WARNING: These 6 Overrated Cruise Tips Are Probably Costing You BIG TIME!

I’m just back from a cruise on Explora Journeys Explora 2, and was disappointed how many passengers I met on there are still following cruise tips that frankly I know are overrated and out-of-date. Tips that many cruising articles and videos are still recommending cruisers use.

Welcome aboard. I’m Gary Bembridge, and I want to tell you about four overrated cruise tips I think you should ditch overboard and (importantly) what you should be doing instead.

Overrated Cruise Tips #1: Loyalty

I meet many cruise passengers on cruises who proudly talk about the loyalty status level they’ve built with the line.

Many cruise pundits encourage building loyalty, remarking on the added perks and discounts you can build up. I disagree. Why?

First, it takes a lot of cruises to get to a significant tier with reasonable perks. For example, to get to a level on Royal Caribbean like Diamond with meaningful perks like access to a special lounge with all day snacks and happy hour, priority embarkation and disembarkation, and four drinks vouchers per day, even if you book a seven-night cruise every year, it’ll take you 12 years to reach that level.

Second, if you focus on one line to build loyalty, you’re limited by where they’re going, what ports they call on, what ships they have, and when they’re going. So, you very often will be compromising on the itinerary.

Let me give you some examples. Say you’ve got a cruise line you’re building loyalty with, and you want to go to Alaska.

If it’s not one of the few cruise lines with a licence to go into Glacier Bay, you miss out on one of the best parts of Alaska. But if you’d gone with another line, you’d have an even more incredible experience.

If you’re cruising in the Mediterranean or Asia, many ports are far away from the key towns and sights. Unless you go on a cruise line with smaller ships that can dock within the actual city.

For example, lines like Azamara with smaller ships dock in the centre of Marseilles France, while larger ships are way out in a container port. The same for example if visiting Shanghai China where I went on Crystal and was right in town while bigger ships were miles out.

Third, by switching between lines instead of staying loyal, you can get deals that way exceeds any perks from being loyal.

For example, years ago I used to be loyal to Cunard and so am at their highest tier, but I booked a Holland America South American cruise instead of theirs for roughly the same fare. I have very limited status on Holland America, but the deal at the time included their “Have It All” package.

So, I got Wi-Fi, drinks, gratuities, dining and excursion credits, which not only are way above any of the limited perks I would get on Cunard but would have been add on costs of well over $2,000 if I’d gone on Cunard.
While some lines do offer a free cruise or nights for high status, you’re going to have to spend hundreds of nights on board and spend a fortune. But, by jumping between lines to find the best itinerary at the best price I know you will spend less and get more overall.

Overrated Cruise Tips #2: Excursions

Many fellow passengers, cruise writers, bloggers and vloggers encourage cruisers to use cruise line excursions, mostly as the line says the ship will wait if any of their excursions are delayed getting back before sailaway time.

While this is a plus, I do think using cruise line excursions is an overrated tip these days. Why?

First, cruise line excursions are usually the costliest way of exploring any port.

Cruise lines do not run their excursions, they contract them in most cases to third-party companies like Intercruises (https://www.intercruises.com/what-we-do/shore-excursions/ ) who then source and hire local providers to run them.

So, as well as the line marking the excursion cost up there may also be a middleman cost already marking them up.

This makes cruise line tours expensive. You can often be paying as much as twice as if you were doing the same tour by a local provider.

Second, most cruise lines offer a limited choice. They focus on a few key excursions they know will sell well as they need to fill busses, and they need to hit sales targets. So, if you have a more niche or specialist interest or want to do something a little bit different, you’re probably not going to find it on a cruise line excursion.

Third, most cruise line excursions are larger group sizes with full bus loads.

Fourth, they tend to be designed to tick off and do as much as possible in a port. So, they tend to be pretty rushed around things because they want people to be able to tick off lots of things that they saw or did. If you talk to a tour guide, you will see they have a very detailed schedule of where they need to be, and time is very tight.

Fifth, cruise line excursions keep you within the cruise bubble. You’re not experiencing and interacting much with the local population, nor usually dining locally, and seeing a more authentic side to a port.

So, I think using cruise line excursions is an overrated cruise tip. I suggest trying something different.

Look at using independent providers. They usually offer more diverse excursions, smaller groups and almost always are cheaper. Plus, most guarantee to get you back to the ship as they use local tour guides used to working with cruise passengers, and if for some reason they do not, they will make all arrangements and cover any cost to get to the ship at the next port.

One I recommend and use is called Shore Excursions Group. I like them as I can input my cruise line, the cruise ship and the dates, and that brings up all the tours by port. They only show tours that will work with the times my ship is scheduled to be in port, have that return to ship guarantee, and vet local tour providers constantly.

If you look at using them, you can get 5% off every tour using my link TipsForTravellers.com/ShoreExcursions and enter the code “TFT5” at check out. Link also in the notes of this. That’s TipsForTravellers.com/ShoreExcursions and the code is “TFT5”

If they don’t appeal other good ones include Viator and VentureAshore .

