This is a sponsored post for Ambassador Cruise Line.
Embarkation day is one of the best parts of any cruise. You’ve finally made it onto the ship, your holiday has officially started, and there’s a whole new place to explore before you even leave port.
But it’s also surprisingly easy to make a few little mistakes in those first couple of hours. None of them are going to ruin your cruise, but after plenty of sailings I’ve definitely learned that there are some things worth doing differently once you step onboard.
Here are eight things I’d avoid.
1. Don’t Head Straight for the Buffet
For a lot of people, boarding a cruise ship seems to trigger exactly the same thought: find the buffet immediately.
It makes sense. You might have been travelling since early morning, skipped lunch or survived on overpriced airport food, so by the time you get onboard you’re ready to eat. The problem is that thousands of other passengers are often thinking exactly the same thing.
One of the easiest ways to avoid that slightly awkward waiting-around period is simply to arrive at the embarkation time you’ve been given rather than trying to get onboard as early as humanly possible.
On Ambassador Cruise Line, Borough Market is the dining option open when guests embark, usually until around 4pm depending on the ship’s departure time. So if you board when you’re supposed to, there’s a better chance your cabin will already be ready and you can drop off your hand luggage before thinking about food.
Then, if you are hungry, you can head to Borough Market without feeling as though you need to race everyone else there.
The buffet will still be there. There’s no prize for being the first person onboard to find the chips.
2. Don’t Put Off Exploring the Ship
You don’t need to spend your first afternoon marching around with a deck plan and a checklist, but a quick wander when you first board can save you a surprising amount of confusion later.
Find your main restaurant, the theatre, buffet and pool deck, and work out where your cabin sits in relation to the nearest lifts or stairs. It’s also worth getting your head around which end of the ship is forward and which is aft, because that’s the sort of thing that feels obvious until you’ve confidently walked five minutes in the wrong direction.
Cruise ships can be strangely disorientating at first, particularly the bigger ones. Corridors start looking very similar very quickly, and it’s amazing how often you can emerge from a lift convinced you know where you’re going, only to realise you’ve headed off the wrong way again. A lot of people prefer smaller or mid-sized ships for this reason.
Spend half an hour getting your bearings on day one and the ship is much less likely to still feel like an escape room halfway through the cruise.
3. Don’t Ignore the Daily Programme
It’s tempting to assume you’ll just work things out as you go along, especially if you’re not somebody who likes planning every minute of a holiday. I’m exactly the same, and I’d much rather leave some space in the day than have every hour accounted for before breakfast.
But it’s still worth checking the daily programme properly once you’re onboard, because not everything will necessarily be repeated. You might discover too late that there was a talk, activity or show you would genuinely have enjoyed, but it only happened once.
Ambassador Cruise Line is a good example of why it pays to have a look. Some people assume that it’s a relatively quiet cruise line where you’re just going to relax by the pool, but far from it! Its onboard programme can include live shows and music, quizzes, gameshows, deck games, crafting and enrichment, with guest speakers on selected sailings too.
You certainly don’t have to join in with everything. In fact, doing absolutely nothing for a couple of hours is one of cruising’s great pleasures. But I’d much rather know what I’m choosing to skip than find out about it after it’s already happened.
Read more: 22 Things Ambassador Cruise Line Does That I Wish All Cruise Lines Would Do
4. Don’t Completely Unpack Before Checking Your Cabin
I like to unpack fairly quickly once I get onboard. As soon as the suitcase is empty and pushed under the bed, it feels much more like I’ve properly arrived.
But before you spread everything across the wardrobes and drawers, it’s worth taking a few minutes to have a proper look around the cabin first. Make sure the beds are arranged how you requested them, test the lights and sockets, and check the shower and safe are working as they should.
Cruise ship cabins are looked after really well, but naturally something small might need a tweak every now and then, whether that’s a light bulb or a drawer that’s a little stiff. It’s completely normal, and embarkation day is the easiest time to get it sorted, long before every flat surface has become your own personal storage area.
It’s also worth having a proper look around before deciding there isn’t enough storage. Cruise ships are very good at hiding cupboards, shelves and little compartments in places you wouldn’t immediately think to look.
I’ve discovered storage spaces several days into cruises before and immediately wondered why I’d spent half the week stepping around things that could have been neatly put away.
5. Don’t Assume You Can Book Everything Later
I don’t think embarkation day should turn into a frantic admin session. You’ve just started your holiday, so the last thing you want is to spend the afternoon staring at an app trying to organise the next seven days.
But there are some things that are worth sorting sooner rather than later.
Popular speciality restaurants and activities with limited spaces can fill up, so anything you know you definitely want to do is worth booking before your cruise if you can.
