Cruise lines are packing their ships full these days.
They're admitting that they're selling at 100% or higher capacity.
So, ships are really, really full, and I've seen this firsthand on a recent cruise, like
MSC Cruises, Norwegian, or Caribbean, even Princess in Alaska.
So, I want to share with you proven techniques to deal with managing crowds and avoiding
crowds.
So, let's start first of all with the one that's not possible for everybody, and that's
things that the cruise lines themselves offer us to do.
These tend to come at a premium but let me talk about them anyway.
One of the most obvious ones is the ship within the ship, or the kind of special access areas
for suites.
Now, my experience is on that MSC Cruise that I spoke about, because I booked the yacht
club, which is their little closed off area, which has all the suites, it has some inside
cabins in there as well.
It has its own restaurant, it has its own bar, its own lounge, its own pool deck, its
own hot tubs.
And that was a great way of escaping from that really packed, busy ship into that quiet,
calm area.
Now, many, many cruise lines have it.
You've got Norwegian with The Haven, you've got Royal Caribbean has an area, although
it's not a ship within a ship, but they have suite access.
Even lines like Holland America and Princess have dedicated lounges and sometimes specific
restaurants or areas of restaurants for their suite guests.
But that of course comes with a big premium.
So even if you can't afford that big premium, another thing to think about is many cruise
lines will offer sanctuaries, so you do have to pay a price.
So, on that Holland America trip I was talking that we went at Christmastime, we booked the
sanctuary for the whole week, and this is an area which just was a closed off area.
You did pay to enter it, but you basically had a private cabana.
It was really quiet and calm, and again, you could escape the craziness around the swimming
pool, where it was packed with families and kids and noise and [inaudible].
So that's something that many cruise lines are offering these days.
The third thing the cruise lines are offering is some kind of packages which help you navigate
the crowds.
Now, two of the most well-known of those are Royal Caribbean have The Key, which is a thing
where you pay a price for and you get priority access, priority invocation.
You get some dedicated, a reserved seating in the theatre, perks like that.
Carnival has a similar thing, which is called getting to the Fun Faster, which again helps
you navigate around some of the crowds faster in embarkation, that kind of stuff.
Holland America has Club Orange, which again gives you priority embarkation, disembarkation,
and also access to either, depending on the ship, a specific Club Orange area within the
main dining room, which is much easier to get a table, or a specific dedicated Club
Orange dining room.
If these are still out of your budget, another thing that a lot of people tell me they do
to avoid crowds is they book a balcony cabin.
And the advantage of the balcony cabin is if you've got a busy packed day out on the
ship, you have your own private balcony, you can sit out there, you can order room service,
you can order drinks, and you can get away from the crowds that way.
However, no matter what cabin you have, whether it's inside, ocean view, a suite, whatever,
many cruise lines now have some really great new release movies on their television, which
are included in the fare price.
You can order room, service, pizza, whatever.
In the evenings to escape the crowds, you can basically have fun in your room having
a movie night.
And that's actually one thing I really do actually enjoy doing, and I've been doing
it much more on recent cruises, particularly those big, busy, packed cruises.
So, if any of those don't appeal or even those do appeal and you're using those, there are
some on ship tricks and tips that I use to avoid crowds, and here they are.
First of all, a really simple one is simply avoid them, avoid events where there's going
to be big crowds.
So, for example, on that MSC Cruise I was talking about, every night in the big sort
of atrium area, they would have a big party which was packed and busy and rowdy, and I
just simply avoided that.
Princess sometimes has the big champagne tower, or you've got some cruise lines that have
the balloon drop, where they're encouraging crowds to gather.
Sail away parties are another good example.
You simply could just plan to do other things, go to different bars, go to different places
on the ship, and just basically go against where the crowds are.
Of course, a really important way to avoid crowds is plan your embarkation and disembarkation
better.
So many cruise lines will allow you to through the app to check in online, which means you
often can skip queuing up and lining up with the big crowds and you can whisk through.
So some of them are really fast.
So, make sure that you've checked in online and if that gives you any kind of quick way
around the crowds.
The same with disembarkation.
Disembarkation can be crazy busy with crowds.
If you pack and plan to self-disembark, which means you can take all your luggage off, you
can get off as soon as the ship gets out.
I love doing this.
As soon as the ship is open, cleared, I can take my bags, I get off, all the taxis are
waiting, all the transport is available, there's no crowds, you can just breeze through and
get to your flight to home, whatever, really, really simply and easily.
Which leads me to the next thing, timing of your activities.
Again, it's about working against the flow of where the crowds are.
So let me talk about a couple of things that I do.
Also, if you've got any key activities you want to do, so if you're on one of those big
resort ships and they have things like flow riders or the North Star or go-kart racing
tracks or whatever, choose to do those when the crowds are busy.
So, lunchtime, for example, or dinnertime is a really good time to go and do those activities.
So, think about when people are going to be busy on the ship.
Sail away parties, those big parties, events, try and plan things when those are taking
place because the crowds are all at those and you'll have the events or things to yourself.
I also have some key tips around avoiding crowds when it comes to dining.
Generally speaking, if you're in open seated dining, going early or going late is when
you're going to avoid the crowds.
Most people will go at 7:00 or 7:30 or whatever.
If you're happy to eat at 6:00, 6:30, or towards the end of the sitting, you'll find it much
easier to get the table size you want.
It's much less crazy, much less busy, and service will be much quicker.
So even if you're a big fan of afternoon tea, which I am, again, if you're going to go early,
go really, really early so you're in the queue, but it's much better to go towards the end
of the service.
If you're on Cunard and their big queen's room afternoon tea service, it's much better
to go later than earlier on Viking or any of these lines.
