11 Crucial Tips for Your FIRST Mediterranean Cruise

today i want to share with you 11 tips for your mediterranean cruise are you ready let's go alrighty so we just got back from a mediterranean cruise on the celebrity edge which is a fantastic cruise line i am not going to share too much of the cruise ship with you because there are many many many youtube videos that give you walking tours of the entire every inch of the ship so i don't need to rehash that here and if you want to see that i have my favorite below and please go watch it on his channel he has a fantastic walkthrough of every type of stateroom the entire ship everything so if you're going on celebrity edge take a look at that but today i want to talk to you about mediterranean cruises in general not just celebrity every cruise that you do in the mediterranean these are my top 11 tips for making that experience far far more comfortable and have everything go much more smoothly and have a lot better time so let's go ahead with tip number one and that is getting there early so if you especially are coming from north america or south america australia new zealand anywhere that is not on the same continent or within the same area i highly recommend that you get there early and by early i mean at least a day ideally at least two days but if you want to build it into your vacation then obviously you can come as early as you want to come luckily none of our flights got cancelled but especially if you're going this year flights are getting canceled and delayed left and right so it's even more important that you get there early just in case there's a cancellation a delay something happens you don't miss getting on your cruise so get there early the cool thing about that is you can also build it into your vacation so you can explore that city that you're leaving from and be able to extend your vacation a little bit and give you a little bit more in depth of that particular city because one thing about cruises is it's really just snippets of each city you're only really there for eight hours ten hours maybe if you're lucky you might be there overnight but for the most part you're only in each city tiny tiny little bit so if you can extend the beginning city and the ending city all the better because you can get a far more in depth with those cities all right speaking of arriving and getting that whole thing going i also highly recommend that when you book your cruise make sure you and you might want to book it yourself through the cruise line directly but i highly recommend that you also check with a big travel agency or someone affiliated with a big agency if you have an amex card check amex if you belong to aaa check aaa or costco if you have costco check costco and if you don't have any of those then find a travel agent who's affiliated with a big travel agency there are little home-based travel agents that belong to large consortiums and large agencies that can have access to what i'm about to tell you no the reason why i want you to check these big agencies is because they have more buying power more negotiating power with the cruise lines so oftentimes when you look through them they will give you extra perks better than what you're finding by booking through the cruise line directly so you'll get extra room credit you can get discounts you can get upgrades you can get extra amenities in your room all sorts of things that you can get by going through a big agency because they have these packages that they're allowed to offer you these extra extras that they're allowed to offer to you so for instance we booked our cruise through american express their travel agency and we got extra room credit i think we got an extra 500 in room credit we got a bottle of champagne when we arrived um and then i think there was one other i think there was an upgrade that we got as well so it was by far worth it to check at least check with those big agencies and see what extras you can get and be able to take advantage of those extra opportunities on that note of booking things when you are pricing your flights to get there i priced all of the usual places that i recommend people price their flights i went to google flights i went to some of my old travel agency friends have access to some of those consortiums and things that i could book lights through i checked there i checked with the flights directly i checked everywhere and i kept finding the same basic pricing structure for some reason i was hesitant to check through the cruise line but one day i was fed up because i wasn't finding what i was looking for and i decided to check through the cruise line and they blew me away they saved about 500 on airfare per person by going through the celebrity air department and getting my flights through there but not only did they save me money they also allowed me to reserve the flight without any money down i didn't have to pay for the flight until i paid for the crews in general my my whole cruise they also were available to while we were traveling for any emergencies that came up during travel which i have a story to share with you in just one second and because they saved us money we were able to upgrade our flight and fly business class which i'm telling you if you're going to europe especially from far away it's definitely worth it to get business class when you're traveling 20 some hours on the flight so by going through the the air department and celebrity i was able to do those things now the story i was going to tell you so we they do offer help during your flight so if something is canceled delayed something changes you can call them 24 hours a day and they will help you fix it so when we were coming home my daughter's flight we ended up on different flights and my daughter's flight was delayed leaving it was delayed a few hours but by doing that it shortened her layover so they would miss their connecting flight and so she was able to call the air department