Ambassador Cruise Line has recently introduced pre-booking across its ships, so guests can use My Ambassador Sailing before departure to reserve tables at speciality restaurants and spaces on selected activities, including wine tastings and behind-the-scenes tours.
You can also book Destination Experiences this way. That’s particularly useful if there’s an excursion you’ve already got your heart set on, rather than boarding and discovering everyone else had exactly the same idea.
If you haven’t booked ahead, don’t panic. Just make those reservations one of the things you sort out fairly early on day one, before the most popular options start disappearing.
Book the things that really matter to you, then leave the rest alone. There’s no need to organise every meal and activity before you’ve even sailed out of port.
6. Never Let Your Phone Roam Free
One little phone setting can make a surprisingly big difference to your post-cruise bank balance.
Once your ship heads out to sea, your phone may connect to a maritime mobile network rather than your normal provider. And the roaming charges can be a lot less relaxing than the cruise itself.
The safest option is to switch your phone to flight mode once you’re onboard, then turn WiFi back on separately if you want to connect to the ship’s WiFi package.
It’s especially worth checking before you start taking photos, sending messages or leaving apps quietly refreshing themselves in the background. You don’t want your phone happily using data all week while you’re completely unaware of it.
A few seconds checking your settings on embarkation day is considerably more enjoyable than discovering a surprise roaming bill when you get home.
7. Don’t Spend the Whole Afternoon on Your Phone
There are a few things you’ll probably need your phone for when you first board. You might need to connect to the Wi-Fi, check the cruise line app, look at bookings or work out where the rest of your family has disappeared to within ten minutes of stepping onboard.
But once you’ve done the useful bits, it’s worth putting it away for a while.
Embarkation afternoon has a really nice atmosphere because everything is still ahead of you. You can wander around the ship, find somewhere outside, have a drink and watch the last supplies being loaded before sailaway.
It’s also a good chance to actually enjoy the fact that you’ve arrived, rather than immediately checking emails or uploading 23 photos of the cabin before you’ve even worked out where the bathroom light switch is.
Your phone will still be there later. Unless something genuinely urgent has happened since you left home, most other things can wait too.
8. Don’t Try to Do Everything on Day One
This is probably one of the easiest mistakes to make, simply because you’re excited.
You want to see every deck, find every bar, inspect the pool, check out the spa, wander through the theatre and possibly visit the gym even though you have absolutely no intention of returning to it again.
But you don’t need to complete the ship on the first afternoon.
Even on a short cruise, you’ll have more time to explore. And on a longer sailing, there really is no rush at all.
Sort out anything practical that genuinely needs doing, get your bearings and then just enjoy wherever you happen to end up. Some of my favourite places on cruise ships have been spots I didn’t discover until several days into the sailing.
That’s part of the fun. I’d much rather still have somewhere new to find halfway through the cruise than spend embarkation day racing around trying to tick off every venue before dinner.
And Then There Are the Really Obvious Things…
There are, of course, a few things you shouldn’t do after boarding that you probably don’t need me to tell you. That’s why I’m burying them down here – just in case, but hopefully without being patronising!
Don’t skip the muster drill because you’ve cruised 27 times and now consider yourself an expert in emergency procedures. Don’t lose your cruise card before your cabin is even ready (I might’ve done this…), and don’t put your phone somewhere “safe” only to spend sailaway retracing your steps through half the ship.
It’s probably also wise not to get so drunk before departure that you’re no longer entirely sure which country you’re sailing from by the time the ship actually moves. Yes, even if your chosen drinks package covers an exciting selection of tipples!
Ambassador recently renamed its packages to make the options easier to understand. Expedition is now the Premium Drinks Package, Explorer is the Classic Drinks Package, and Experience is the Non-Alcoholic Drinks Package. The benefits haven’t changed as part of the rename, but the new names make it much easier to see what you’re actually choosing.
It’s worth deciding before you sail, too. Choose the Ambassador Fare when booking and you’ll save 15% on the Premium Drinks Package compared with buying it separately.
And if you’re still wondering whether a drinks package actually makes financial sense for you, my free drinks package calculator can help you work it out without spending the first afternoon of your cruise doing maths…
And finally, try not to spend the first afternoon comparing every tiny detail with your last cruise. Different ships do things differently, and that’s part of the appeal.
Give this one a chance before deciding the roast potatoes aren’t quite as crispy as the ones you had on another ship in 2019.
Start Your Cruise the Right Way
You really don’t need a complicated strategy for embarkation day.
Sort out the few things that are worth doing early, check what’s happening onboard, book anything you absolutely don’t want to miss and work out whether that drinks package genuinely makes sense.
Then stop organising and start enjoying the ship.
You’ve got the rest of the cruise to figure out everything else.
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