruising plans. So let us know if you have any questions and I will see you soon.