and they immediately fixed it they got her on a totally different flight that was non-stop they just took care of it for her so i highly recommend at least looking through your cruise lines air department and see what it is that they offer because by booking it through them you might have some of those extra perks that might make it worth it for you now if you don't book through them and in general i highly recommend always get travel insurance that is my next tip and kind of a bonus tip because i don't have it on my list but my bonus tip is to get travel insurance especially right now with a covid coming and going at a whim you never really know or monkey pox or anything else going on right now but also all the cancellations and all the delays if you find yourself in a situation where you're cancelled delayed your baggage gets lost because they moved you to a different flight and they didn't bring your baggage along or whatever happens or you're traveling and you lose your money your passport your id then travel insurance will help protect you they will help you make those new arrangements they will help give you the money if you need money to make those new arrangements they will help you get your new passport if you lose your passport sometimes they'll even give you cash if you if you get pickpocketed and take all your cash so i highly recommend travel insurance regardless of if you get error through the cruise line or not always always always get travel insurance oh my next tip is picking the right cruise line for your needs so cruise lines if you don't know already they're similar to hotels in that if you're going to a three-star hotel it's a certain level of service a certain level of amenities and things that you expect same thing with four star versus five star cruise lines are the same you have your mast lines which are gonna be like carnival royal caribbean they are going to be more crowded they usually have four to six thousand passengers on board so far more crowded uh they are going to have a ton of activities these are the ships you see on tv that have water slides and ice skating rinks and zip lines and surfing off the back the flow rider things those are those ships those are what those are going to have but again by having a far more people uh they're gonna be a little cheaper and they're gonna be a little more crowded and a little bit less service but if you're traveling with kids and family and you want a lot of activities fantastic fantastic if you are kind of wanting a little bit more service a little more luxury a little more upgrading as far as the food the rooms the amenities things like that then you're wanting to go with the premium class premium class is usually where i choose to cruise and that is celebrity princess holland america but celebrity and princess are my favorite i don't like holland america but if you're a holland america lover more more power to you that's the premium class not going to have the water slides and stuff but you will have beautiful pools you'll still have casinos you'll still have broadway style shows and things of that nature so you'll still get some of those amenities but you'll get less people closer to two to three thousand people instead of six there's usually more staff per guest so you get a little bit better level of service you get a little bit better level of food and it's just a little bit more luxury all the way around and then if you are a luxury traveler then you want to go to the higher level this used to be crystal who's no longer in business now although i heard somebody's going to buy them and re-restart them but uh this is going to be your silver seas this is going to be uh your um oh i'm blinking on the name i can't remember the name i'll tell you some of the names but these are going to be your super luxury lines there's these are going to be far smaller ships far smaller you might only have 700 passengers less thousand passengers you're going to have far more staff per person it is going to be luxury like staying at a five-star resort like staying out of four seasons or something of that nature it's gonna be much higher on your food your service and just the quality of what you're getting it's a far more luxurious cruise when you go to the mediterranean think about the experience you want to have and then choose accordingly and then go book it with one of those big travel agencies that can give you lots of perks all right so now you're on your cruise you're exporting the mediterranean one thing that you want to remember is these are just snippets they're just tiny little bites of these cities there's no way you're going to be able to explore florence to the fullest pisa rome um can paris anywhere is that you're going paris technically isn't the mediterranean but you know what i mean you're not going to be able to explore each of these cities and probably as much as you would like to because when you go to these cities they're gorgeous and beautiful and amazing if you've never been there before you want to see everything yours to see the only downside is there's minimum amount of time so just know that going in knowing you're only going to have a little brief moment in time don't try to fit everything in it's you're going to be exhausted and it won't be any fun just pick one thing you want to exceed or explore or do and do that and enjoy it and love it and then just make mental notes of all of the places you love and then go back another time and actually stay in that location for a little bit longer so that you can actually enjoy and experience it all one of these places that i absolutely loved is portofino it was gorgeous and amazing and it was tiny so you felt like you could see it all but honestly it doesn't do it justice it's just a taste so we will go back later to explore portofino and some of the other little cities along the mediterranean so just know that going in and don't think you're going to see everything