This advice made our first family cruise easier and more fun
Taking a family cruise can be as daunting as it is exciting. Questions stuff into the mind like too many outfits crammed into an overpacked suitcase: Will we be okay at sea? What about keeping in touch with news, home, work, friends, and family? How do we figure out what to do if we don’t know something? Fortunately, some first-time cruise tips for families helped us get more out of our cruise.
Some quick context on our traveling and cruising family
Our family of four has crossed the entire USA in a motorhome. We’ve traveled the world from Malaysia to Mexico to Morocco. We’re basing our first-time cruise tips on our family’s first cruise: a 14-night voyage from Seattle, USA, to Yokohama, Japan, on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas. (Instead of go big or go home, for us it was go big… and go to Japan!)
1. Set up the cruise line app (and free messaging) on phones and tablets
It’s hard to overstate the obvious: A cruise ship is a big hunk of steel floating in the ocean, a long long way from land. Often, your phone’s cell service will be off and your device in airplane mode. Internet service is getting better (and during our cruise was pretty darn seamless and snappy even when in the middle of the Pacific). But internet at sea can still be tricky—not to mention expensive.
Our family travels with multiple devices. However, we chose to conserve budget and encourage offline activities by only getting a one-device-at-a-time internet package. Anytime one of us needed to be online, we could log into our cruise app on our device, which would take over the internet connection for our room’s package.
Free to use though?
Royal Caribbean’s app is free to download and use. We put it on each adult’s phone. With Connor nearing the big one-three, we used our cruise to test out him having a phone. We also loaded the app onto Aster’s tablet.
The advantage? While internet access has a cost, the app is a huge resource for cruisers. It shows activities and dining for each day (and with a tap we could add activities to our own personal calendars).
Plus, the app has a free messaging service. In-app messages work over the ship’s wifi whether you have an internet package or not. Using the app and its messaging service helped us coordinate, and the kids could let us know what they were up to.
Was it worth it? You bet. Especially when our pre-teen messaged us one evening that he was going to teen karaoke with the other kids.
2. Map position via the TV map feed every day
When I fly, I love pulling up the live map feed of where the plane is. Those stats of how far we’ve gone and how far there is to go? That’s candy to me.
Cruise ships have a similar offering. The TV in our room had a live map. In the morning, at night, and often during the day, we’d pop it on to see where we were. Given we were going from the US West Coast all the way to Japan, we could marvel at how far we had to go—such as the morning of the third day. We had traveled 870 nautical miles… and still had 3,466 nautical miles to go.
As with the airplane map, we found the cruise ship live map helped us in another way. It gave each of us, especially the kids, context on where we were, where we had been, and how far we had to go. Plus, each day could turn up interesting observations and questions, such as:
- Wind speed: What is a knot?
- Pressure: What is a hectopascal (hPa) or millibar (mb)?
- Sea depth: When the sea is 5,410 km deep, how many miles is that? What is a similar distance on land that we’re familiar with?
3. Ask the crew questions
If our travel experience (not to mention Anthony’s experience interviewing people for articles) has taught us anything, it’s always to be willing to ask questions. Not only can you gain perspective from someone else’s point of view, you can get more first-time cruise tips for families.
Since we were on our first cruise, there were so many things we had to figure out. We knew that whenever we needed to know something, we needed to ask a crew member.
Sometimes people feel nervous asking questions. Often that comes from a concern that they are inconveniencing someone.
I’m going to give you a little life hint: You’re not. On a cruise ship, the crew is there in no small part to see that you are having a good experience, and that your needs and wants are getting attention. If you have a question or are uncertain about something, they want to know.
Here are a few questions we asked:
- Q: How do we get ice? A: Our stateroom attendant said he would bring us a filled ice bucket in the morning and another in the evening.
- Q: Could we take a few snacks to the room? A: Both in main dining and the buffet, the crew hooked us up with a few bites. In main dining, it was a platter of bread and rolls (especially useful on days when the sea was rough, and staying full eased potentially queasy tummies). At the buffet, it was apples and bananas, easy to have on hand and keep our snacks healthy and balanced.
- Q: How in blazes do we find a table when the buffet dining is so packed? A: At the buffet, a crew member was always ready to help us and other diners find a place to sit.
