How do you organize your cruise memories?

As a retired family/wedding/portraiture photographer, I love picture albums. I make a photo album of all of our cruises as well as vacations. They sit on top of my desk hutch; don't know what to do for our next cruise, (2018) as I've run out of room on my hutch. In each album are all the photos, dailies, menus, room keys, letters from the cruise line, etc. Yeah, you may agree with my wife, I'm a nut. But, I love going back 14 - 15 years and look at all the memories.

I try to do this too. But for every trip

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I've never kept a patter and don't plan on it. I used to print off most of the many photos I took and keep them in albums, along with other memorabilia from each cruise.

Now I usually make a photo book on Snapfish or some other site of the best photos and add a few small things like ticket stubs sometimes. I must admit we rarely if ever look at them once they are done.

I have digitized all the slides from years past and should do my (many, many, many) photos--not just cruises, but family, etc., but am almost paralyzed whenever I actually think about doing it. I have tens of thousands of photos organized in albums as well as many, many heirloom family photos semi-organized in boxes. I can't face starting with all the scanning!

Most stuff is disposed. Memories are in my mind. We do retain what I would call some funny items. We have a box full of cruise prizes, all our cruise cards going back to the paper ones, copies of our final bill for future reference, and a spreadsheet of all expenses by category for future planning. We stopped taking photos in 2008 or 2009, we never look at them.

I don't keep anything organized. I ordered a small photo book for our 25th anniversary, and it included many photos from our cruises. I post the best couple of dozen photos when we get back from a cruise in a Facebook album. I look at them from time to time. I also have backups of all the photos on various media. And when I try to remember a detail, I'll look back here at my reviews or live threads. I usually save all the Patters for a month or so just so I can answer questions. After that, they get tossed into the recycling bin.

When we first starting cruising I decided to do a day by day journal. We kept the platters but not the advertisements that were included. I have my pictures in photo albums with descriptions under them (not computer savvy and before we had one). We have so many wonderful memories with people who are now no longer with us and were our cruise buddies. Just the other day I sat and went through the photos it was bitter sweet. It is nice to read my journals and see what we did while we were on a particular cruise. I also keep journals and photos on family vacations. It is fun to look back and see how the grandkids have grown and the adults too.:D

Should've added this to my first message, but didn't think of it:

In addition to my scrapbooks, other ideas from family members:

- A handwritten journal for each trip. Where we went, when, who was the tour guide, what did you see/do/talk about? Where/what did you eat? Interesting facts... It's a cool way to look back in a few years

- As several others have mentioned, a Shutterfly album. They look really professional and make great gifts for anyone who went.

- Shot glass per port

- Christmas ornament per port

What a GREAT thread and thanks to the OP for posting the question.

We generally do two cruises a year so are not as experienced as many here on CruiseCritic. We start our planning process with a three ring binder that includes daily trip itinerary by port and date where we include suggestions taken during the planning process from CC and Trip Advisor for activities that may be of interest us. Also included in these pages are information on any tours we have signed up for or activities by day we are involved in. Other binder sections include those for pre or post cruise info, cruise air and insurance documents. We take this binder with us as it has all of our trip info in one place. Next is the actual cruise where we keep the patters which are later filed in the binder and any letters addressed to us specifically and throw away all the "junk" sales material. We keep tickets, brochures, receipts, business cards, maps, cruise cards etc. in pocket pages in our binder. We take pictures all during our cruise and organize those by individual trip on our computer and also run as a screen saver. These trip pictures are also saved on a thumb drive that we play on a big screen TV in our living room and run on random so we have a moving "trip picture" and we change out the various trips regularly. Makes walking through the living room area difficult some times for getting distracted! We also buy one Christmas decoration per port as trip souvenirs (boy does this make decorating the tree hard with all the "do you remember this day in XXXX conversations!) knowing that anything we buy as souvenirs means nothing to anyone but us. After the trip, the binder is finalized and goes up on a shelf for reference if we have any questions after the fact. Most of the time, the binders stay on the shelf but we have had times that we have been asked specific questions about a port or event that we have referred back to the binders.

Thanks to all contributing to this thread and giving us new/better ideas on how we can better enjoy our trips after the fact!

John & Patsy

What a GREAT thread and thanks to the OP for posting the question.

 

 

 

We generally do two cruises a year so are not as experienced as many here on CruiseCritic. We start our planning process with a three ring binder that includes daily trip itinerary by port and date where we include suggestions taken during the planning process from CC and Trip Advisor for activities that may be of interest us. Also included in these pages are information on any tours we have signed up for or activities by day we are involved in. Other binder sections include those for pre or post cruise info, cruise air and insurance documents. We take this binder with us as it has all of our trip info in one place. Next is the actual cruise where we keep the patters which are later filed in the binder and any letters addressed to us specifically and throw away all the "junk" sales material. We keep tickets, brochures, receipts, business cards, maps, cruise cards etc. in pocket pages in our binder. We take pictures all during our cruise and organize those by individual trip on our computer and also run as a screen saver. These trip pictures are also saved on a thumb drive that we play on a big screen TV in our living room and run on random so we have a moving "trip picture" and we change out the various trips regularly. Makes walking through the living room area difficult some times for getting distracted! We also buy one Christmas decoration per port as trip souvenirs (boy does this make decorating the tree hard with all the "do you remember this day in XXXX conversations!) knowing that anything we buy as souvenirs means nothing to anyone but us. After the trip, the binder is finalized and goes up on a shelf for reference if we have any questions after the fact. Most of the time, the binders stay on the shelf but we have had times that we have been asked specific questions about a port or event that we have referred back to the binders.