and do everything it's just going to be like a sampler platter and you're just going to sample them and then plan another time to go back and explore more fully the places you want to go now the caveat to that is obviously where you leave from and where you end because those you can build onto or you can plan to come back to some of those places so i'd already talked about adding time at the beginning of your cruise but also you might want to consider adding time at the end so for our cruise we left out a room and we ended in barcelona rome i added days on and i'm glad we did because we got to explore however i didn't do it in barcelona i was worried by the time we got to the end we'd be exhausted and just want to go home and now i wish i had less time in rome and added another couple days in barcelona so we could have explored barcelona because as it was all we did is drive through on the way to the airport and that's all of barcelona that i got to see so if you have an opportunity to add time to the beginning and into the end so that you can explore those cities and a little bit more in depth as well and if you already know there's a city on your route that you want to spend more time in perhaps add that on as well you can add it to the end and then either you know take a shuttle a bus a train something down to that city or to that city and add a little more time there just because you're on a cruise doesn't mean that's all you can do yes it's a sampler platter but you can always build it out and explore and add things at the beginning and at the end that will make your trip just far more glorious and especially if you're coming from far away you don't want to waste the time and the travel that you've done and you really want to make the most of your european vacation so think about that think about adding some things in the beginning in the end and making your experience far more enjoyable for you so in regard to cruises specifically you have shore excursions and if you're not familiar with cruising is they usually have in each port that you go to the cruise ship itself offers a variety of tours activities things that you can do sponsored through the ship now there are some benefits to this a they keep track of it so you don't have to worry about a tour coming back late and the ship leaving without you or you accidentally booked something that starts before the ship even gets there which has happened uh so they monitor things for you they've also vetted all of the tours and things so they know that they're safe they're not going to put any of their guests on anything that would be not safe or potentially risky in some way i personally will do them occasionally because some of the negatives of the shore excursions is they tend to be way overcrowded way overcrowded even on those luxury ships you tend to get a lot more people on your tours and if you are the kind of person that loved people then fine that's good for you do it but i don't like crowds i hate crowds actually and so i usually avoid the tours and things that are big masses the people and i usually go towards more private tours and things of that nature so just know if you're going on a cruise you don't have to do the ship's shore excursions you can choose to do your own as well now there's a few caveats to that that you need to know a you need to make sure your timing is right you need to make sure whatever you decide to do it doesn't leave before the ship actually arrives and secondly you want to make sure you're going to be back in plenty of time before the ship leaves because ships do not wait for guests they do not wait they will leave so you want to make sure you're back in plenty of time also you want to make sure that that particular port allows you to have private things to do and doesn't require you to do a shore excursion uh when i was in the caribbean there were some islands that you could only get off the ship if you were doing one of the shore excursions so you need to check that as well and the way you check those things is just check on your cruise lines itinerary they should for each port tell you exactly what the arrival and departure times are but also if there's any stipulations with regards to our private tours allowed or if you have to go on a shore excursion or what the situation may be so make sure you keep those things in mind and if you want to do something outside of the shore excursion by the ship there are tons of places you can go to look for those things you can either do it yourself rent a car do something yourself you can book something like through viator which has tons of tours and activities available and uh reviews you can pick and choose who what what looks good to you they also have a lot of private tours and things you can do so just know you're not stuck with just the excursion though the excursion is definitely a possibility for you so just depends on what you want to experience and how secure you want it to be and how willing you are to maybe play around a little bit just make sure you get back to the ship in time they will leave i promise you they will leave alright the other thing about the mediterranean in general about europe in general is the conditions of what you can do so if you have mobility issues at all you might want to do a little bit more research into the possibilities in the places you're going everywhere we went in our mediterranean cruise most of the places were big touristy places but it was cobblestones everywhere everywhere if not more when we were in rome it wasn't just cobblestones there was an area over by the coliseum which was actually big boulders and so it was a little bit harder to you really needed to pay attention where you were stepping over there so if you have mobility issues know that going to europe and make plans around that now for instance we were in portofino which did have cobblestones and i did see people pushing um wheelchairs so it is possible but just