How does everyone handle long cruises like over 30days?

[Therese S.]

 

Thank you everyone for your responses and especially to PescadoAmarillo for your long detailed list.  I have printed it out as a reminder.  All the help and tips have convinced me not to worry, so I went ahead and booked the 54 day RT from LA to Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand on the Island Princess.  Just typing out the ports makes me excited!  IP is not my favorite ship, but you book the ship that goes where you want to go!  I have two years to plan, where to board the cats, son will check on house once a week and get mail.  I also plan to set up all remaining bills on direct pay from checking account.  I will leave the decision of turning off water, water heater, etc to the husband.  We're now on board with maybe flying since it's such a short flight, but I'm gonna need some anxiety pills to get onboard or perhaps Amtrak.  Just know that I dont want to drive and leave my car unattended for so long.  Thank you again and happy cruising

 

[Therese S.]

On 12/27/2023 at 7:06 AM, disneyochem said:

Lots of great advice!  I want to give you some feedback on our experience riding Amtrak.

 

We frequently take Amtrak from the Sacramento area to LA and San Diego for cruises.  Once in LA, we just Uber to San Pedro and stay at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and walk to port the next day.  Round trip cost for two on Amtrak is around $200 and is about 7 hours each way.  Cost of Uber normally costs us about $70-100 (RT to/from port).  So it generally costs us about $300 in travel costs to sail out of San Pedro.  (For a San Diego cruise, we get on the Pacific Surf Liner and stay the night in San Diego.)

 

The worst part about the Amtrak journey is the bus transfer from Bakersfield to LA over the Grapevine.  So you go from the train to a bus to an Uber.  It works for us since we travel light.  After cruise, we also just Uber to the train station and do the journey in reverse.  Hubby is tall (over six feet) and really enjoys being able to walk around and stretch during the journey.  Amtrak does experience frequent delays so be sure to build that into your planning (or have a Plan B).

 

For our last cruise out of San Pedro, I priced out the cost of a one-way car rental (our home town to LAX) and ended up just driving and then Ubering to the port.  Cost a bit more than Amtrak (about $100 more) but it was convenient for that particular trip.  For our April 2024 cruise, we’re taking Amtrak both ways.

Thank you for this helpful information.  It opens the door for possibly sailing out of San Diego instead of the long drive from Sacramento. 

[Therese S.]

On 12/24/2023 at 4:11 AM, PescadoAmarillo said:

We’ve cruised for up to 150 days in a row, during our winter season, and we own a house in an area with fairly harsh winters. I’ve just copied this from my blog.  It was kind a tongue-in-cheek list of the things we’d do before we left, but it’s a good starting point. 
 

A partial list of cruise prep to do's:

• Notify credit card companies and bank (for ATM card) that we’ll be out of the country.
• Verify all credit card and ATM card PIN numbers.
• Change auto insurance to comprehensive coverage only.
• Calculate and mail estimated tax payment for Q4 (despite my accounting background, I abhor doing taxes and hate this one with a passion!).
• Kiss and make up after arguing while doing taxes. 
• Vacuum and wipe out all furnace ducts and vent covers.
• Start up furnace and pray.
• Shut off gas fireplace.
• Turn gas fireplace on again, because it got damn cold outside.
• Shut off gas fireplace again. 
• Print Christmas card mailing labels for us and Mom.
• Put Christmas card in envelopes and give to Martha to mail in December.
• Print hard copies of all reservations- flights, hotels, excursions and cruise (including cruise invoices showing On Board Credits)- because I don’t quite trust the electronic confirmations and tickets on our iDevices. 
• Change all online financial passwords.
• Backup laptops onto hard drives and take hard drives to safe deposit box. 
• Take valuable and sentimental jewelry to safe deposit box and promise myself that next summer I really will wear it (I do this every. single. year. but never follow through).
• Get passports and Australian currency left over from 2006 Transpacific cruise from safe deposit box.
• Dig out scuba certification cards just in case we decide to scuba dive
• Clean up perennial beds in yard.
• Saw down tree in yard that looks like it might fall down while we are away.
• Honor every Garbage Day Eve by purging yard and basement and garage trash.
• Clean house completely about a week before leaving and do a light touch up after the suitcases are packed.
• Scrub garbage disposal well to eliminate odors while away. 
• Really well. 
• Dispose of vacuum cleaner bags in upstairs and downstairs canister vacs. Clean their filters. Replace with new bags. 
• Clean out bag-less rechargeable vacuum.
• Lubricate and empty shredder.
• Fill up cars and put gas stabilizer in tanks.
• Clean the deck.
• Bring suitcases up from basement and open them on deck to air out. Vacuum still more sand out of them, leftover from beautiful beaches of cruise seasons past.
• Reminisce together about all those beautiful beaches of cruise seasons past. 
• Purchase and mail all Q4 birthday cards early, because of course I did. 
• Tweak security system. Test iPhone apps that control furnace, security webcams and lights. 
• Update all apps and operating system on iDevices.
• Foster house plants out to friends.
• Leave laptops and household keys with friends. 
• Give mail key and storage tub to friends.
• Distribute cruise calendar to friends and family. 
• Promise neighbors they will be the first to know if we unexpectedly return home early.
• Apologize again for stirring up the neighborhood when we did just that last year. 
• Really promise. 
• Finally, work on cruise beautification efforts, including hair cut, hair color, give self a mani/pedi and apply Sally Hansen Nail Strips in Frock Star (because it is nice to know that some things just never, ever change!).
• Unplug all unneccessary lights and appliances.
• Watch as much football as time allows, trying to get our fix before we leave. 