Overrated Cruise Tips #3: Phone

Because of the way things were, most writers, bloggers and vloggers – including me – would strongly stress the importance of switching your mobile phone off or onto “Airplane mode” when on a cruise to avoid costly roaming charges.

If it connects to the ship satellite phone services, and your phone starts downloading emails, updating apps and so on, or you make or receive a call, the costs are absolutely astronomical. Like $6 a minute upwards.

Until now, your only option was to buy rather costly cruise line Wi-Fi to stay connected.

These days this tip is fast heading to being an overrated one, as there are fast emerging options and packages from some mobile phone providers and eSim companies that work when cruising.

For example, AT&T users in the United States can add a cruise package, which allows 1 gigabyte of data, talk and unlimited text on 175 cruise ships at the time of recording. This worked for US AT&T users on that Explora Journeys trip I mentioned at the start of this.

More providers are starting to offer this but check the exact offer and capability carefully. For example, I looked at some other providers, like T-Mobile, which show that theoretically you could connect, but on some ships, it was still $6 a minute but on others included in the cruise package.

There is another option available to everyone and is what I tested out and used on that Explora Journeys trip, which is a cruise package eSim. I used one from GigSky.

GigSky is an e-SIM, so I didn’t have to change the Sim in my phone. It can be used on, at time of recording, 220 cruise ships, and they then connect to Starlink or Satellite at Sea services.

The advantage of this is it’s perfect for people who don’t want to be connected all the time, so avoids buying a costly Wi-Fi package. Ideal for cruisers that want to occasionally check email, do a bit of online browsing, and the occasional WhatsApp or FaceTime call home.

So, for example, 3 gigabytes data for that Explora Journey trip cost me US $60, and I could do web browsing, email, voice calls and even downloaded some Netflix shows to watch. I did not use all the data, so if trying I suggest buy a smaller package as easy to add on.

If you try any of these out, do still remember to check carefully and see if you need to put your phone into Airplane Mode, with GigSky I had to switch off my regular phone provider off, which was simple to do, so that did not connect to ship services.

You can find out more about GigSky that I used using the link TipsForTravellers.com/GigSky,

Overrated Cruise Tips #4: Packages

Another thing that I see many writers, bloggers, and vloggers recommend as a tip is buying packages to save money.

Things like those all-inclusive packages, such as Norwegian’s “More At Sea”, Celebrity “Always Included”, Holland America “Have it All”, and Princess Plus, or on lines without bundled packages then drinks, Wi-Fi, Speciality Dining, and Photo packages.

But I think this tip is overrated too. Why?

Do you really believe that cruise lines are going to offer packages so we save money? Of course not! They have created and sell packages because it means that we are going to spend more money on board – not less.

Onboard spending is key to cruise lines profits, especially for value cruise lines. They have low fares to get people on board and then it’s sell, sell, sell. They want us to buy and spend on board, and they’ve clearly found that packages are a successful way of driving up the amount of money we spend on board.

To confirm this, I do see in the reports that the cruise lines make every quarter to Wall Street, all reporting how the amount that we spend per head on board is going up and up.

Those reports also show that most passengers spend between another 50% and 100% of the fare paid once on board. So, these packages are a significant part of that spend, and I believe for most passengers buying things more ad hoc is likely to cost less.

So, while I think the tip to buy packages is overrated for that reason, I do concede that it’s not overrated as a tip in the following two situations.

First, if like I do sometimes, I just want the convenience of buying a package. Knowing I’ve paid for everything before I get on the ship can make the trip more enjoyable sometimes. I don’t have to think about, nor track, what I’m spending.

Second, they work when I have spent time to calculate if will save me money based on my cruise habits.

For many cruises, I will look at each of the packages and calculate if they are a saving.

For example, premium and streaming Wi-Fi is important to me because I always work on board and need to upload and download video files, and I like to download or stream TV shows to keep up with them.

So, in most cases the all-inclusive packages do not work at all as they don’t include premium streaming Wi-Fi. So, it’s silly to buy a package which includes Wi-Fi when I’m going to have to pay for what I really need.

When it comes to drinks package, while I don’t drink alcohol, I do drink speciality coffees, sodas, and alcohol-free beers so I compare buying ad hoc to what a package would cost using easy-to-use online drinks package calculators like those on Cruzely.com and CruiseMummy.co.uk sites. I have put links in the notes.

Again, I find many of those all-inclusive packages don’t work for me because they are including a big drinks package.

But for alcohol drinkers, the drinks packages are based on and priced at including up to 15 drinks a day. So, consider if you are really going to drink that much every day, or would ad hoc work out much cheaper.

So, my tip is work out if the packages are really saving you money do not assume they are a great deal

I also think that there are many overrated tips when it comes to cruise cabins. So, why don’t you join me over in this video where I talk about what I’m seeing smart cruisers do these days when it comes to cabins and why you should too. See you over there.