4. Unpack and organize your stateroom as soon as you get in
Travel guide and mentor Rick Steves has observed that whether he’s at a hotel or on a cruise ship, the first thing he does upon arrival is unpack.
We’ve adopted that ethos, and it’s made our travel days, especially arrival days, so much smoother. Unpacking right away is one of our most important first-time cruise tips for families.
While at port on our embarkation day, the moment we could get into our stateroom, we didn’t throw down our bags and rush to check out the ship. We put on some music, got familiar with the storage options and overall spaces in our room, and completely unpacked. Instead of dealing with our bags later (or stumbling over them), having our things put away helped us feel settled. Then we were all the more ready to roam the ship (especially to find the free soft-serve ice cream).
Naturally, this will vary by cabin, what you brought, etc., but here are a few pointers that helped us stay organized as a family in a small space:
- Designate a drawer per person, and set aside specific spaces for things such as charging, tech storage, etc.
- Look for pegs or hooks that you can hang jackets, backpacks, purses, or lanyards from
- Ship motion can knock things over (which can wake you up in the middle of the night). Instead of standing up toiletries (such as deodorant or electric toothbrushes), lay them down or keep them in your toiletry bag.
- Your cabin steward or stateroom attendant will take care of making up your bedding in the evening and morning; talk with them about a time that works for you, and call them for help when needed, or if you need a different time for setting up bedding
- Store shoes under the bed or in a closet near the door, where they’re less likely to be cluttered tripping hazards
5. Take time in the evening to set priorities for the following day
Every day of every cruise sailing will have a lot going on. Naturally, you’re not going to do everything. But as you mix your personal cocktail of downtime and activity time, a little preparation makes it easier to know what’s in store for the day.
Cruise lines want you to be in the know about what’s happening on the ship. Some distribute free printed newsletters, but more and more, you’ll find that info in the cruise line’s app. For example, on board our Royal Caribbean cruise, the app has a calendar section that breaks down every event on an hour-based list. When we see something we’re interested in, we can add it to our own personal calendars.
Usually after dinner, we’d roll through the following day’s calendar and add anything we planned to do or whatever simply took our fancy. We also quickly saw the rhythm our days might take. For example, I was often interested in cruise talks and seminars, on everything from the history of Royal Caribbean, to how airplane incidents are investigated. Those were either mid-morning or early afternoon. Typically anything I was interested in was done by mid-afternoon, leaving me with wide open stretches of downtime (and, ahem, writing time) until dinner.
Reviewing the calendar was also helpful with the kids. Connor generally lived his days by the teen center’s open hours. Aster sometimes wanted to go to the kids center, Adventure Ocean, or pick different making activities. Jodie got a massage and tried out the choir. For each of us, looking over the schedule the day before helped plan not only our activities, but when we wanted to regroup as a family too.
Stay open to opportunities on the day, for sure. But one of our first-time cruise tips is to mix in some planning and routine too.
6. Share a one-device-at-a-time internet package
Connectivity at sea is not cheap, though thankfully today’s connections are getting better and better. Our family of four is online for work and for school. However, we didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on a multi-device internet package, and we didn’t want to constantly be online.
One of our first-time cruise tips for families? Save money and decrease screen time with a one-device-at-a-time internet package.
We bought a one-device-at-a-time package through Royal Caribbean’s Voom internet service. Shared through our stateroom account, we could have one device online at time. If another wanted to use the connection, we communicated, then that person could simply sign in through their device and take over the service. Switching was easy, and we found it a good balance for connecting to tend to a few work and school tasks, while also being focused on our time on the ship.
7. Have a balcony
When we first began looking at our Seattle to Yokohama cruise, we thought we’d go with an inside cabin. It’d be cheaper, after all.
By the time we booked, however, we wound up in a balcony cabin. It cost us more, though to be fair was still a pretty darn good deal. It was also very worth it.
Having a balcony isn’t for everyone. We found that the windows and balcony space, not to mention additional light, made our cabin feel bigger, brighter, and more like home. We all enjoyed going onto the balcony for fresh air and the sound of the sea.