And, of course, shutting off the water goes without saying. I also lifted the toilet seat and covered the bowl with plastic wrap keep sewer gases from backing up into the house, closed all bathtub and sink stoppers and covered shower drains for the same reason. We’d leave all cabinet doors open with plumbing on the outside walls of the house, and leave the heat set on 50°, though we had a WiFi thermostat and could bump it up remotely if the weather looked especially frigid or like we might lose power. 
 

We pay bills entirely online, so receiving mail was the least of our issues. The biggest issue we ever had was that a credit card we used for automatic payments (that stayed in our safe deposit box) was hacked at the credit card company. They emailed us that they were mailing us a new one. We were at the beginning of a several month season in French Polynesia with really poor internet. A friend had to go through our mail, find that envelope, call us with the information and we had to activate that card from outside the country (the hardest part) and change over the payment info for all of those vendors. But even that was able to be done, just not easily. 

This is quite a list and one Ive printed for future reference…thank you 

Edited January 8 by Therese S.

[dmwnc1959]

Want to jump in and say THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to this thread!!! I’ve saved this to a list of other tips that I’ve received on Cruise Critic in the past few weeks on shipboard life. Can never be too prepared! 

 

😁

Edited February 18 by dmwnc1959

[Arizona Wildcat]

On 12/24/2023 at 12:37 AM, Therese S. said:

Thank you,  I would  never thought of turning the water off

Turn off the water INSIDE.  We leave outside water and have automatic drip watering.

Amtrak works well.  Just double check the schedule as arrivals and departures can be at any time.

We also deinsure our vehicles and suspend the plates - they are paid.  Save us about $1500 for the 5-6 months we travel each year.

[STEVENJAN]

On 1/7/2024 at 11:19 PM, Therese S. said:

 

Thank you everyone for your responses and especially to PescadoAmarillo for your long detailed list.  I have printed it out as a reminder.  All the help and tips have convinced me not to worry, so I went ahead and booked the 54 day RT from LA to Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand on the Island Princess.  Just typing out the ports makes me excited!  IP is not my favorite ship, but you book the ship that goes where you want to go!  I have two years to plan, where to board the cats, son will check on house once a week and get mail.  I also plan to set up all remaining bills on direct pay from checking account.  I will leave the decision of turning off water, water heater, etc to the husband.  We're now on board with maybe flying since it's such a short flight, but I'm gonna need some anxiety pills to get onboard or perhaps Amtrak.  Just know that I dont want to drive and leave my car unattended for so long.  Thank you again and happy cruising

 

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/how-does-one-get-to-the-san-pedro-cruise-terminal-from-the-amtrak-lax-station

[cruise4mom]

This may be long so I will apologize in advance. 
 

As far as household duties go bills, pets, house security etc can all be handled. The bills can be placed on auto pay or paid in advance. You could also pay them on a sea day if you wished. For the let’s I would ask a family member or friend to keep the pets during this time. As far as household security you can have a neighbor family member etc stop by and keep an eye on it. Stop your mail during the sailing. I saw that your son assisted during your previous tours so perhaps you could enlist some other people to help. If not perhaps a pet sitter could address the issue of pets and house security at the same time. 
 

As far as parking and the costs, I would spend the money on a flight and transfers instead of the fees for parking. 
 

I fully understand your head spinning  due to all the planning but as you said it is a once in a lifetime trip. If you just wait for the perfect or better time it will never happen. Good luck! 

[skynight]

18 hours ago, cruise4mom said:

Stop your mail during the sailing.  

USPS will only stop mail for 30 days. If delayed beyond 30 days it is returned to the sender. If you are away longer than 30 days you have to make other arrangements. I have someone in the community who watches my home and picks up the mail for a small cost. Our mail is delivered to a central community mailbox location, not to the home. 

[Yehootu]

1 hour ago, skynight said:

USPS will only stop mail for 30 days. If delayed beyond 30 days it is returned to the sender. If you are away longer than 30 days you have to make other arrangements. I have someone in the community who watches my home and picks up the mail for a small cost. Our mail is delivered to a central community mailbox location, not to the home. 

What you can also do is have a friend or even a very friendly mail person, It's amazing what a yearly Christmas gift to them will do, put in a second hold slip. Our Mailwoman used to do this for my Mom every year. I commute and am all over the place and have found a valuable service is the USPS mail notification service, with this service you get a preview of what's in your daily mail delivery. I designed my mailbox at my Hawaii home so my mail goes through a slot into my garage closet and into a large kitchen garbage can. I can have a friend check anything I might have questions about. After a $2 pipe caused a 57K renovation in our LAS home, I've installed water shutoffs on my homes. It's a "T" handle we close on our way out. The outside water for sprinklers and pool fill still work, only no inside water. I carry my laptop and use a VPN to do anything I need secure on my laptop, or use cellular data in port to do any financial transactions. Facetime has gotten pretty good on board to be able to talk to the kids and grandkids. 

[57eric]

I endorse the rental car alternative to parking.  Here's another option.  My wife and I had a very long cruise booked which we ultimately didn't take.  Our plan was to sell the car near the port (probably Carmax) and buy another when we returned.  Depending on how long you were planning to keep the car, it might work out.