know that going in and know that might be an issue but also know that for if you don't have mobility issues for footwear maybe don't wear heels when you're exploring cobblestones you know what i mean so just kind of know those things ahead of time if you're going in the summer it is hot and humid and did i say hot because it is really freaking hot so just know that too plan your day maybe get off of the ship a little earlier in the day when it's not quite as hot or wait and go if you are lucky enough that they're going to be staying into the evening go back in the evening maybe miss during the main heat of the day which also happens to be the busiest time of day when most people are also on shore and just plan around that no it's hot no the roads aren't the greatest for mobility there's i didn't see elevators and things of that nature so just plan around that know that's going to be something and and know what to expect and have a plan for getting around it okay next is talking about language now if you're going to all of those main stops on a mediterranean cruise chances are most of the places at least right there at court are going to speak english so you really aren't going to need much in the way of language although i still highly recommend if you learn some basics in each of the countries you're going to things like hello thank you excuse me and even do you speak english because that could come in very helpful in all the places i went to i i was prepared to speak the language and i had planned to speak the language but when they saw me they immediately knew i was english or english speaking go figure and so they immediately launched into english and i didn't even have a chance to try to use any of the language that i learned so that is something that might happen however i did have to go to the pharmacy a few times and they didn't speak english so the little bit that i did learn came in a little bit handy but i was able to point and mine and we were able to figure out what it needed to do so if you are going on the mediterranean cruise to several countries i wouldn't worry about the language too much again if you can learn a couple smattering of things just to be polite and you know say thank you in their language then i welcome you to it but for the most part you don't have to worry about it those big cities usually have a lot of english speakers especially at the restaurants and the shops where they're expecting tourists to be if you go outside of those big tourist areas the ports where the ships drop off at you might find a little less english so if you know part of you what you're going to do is to explore a tiny town say in france then maybe learn a little bit of french because you don't know if they're going to be able to speak english and you'll want to be able to do at least a minimum of communication when you're there all right my next tip is regarding money now again most of those main tourist areas are going to take credit card they're going to expect of course to use a lot of credit card and so i highly recommend having a good card that does not charge foreign transaction fees you know that you feel safe using in a foreign country gosh though although you don't necess like you could get by without cash you don't necessarily need it i still highly recommend you have some euros because there are going to be times when it was just like for us far easier to give a euro than it was to try to dig out the card and ask if they took credit card so you know for buying a bottle of water or buying a gelato it was just way easier to have cash to pay for that than trying to worry about credit card so i would highly recommend having a little bit of cash with you also a lot of places if you need to use a public restroom they're not just available for for everybody so you might want to have a few euros in case it's a pay toilet you might need to be able to pay in italy that is definitely a thing where you would need to pay these public toilets and then speaking of toilets you also want to know that they're a little different than what you have at home when we were in rome uh some of the toilets that we went to public toilets that we went to for instance don't have toilet seats just know that's a thing also the way they set it up it might have a neutral gen gender neutral washing area and then separate toilet areas for men and women but just know so you don't freak out if you walk in and see the opposite sex standing there it's it's sometimes a gender-neutral area and then toilets are separating after that all right and then my next tip has to do with food so one of the things i always dreamed about going to europe in general was i wanted to explore the food and i thought the food would be so much more amazing than what we get in america i don't know why i just assumed that everything is fresher and doesn't have all the preservatives that we have and so i was really looking forward to the food and i think that's true in general but when you're in the main touristy areas and you're going to the main touristy restaurants that's not always the case i'm sure the food is way fresher than what we have here and chemicals and things like that but the actual food quality when i was in a touristy restaurant [Music] honestly wasn't much better than anything that i can get in america it was pretty it was good it was fine it was good but it was kind of standard for what i would get in america if i went to say an italian like a good not talking olive garden talking a good italian restaurant in america was about what i got in in italy same thing with branson with spain it was like it was okay uh but i was primarily in those touristy areas i think if food is something you really want to explore on your mediterranean trip uh if you just go to the touristy areas i think you're going to get disappointed unless you happen to live in a really small town that has terrible italian food or french food then you might be happy