What do you do the night before your cruise

[Virtopia]

Things have been different on the 3 cruises I've been on, but something that I've done on the last two cruises is stay in a hotel the night before, whether it be in my home city or the port city.

 

I order room service, take out my clothing for the next day and I usually lie down early, but I never sleep before vacation and if I do sleep, I get up 2 hours earlier than I need to.

 

For this next cruise, I'm thinking of going down 2 days early since it will be winter in Canada and the weather could change at a moment's notice.

[Wayfairers]

We drive to the port and have usually been on the road at least 2 days. On the night before the cruise I book a hotel that is within walking distance of a nice restaurant and that provides a shuttle to the cruise port. We try to time arrival for early to mid-afternoon, park the car when we arrive and it doesn't move again until the day after we return from the cruise. I book the hotel for the night we return and we walk to dinner again. That way there is no rush on either end of the cruise.

[CARIBBEANRIA]

Keep it clean please:p

 

We normally travel the day before and stay in a nice hotel enjoy a good meal and a bottle of wine (Or 2)

Thats what we do too.:D

[Sqwii]

Set all the alarms on everyone's phones and then do a happy dance until I pass out hopefully on the bed.

[LESLIEKURZ]

I take an OTC sleeping pill and crash at 8 PM. I'm usually too excited to sleep properly and since we fly in same day we have to get up at like 4 AM. Needless to say cruise day 1 is a long one for us.

[hbmom2]

We usually head down the day before, and just enjoy ourselves for the day - Shop, eat, talk about the cruise, explore wherever we are, talk about the cruise some more...When night time comes, we can hardly sleep because we are so excited! :D

[EithneMay]

pass out in a hotel room from air travel stress

Yup, us too!

[Carlyzmom]

This is a fun thread - even though it started a long time ago!! This time we are driving to Galveston the day before and spending the day on the Strand. Then find a nice restaurant for dinner and TRY to sleep!!

[mr green]

As we first started cruising, when sailing, or flying out of Vancouver, we would spend the night with our married daughter in her tiny apartment.

My wife would sleep on the lumpy chesterfield, and I would sleep on the floor. being woken up at all hours, as or son in law had at least three VCRs recording through the night.

Our son stayed overnight also on one occasion, his place was under the dinette table. The next morning he was furious, for several years my wife and I had accused each other of snoring, which, of course we each denied. Our son however told us in no uncertain terms that we BOTH snored!:eek::D

 

john

[christinalvt]

My wife and I are going on our FIRST cruise in Sept 2012 on RCI Freedom of the Seas, so we dont have a cruise ritual yet. But when we do go on vacation, we always go out to dinner to the same resturant the night before we leave. This is our way of marking the beginning of our vacation. So we will do the same thing next year for our cruise.

Freedom of the Seas was our first cruise, too! It was weird starting with a megaship, but it didn't spoil us, I actually like smaller ships because they don't have everything so far apart. Walking the length of 2 or 3 football fields every day when you have to get your kids to the kid's club, then go to your activities, then pick them up for meals, go to the other side of the ship for dining room, etc. was so much walking! We've since been on one other megaship, the Oasis of the Seas, and I think I'll stick to smaller ships. I also choose our cabin location according to where everything is located.

If you have any questions about the Freedom, I'd be happy to answer them! Have a great cruise!

 

Christina

[christinalvt]

I TRY to sleep, but usually am too excited!

[raytownlady]

It's funny and strange at the same time that after going on so many cruises I still find it impossible to sleep the night before we leave. We usually fly in at least 2 days prior to the start of our cruise that gives us one day to unwind from the perils of air travel:eek: And the second day is spent exploring the city and picking up any necessities we may have forgotten.

[Future_Mrs_Wetzel]

I know what I WONT be doing.....SLEEPING. lol

[Pack My Bags]

My wife and I are going on our FIRST cruise in Sept 2012 on RCI Freedom of the Seas, so we dont have a cruise ritual yet. But when we do go on vacation, we always go out to dinner to the same resturant the night before we leave. This is our way of marking the beginning of our vacation. So we will do the same thing next year for our cruise.

 

What a nice ritual you have! :) How lovely. I should start doing this. Or at least order a pizza or some Vietnamese from the place around the corner. We usually are just taking out the cat feeders, cleaning litterboxes, setting lights on timers, turning off alarm clocks & emptying all perishables from the fridge & dumping trash. Basically prepping the house for the house/cat sitter.

 

We have sailed in the same day directly from the airport a few times & found that we were worthless for 2 days until we caught up. Not fun when you're down to only 5 days on a 7 day cruise!

 

We also cruise lots during the winter so we now fly in 2 days out -- heaven forbid the airports are closed for snow OR to recoup & acclimate before sailing. We also get to do some local sightseeing which extends our trip before we even get on the ship!

 

I can't wait to sail again! It's too far away!

[Sinppu]

We fly from another continent :D

Well actually we've flown a few days before so we are on holiday already. But I can't sleep the night we're leaving home though ;)

[MrsKoL]

Only cruised twice before and because husband can't fly for med reasons we have to cruise from the UK but Southampton is a good 4-5 hour drive for us so we always go down the day before, we have a playlist for the car, we went down really really early on the Friday morning and was at the hotel for 11am, we dumped the cases and went shopping for last minute things, picked up a couple more books etc :D

 

We went out for a nice meal and cocktails (we were with our 2 daughters 21 and 13 and mother and father in law)

 

Next morning about 5.30am I was wide awake, hubby pulled the curtains back and Independence of the seas was docked right outside the window (we had a view of the docks from the hotel) and at 6am we saw our ship sail past!

OMG it was so exciting! :o

 

BRING IT ON! :D :D

[Jtangel27]

The two ports my family and I cruised out of, San Diego (Carnival Spirit) and San Pedro (Mariner of The Seas) have been only a mere hour away, so, as Californians, we haven't needed to fly the day/night before. What we usually do that day is laundry and packing. At around 6:00 PM or so, we get some Subway sandwiches, watch some TV for awhile, and pack the rest of the things. Last year, packing only took us from 6:30 to 7:30, but in 2010, we weren't done packing until 10:30!

[chaching]

We don't live close to any ports, so we usually fly to the port city at least a day ahead of time. Going shopping for a few bottles of wine to take onboard is one of our usual traditions along with a nice dinner, a few drinks, and a sleeping pill for me. Then I'm up early in the morning to watch the ships arriving!

 

Too far away for me this year. Not 'til December.... boohoo. But, it will come fast and I'm so IN NEED OF A CRUISE FIX right now!!!