Plus, our cabin wound up being about in the middle of the ship, about midway between the lower and upper decks. It was a good combo of convenient location and queasiness-preventing stability. On days when the sea was rough, we felt it less. Since we were in the middle of the ship (or, in nautical lingo, midships), we were pretty much equidistant from the forward (front) and aft (rear), making for easy access to any activity anywhere on board.
8. Stock up pre-cruise on seasickness patches and medications
As much as we love playing on the water, crossing the northern Pacific Ocean for two weeks in October by ship is a different game. We knew there’d be rough days at sea, or times when we’d likely be steering around storms.
How likely might we be to get seasick?
We wound up with minimal queasiness. However, we made sure we were stocked up on seasickness patches and medications. With two weeks at sea, we ordered chewable motion sickness tablets (they have a slightly citrus flavor), along with herbal stick-behind-the-ear patches. Jodie often wears a patch. We’ve put our motion sickness meds to use in advance of rough weather, so we’re less likely to feel queasy.
Plus, the peace of mind of knowing we had these on board has been a big help. It made those rough sea days less stressful and easier to weather. As one of our first-time cruise tips for families, we suggest traveling with some seasickness patches and meds.
Even if you don’t need them, you’ll be glad you’ve got them.
9. Pack magnetic hooks, colored lanyards, and a few other cabin-sweet-cabin touches
One of our favorite things to do when going along a cabin corridor? We looked to see who had cool magnets on the door. Some folks had up polls (first-time or seasoned cruiser?). Others announced that they had started retirement. These flares of identity, preference, or simple whimsy were an insight into the innate joy that comes with cruising.
This time, our touches were just for inside our cabin. Next time, we’ll have cool magnets too.
Jodie ordered four magnetic hooks that we can stick on our door or the metal cabin walls. Two hooks held our straw hat jolly roger flag from the One Piece manga and anime. Two hooks on the door held our lanyards with our SeaPass cards. It was easy to snag them when we left, or put them away in the right place when we returned. We also each had our own color: purple for Jodie, red for Aster, black for Connor, and blue for me.
There’s also a tradition among many cruisers to hide ducks or duck-themed little whimsies around the ship. So if you were on the October 2024 Seattle to Yokohama/Tokyo cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas and happened to find some teeny colorful ducks, they might have been hidden by Connor and Aster.
BONUS 10. Working out isn’t just for the fitness center
Fun fact: I thought I was done drafting these tips. Then, one morning after I did my yoga and floor mat exercise routine in the fitness center, Connor and I packed up our computers and went to the aft lounge and performance space, 270.
Now, on board Quantum of the Seas, 270 was possibly my favorite space that was not our balcony stateroom. Comfy chairs and tables made it easy to relax with a book or (like I’m doing) taking care of some work. The previous night, all four of us were in the front balcony seats, enjoying a performance of the ship’s signature music and dance show, Starwater.
The next morning, not only were people enjoying the view of the ship’s wake from the wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows. People were running stairs on the small staircases between stepped seating levels. A couple of people practiced tai chi. Others grabbed a low railing and used it for elevated pushups.
I’d thought of 270 as a lounge and entertainment space. Now I realized it could be a no-equipment-needed fitness center.
To be clear, the on-board, top-deck fitness center at the forward end of the ship is stellar. It’s clean, bright, and has lots of equipment and floor space. However, it’s so popular in the mornings, that sometimes it’s hard to find a bit of floor space. (I also know myself well enough to know that if I don’t exercise first thing, I won’t do it at all.)
Turns out that 270 also hosts a morning stretch session. But if your workout is pretty contained and doesn’t need equipment, spacious lounges similar to this can be a great alternate workout space—as long as no other events are going on at the time.
Best first-time cruise tips: A little preparation and a touch of whimsy make your cruise better and more fun
There was a time when we had never been to another country as a family of four. There was also a time when we had not RV’d across the entire USA. We can say that there was a time when we had never taken a cruise.
Now we’ve been to over a dozen countries. We’ve RV’d the USA from Washington State to Florida, and from Texas to Michigan. Plus we now can say we’ve also not only taken a cruise, we’ve crossed the entire Pacific Ocean.
When you cruise, there are so many ways you can prepare. Plus, so many things on board help you have a better time. As you prepare for a cruise, we hope our 9 first-time cruise tips for families help you have an even better time—and maybe leave a few ducks for someone to find and bring a smile to their face too.