but if you live in a town that has decent restaurants of those type of of cuisines then you might be disappointed only going to the touristy areas so if you're a foodie i highly recommend you do some research ahead of time and either a look up the restaurants and know where you want to go and just go there don't show up and expect you're going to just find one so research ahead of time or be look for lines if there's lines chances are it's a good food and it's worth the wait or my last my last tip for that is to get outside of the touristy area go to a little small town away from that main area go outside of the main neighborhood maybe travel a little bit away chances are if you get away from the touristy areas you're going to find far better food quality more home cooking things of that nature but remember know a little bit more of the language if you're going a little farther away and they may or may not take credit cards so make sure you have cash all right my next tip has to do with flights now i already talked about book checking with your cruise lines flight department but with regard to the flight that you actually book i highly recommend if possible pick a direct flight just because again if you're coming from far away that is a very long trip and uh it's it would be nicer not to have a large six hour layover for instance in the middle of it and just get there quicker uh secondly if you can afford to do so i highly recommend upgrading your seat whether it is to the premium or to business or first class if you're fortunate enough to be able to upgrade to that or use your credit card points to upgrade or if you have upgrades through say if you belong to the airlines membership program if you can get upgrades that way i highly recommend if you're going that far do everything you can to upgrade your seat because you will be far more comfortable than sitting in the coat sheets which can be torture after a 10 12 20 hour play so definitely do those things also if you do happen to have connections make sure you're building in plenty of time i don't mean one or two hours i mean a lot especially if your first stop is in a foreign country so for instance we left from los angeles our first stop was london so in london we had to go through another tsa line with their version of tsa which i don't understand why we had to do that since we already did tsa when we got on the plane but we had to go through a tsa line we had to show our passport we had to go through an entire rigamarole to be able to get through plus heathrow in london is ginormous and so it might take you 20 minutes to get to your next gate or terminal things of that nature and and it's not just that heathrow there are other countries too even if they're a smaller airport usually if you're first stop as a foreign country there's going to be some sort of passport control customs type of a situation that you're gonna have to go through so make sure you're building in that time this also protects you in case your flight is delayed for some reason or cancelled or something happens to protect so that you can catch your next flight so make sure you build in plenty of time in those if you find yourself with six hours of time like we did in london then consider using some of the first class lounges now you can either do that because of you happen to be flying obviously business or first class but you can also get it through your credit card a lot of credit cards is like if you have amex either platinum or they're higher level credit cards and some of the others will offer lounge access or lounge buddy access but you can get through that or again through your membership of your airline the other thing you can do is consider buying a day pass which you just gives you and like for 30 say you have access for the whole day and then also there's a third party lounge systems like lounge buddy which gives you access to over 1600 different lounges worldwide you just want to make sure there's a one of their lounges where you're going before you buy their membership program but that's also an option as well just to make that stay or that weight a little more comfortable and then my final thoughts on the flights is make sure you don't and actually isn't so much the flights it's when you're arriving don't plan anything immediately that first day that night say or the very next day because when you get there as if you're coming from far away again if you're coming from the uk and you're going to italy it's not it's what an hour difference if that so it's not a problem but if you're coming from north america south america australia new zealand somewhere and you're coming to europe you want to not plan anything that first night because you're going to be exhausted and you're going to be starving and chances are you're just going to want to eat and go to bed and the second day because you're still going to be a little loopy from the time change and a little bit tired and so you don't want to have to be getting up at six in the morning to do a bunch of tours so don't plan too much the first couple days and then just know that you're gonna need some adjustment period and then you can plan the things that you want to do in that first destination that you're going to all right now if you are taking a mediterranean cruise be sure to check out this video here which will help you with that planning and give you some great ideas and other than that i want to thank you so much for stopping by see you on the next video take care bye

Channel: Crafted Travel Company

Views: 129,393

Keywords: celebrity cruise review, celebrity cruises, cruise tips, cruise tips and tricks, enchanted princess cruise ship, european cruise 2023, european cruise 2024, european cruise tips, european cruises, european cruises 2022, european cruises summer 2022, mediterranean cruise, mediterranean cruise celebrity, norwegian epic

Id: mIqq2Jjbt0I

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022