 

 

 

Thanks to all contributing to this thread and giving us new/better ideas on how we can better enjoy our trips after the fact!

 

 

 

John & Patsy

Wow!!! You have it down to a science and by staying on top of it throughout, it's never a big job.

Thank you for your ideas. [emoji846]

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Oh I forgot we also get a magnet from every port. They are on our fridge and the grandkids cannot believe how many places we visited. I am running out of room but there are a few spots left, time to start planning another cruise;)

my friend told me about the scanner she has---it is a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 I bought it and it was great--it was very easy as it is a self feeding scanner, works very fast and does a great job!!!

I have digitized all the slides from years past and should do my (many, many, many) photos--not just cruises, but family, etc., but am almost paralyzed whenever I actually think about doing it. I have tens of thousands of photos organized in albums as well as many, many heirloom family photos semi-organized in boxes. I can't face starting with all the scanning!

my friend told me about the scanner she has---it is a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 I bought it and it was great--it was very easy as it is a self feeding scanner, works very fast and does a great job!!!

 

 

I have digitized all the slides from years past and should do my (many, many, many) photos--not just cruises, but family, etc., but am almost paralyzed whenever I actually think about doing it. I have tens of thousands of photos organized in albums as well as many, many heirloom family photos semi-organized in boxes. I can't face starting with all the scanning!

Cleaning off the dust on those slides takes longer than the scanning process itself. I've managed to do about half of mine & gave up. No one other than myself & the wife cares about them anyway. ;)

I collect pins from places I've traveled and display them in a beautiful case in my home office.

i turn all my photos and video into a movie using iMovie, nowadays people don't want to sit there looking thru photo albums but enjoy watching video as it gives them a better perspective of the cruise, i keep all mine on usb plugged into the tv so can watch them anytime.

I just save all the good memories in my mind. So I can take them everywhere I go. :D

Tony

Count me among those who have a scrapbook as Part 3 of every trip.

Not just cruises, but also land vacations (Yosemite, baseball tours, etc). I do this for all our major trips. That way, when I'm working too hard and feeling sorry for myself, I can look at these and remember that I have had the fabulous good fortune to visit some truly amazing places on this planet. That always makes me feel better.

The only problems are the amount of $$$ I spend on scrapbooking paraphernalia, and the fact that that I'm officially out of shelf space.

I just save all the good memories in my mind. So I can take them everywhere I go. :D

Tony

It's the easiest way to go for us too.

If we need a refresher in our minds, we just take another cruise. ;)

I do admit I keep photo's & patters stored on a HD.

The days of saving photo's in albums to look at are long gone.

I couldn't even give them away for free at at the last flea market.

I put my memorable photos on Shutterfly.

Then using Shutterfly, I create (and buy) a hard copy photo album using some of the photos that I uploaded to my sight.

I have a pretty good scanner, but it still takes a lot of time. And yes, cleaning up the slides and editing them for color, etc. took even more time. But I am glad I did it.

Cleaning off the dust on those slides takes longer than the scanning process itself. I've managed to do about half of mine & gave up. No one other than myself & the wife cares about them anyway. ;)

With my last cruise, on the Majestic Princess this past April, I decided I would put the pictures together into videos on YouTube.

This way I can enjoy the trip again as well as others can see them.

The videos from my trip can be found on YouTube in this link:

All of my post cruise crap is kept in one of many Princess blue bags in a dark dusty corner under the stairs.

I too always have plans to make something 'memorable' post cruise.

I try to organise my stuff cos I take everything, but after a few weeks I am so back into the day to day grind of my day job that I fail.

I do post a few home made cruise related YouTubes.

However I also admit that every photo I take is added to the screen saver on my PC - even the crap ones just to remind me that you gotta take the good with the bad cos when I get the wirk blues, cruising pics brightens my life

Elf out

We have our digital photos in an external hard drive There are folders organized by year and inside each folder we put our travels organized in folders with the name of the cruise or place we went to.

But sometimes we're traveling and are wondering where we went during a certain year, so we created an album on Facebook. In this album we have photos of each ship we have taken, then we put the name of the ship, the date and where we went. We also have an album with selfies of each place we have been to and the date we went there. This helps us remember where we've been.

Happy Travels! :cool:

We plan out our cruise and make a calendar of what we have planned for certain days. We then print off the calendar and take it with us for our room as well as give a copy to family members who are staying home. I keep a diary/blog of daily events and then when we get home I transfer everything to a photo book using Mixbook. Our books have the calendar included as well as my blog. It's fun looking back years later and reading about the excitement of each day.

If I have any special things I bought, I take a picture of them and include them in the book. So much nicer than looking at pictures in files on your computer. Also, in case of a fire, all my books are secure in Mixbook "cloud" and can be purchased again ay anytime. Can't do that with your computer.

I make a 12x12 scrapbook. I wish Princess still sold scrapbook kits onboard; they had great Princess themed stickers.

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I do a video, DH takes digital photos. I scan interesting items, entrance tickets, etc and put them in the video, plus any particularly beautiful or interesting photos taken by DH. Add local music at start and end. Most things then go. As a number of CC have said, the really important memories are in your head.