The second thing that I do that I really, really love to avoid crowds is I use the main
dining room for both breakfast and if it's open for lunch.
People tend to use the buffet, the crowds use the buffet for breakfast and lunch, and
you can have a very civilised, still fast and great service in the main dining room
for breakfast and lunch.
I absolutely love it and that's what I always, always do.
If you're on a cruise, particularly a warm cruise on a sea day, one of the things I do
is avoid the main swimming pools.
People are going to hang around the main swimming pools, the crowd's going to be there, it's
going to be packed.
There are often activities, whether it's dancing or competitions or whatever going on.
So, I would tend to avoid going to the pool on those sea days and try and find the quiet,
out of the way spaces.
And there are always places like that on onboard ships and you'll find them often really high
up on a ship, so sort of way up in the sky deck.
Often have a look perhaps where the sport deck is or look on the deck plans before you
go, or even ask your cabin steward.
There are always spaces on a ship which people just don't really know they're there because
they're a little bit kind of in the design tucked away.
Also, on a
sea day on those sorts of ships, I will also tend to do things indoors.
So you'll find the lounges, the bars, all the facilities, on those sort of sea days
during the day will be much quieter.
So again, that's a way of avoiding the crowds, is planning to spend those days more indoor
and use your port days as perhaps days when you're going to be out there.
One other really important tip to avoid the crowds and actually avoid getting less frustrated
is use the stairs, not the elevators.
Now on these big ships, of course it's a lot of stairs, so that can be a little bit challenging,
but it's also great to help balance out all those extra desserts that you might be having.
But elevators, crowds, big problem.
I want to now talk about some of the tips that I have about avoiding crowds in the port,
and these are some of my favourite things to do because I love exploring ports.
So, what do I do?
First of all, I use a site called cruisetimetables.com, and in there I can look at my itinerary and
then I can look port by port just how busy it's going to be so I can see how many ships
are going to be in there, and roughly it tells you how many people are there.
So, I know if there's going to be a lot of big ships in a port that I need to plan to
do something different.
And you'll find that particularly true in places like the Caribbean and the Mediterranean,
when you could have four or five mega ships, you could have 15,000, 20,000 people pouring
out.
So, I will often choose to do something like stay on board, not go out at all, or I'll
choose an excursion which is going much further afield.
So it's not in that place.
So it's taking me to somewhere really unusual.
So, if you say in the Mediterranean so for example, if you're in a place in Europe, say
like Civitavecchia where most people will charge off to Rome, and Rome is always busy
and packed anyway, you might choose an excursion which takes you somewhere slightly different,
or Livorno for example, where most people will charge off to Florence, which again is
packed.
There'll be other excursions which are going to other different places, which will be less
packed.
One of the best things to do, though, is stay on the ship.
If you're going to be in a really busy packed port or simply you want to avoid the crowds,
staying on the ship on a port day is one fantastic way of avoiding the crowds.
Pretty much everybody will get off.
The pool will be quiet, the spa will be quiet.
All those attractions and things you want to use will be quiet.
If you do, though, want to explore on a port and you don't want to stay all day, what I
would do is then at lunchtime and in the afternoon is when I would go and explore.
You'll find on cruises, most people will do the excursion in the morning and they'll all
come piling back on the ship for lunch.
They don't want to spend money on lunch out.
So head out at lunchtime and in the afternoon.
So, what you can do, for example, is avoid going on a cruise line excursion because they'll
mostly be in the morning and take a look at two alternatives.
One, there are providers which will provide tours.
They're called things like venturousshore.com, shoreexcursionsgroup.com, or via tour, where
you can get excursions very similar to the cruise line ones, but they'll be smaller groups.
So you're avoiding the crowd.
And also they will often do them say in the afternoon, so against the time when the cruise
lines are pumping out all their passengers.
Or even better is to look for a local guide who will do something for you.
So there's sites like toursbylocals.com, for example, or you can go into the roll call
for your cruise on something like Cruise Critic and just ask for tips and advice, and people
will always have suggestions of local guides.
That way you can then ... They know the area incredibly well.
You can go in the afternoon when it's less busy, less packed, and they'll know how to
work against and away from the crowds.
Although I've said it's really important to head out at lunchtime or in the afternoon,
if that doesn't appeal to you the other thing that you can do to avoid crowds is get out
super, super early.
So actually, you'll find most of the excursions will tend to go an hour or so after the ship
has arrived.
Most people just getting themselves organised and up and about will sort of head out an
hour or so after the ship is cleared.
But what I'll do, if there's some things I really want to go to that I know are going
to be really, really popular, I will get up and be ready as soon as the ship is cleared.
So, for example, on that MSC Cruise that I was talking about, we were going to Norway
and in Olden I wanted to go up the Loen Skylift, which is just phenomenal, beautiful, amazing
scenery.
But I knew it'd be packed all day.
So, the minute the ship was cleared, I got out, got on the shuttle bus, got to the walk
the minute it opened, and I had no waiting, went up there.
By the time I came back down, there was an enormous line.
When I got back to the port, the line was hundreds of people waiting to get the shuttle
bus there.
So, the other thing is you get out, if there's one very specific thing you want to do, get
out, get it done, and get back and then enjoy the ship for the rest of the day.
I'm sure there's other great tips for avoiding crowds that you have, so leave those in the
comments and let other people know.
But while you think about that, why don't you watch this video?
What am I going to point them to?
Good question.
But before you do that, if you want to know a little bit more what it's actually like,
cruising on one of those ships within the ships that I use to escape crowds, take a
look at this video where I dive into the pros, the cons, and the big surprises I had cruising
in a ship within a ship.
See you over there.