Newly Engaged - First Cruise - help!

[Marrekk]

There is so much great info in this thread, thank you all so much!

[jagger16]

Congrats on your engagement and your first cruise! I have a couple of ship tips for you as we have often mentioned them to first time cruisers who were not aware of some of these things.

 

We like to have coffee and breakfast delivered to our room. We order the night before and leave the order outside on our door handle. It really helps get out the door quicker on busy port days. HAL has great room service and you can write-in things that are not on the menu.

 

Sometimes it's hard to choose what we want for dinner so my husband and I will often pick one entrée to share besides what we each individually order. And if you don't like what you order you can ask for something else - although we have rarely had to do that.

 

If you are wine drinkers you can bring wine on when you embark. Each of you can bring a bottle with no charge and you will pay a corkage fee for the others.

 

We keep an eye out for laundry specials for longer cruises such as yours. I like to take advantage of spa specials which come out the night before the day the special will be offered. We also enjoy using the thermal spa (additional charge)?and if you're into that, that's a nice activity on sea days. I feel that using it regularly helps keep me loose especially after all of those days of touring.

 

Your books will help you identify the cities that you need to be very careful with pickpockets. I know you have to be careful in Barcelona. I carry nothing when we go there and my husband keeps our minimal valuables in a money belt. He doesn't like it, but we do feel more comfortable touring that way.

 

It sounds like the Koningsdam has USB ports in the cabins but we will still take a Joto 6 Port USB charger with high speed charging. It cuts down on all of the electronic plugs we have to bring. You can order that on Amazon.

 

Hope this helps. I'm happy to answer any particular questions you may have.