kevinbwood@koalacomputers.com

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  1. Cruising with Woody and Marina
  2. Before the Cruise and non-excursion photos
  3. Day 2 The Bahamas
  4. Day 3 At sea
  5. Day 4 Jamaica
  6. Day 5 Cayman Islands
  7. Day 6 Cozumel, Mexico
  8. Day 7 At sea
  9. Day 8 Disembark

To hell and back again (Or Kevin and Marina cruise the Caribbean)

Note about the title - The actual cruise was devine. The 'hell' referred to in the title is actually a location in the Cayman Islands.

First a note about the ship:

As this was our first cruise, Marina and I were nervous. So what does Woody do when he is anxious? He plans. We watched several YouTube videos about cruising. They were very helpful, especially LifeWellCruised. We were booked on the Princess Cruise Line, and the YouTubes we watched covered other cruise lines like Carnival, but the advice still applied.

Your Medallion is your Key - literally!

On 'our' cruise line, the ship uses a medallion. It is similar in size and shape to an Apple iTag. It acts as your key (to your room) and a locator beacon. You can wear it in a wristband or in a lanyard (they provide the lanyard free of charge). You can order the wristband for a slight fee. Marina used the wristband, I used a lanyard. As the device IS waterproof, do NOT take it off at any point during the cruise - even when on an excursion (more on this later.) By wearing it on a lanyard (I have several of my own, so I used one of those), I could tuck it under my shirt. (It still worked).

While you can (and should) order your medallion in advance, mine did not arrive, but boarding was still very rapid. Your medallion is your passport for cruise related activities ONLY during the cruise, both onboard and while on shore. It does NOT act as a regular passport for entering or leaving the US or other countries!

There is an app for that

Another must have is the app specific to the cruise line. It works on the phone (or iPad if that is your preference). With it, I can order (as I did) my ginger beer. If I want to find my cabin or a specific restaurant, or even my travelling companion, not only will it show me where it is on the ship, It will plot a route to get me TO me desired destination. . . now where is my cabin? And how do I get back?

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor performance - and the Early Bird gets the excursions

In preparation for our trip, Kevin and Marina (mostly Kevin with Marina claiming "We need to watch YoTube videos", then leaving the room during the video) watched several videos about crusing. Some recurring (and useful themes:)

Excursions - Just because you are ON a ship does not mean you have to stay ON the ship

YouTube mentioned booking your excursions in advance. I second this. Even though we were performing our pre-onboarding activities over a month in advance, many excursions were already booked and unavailable. The same with some of the restaurants and specialty dining. The excursions still available were extraordinary, but we did miss out on some of the specialty restaurants (More on dining later).
Several videos mentioned 'dock runners'. These are individuals who went ashore then cut returning to the ship too close.