8 Tips for Your First Norwegian Cruise
At this point I feel like I was the last person to go on their first cruise. And honestly, I didn’t even want to go at first? Here’s the tea:
My family booked a cruise in 2019, for Christmas in 2019 I got everyone little cruise goodies to get us all excited for our family vacation in March. Well, you can guess what happened, the pandemic hit full throttle a week before we were supposed to go. Since then, we rescheduled, tried to cancel, couldn’t cancel, rescheduled again, possibly rescheduled one more time?
My dad was also scheduled to get hip surgery, so he backed out and then my sister and sister-in-law backed out. I almost backed out too, but thankfully my work is pretty flexible so at the last minute I decided to go and found a friend to go with me.
I will say, we had a lot of hassle with Norwegian with trying to cancel and rebooking and trying to transfer tickets so thats why I really didn’t want to go at first. But lets get into the good stuff…
Explore the boat
Cruise ships are big? Like really big? It’s truly incredible how these monstrosities can float on the water and have elevators in them? And theaters? Excuse me? Anyway, there will be lot’s of ground to cover. Once you get settled in your room, take a look around.
When we got on the ship we had booked appointments at the spa for the next day. Thankfully, we decided to find out where the spa was beforehand because it took us 20 minutes just to find it! It was on the complete opposite end of the boat in the farthest most part of the boat to be fair. And if you have an appointment somewhere, they will call if you are late or to confirm your appointment, just like any business on land.
I say this also because you will get lost. Even on the last day of the cruise, we were still going down the wrong hallway to our rooms and ending up on the opposite side of the boat from our destination. A labyrinth if I’ve ever seen one.
Go to the complimentary restaurants as must as possible
Honestly, unless you have the means, only go to the complimentary restaurants. You already paid hundreds of dollars, the food is included, save your coin! If you want to splurge one night on a fancy schmancy steakhouse, by all means treat yourself.
But honestly, the best food I have EVER eaten in my entire life was in one of these complimentary restaurants. It was called Savor on the Norwegian Getaway, if anyone was wondering. (Get the bread pudding).
On most ships there should also be a general eating area or buffet that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner free of charge and offers almost every cuisine you could need.
Go to the random activities
I don’t know if all Norwegian ships or all cruise ships do this, but the Norwegian Getaway had something called “The Freestyle Daily”. It was a few pieces of paper with general cruise information, but also a list of all the activities for the day. I’m talking activities from 7am to 2am, jam packed, never a dull moment.
My friend and I looked forward to getting these everyday, it was like Christmas morning. Go to some of these activities! When you aren’t eating or laying by the pool go to the meringue dance class or trivia in the atrium, it’s fun!
Book Excursions
I would like to reiterate again that this was my first cruise. So more seasoned cruise goers can weigh in in the comments here. We had 3 days where we could do excursions. The first day we were in Florida, we just went to a local beach (Cocoa Beach) and it was great. The second two days we were in the Bahamas.
The first island stop was Great Stirrup Cay. When you arrive here it’s a private island for the cruise ships, so even if you don’t book any excursions you have no choice but to either stay on the boat, go to the beach, or go to an excursion. On this day we did swimming with the pigs. It was fantastic! (We almost missed it but that’s another story, don’t go to the bathroom). It was only a few hours so we had the rest of the day to sit on the beach.
At Great Stirrup Cay you don’t have to book an excursion. But while you are docked at Nassau, you definitely should. If you want to get off the boat you will have to travel to get anywhere and it’s just easier with a tour guide. We booked a snorkeling excursion that lasted for a few hours that was probably the favorite part of my whole trip. I have never been snorkeling and I felt like a little girl full of glee swimming with the fishes. There were plenty to choose from on this day, one is enough but there might be time for two!
Go to ALL of the entertainment
I am not exaggerating, every show we went to (and we did go to all of them, ok almost all of them) was 5/5, did cry, changed my life. Cruise entertainment is no joke! They really scour this planet for talent and place them on this ship just for you. Don’t miss out, and there is an overabundance of it.
There are musicals, plays, interactive dinner shows, live bands, dueling pianos, djs, game shows, it’s endless!
Bring cash for tips
In your cruise fare, tips will be included or they will charge an extra fee at the end for things like tips (it’s all really confusing don’t ask me questions about this please). BUT the staff truly goes above and beyond. The service is incredible and everyone was friendly. Most likely the staff is on a contract for 9 months at a time away from home, that’s crazy! So even though a tip is included, make sure to bring some extra cash because they really do go above and beyond and deserve a little extra.
THE BURNING QUESTION
Should you get the drink package?
Well, this is really a personal question, but I’ll give my input anyway. So going back to my cruise debacle starting in 2019…we had originally booked with the drink package. So free drinks all around, but while booking and rebooking and canceling, our drink package got canceled. My friend and I ended up adding on the drink package when we were on the trip. There are a few tiered options:
General package: $65 pp/pd which includes beer, wine, water, soda
Premium: $99/pp/pd which includes beer, wine, cocktails under $15, water, soda
Ultra Premium: $100+ pp/pd which includes everything
(Those aren’t the actual names of the packages, I don’t remember and too lazy to check, so please look on your own and don’t go on my word for 100% accurate details, I’m just trying to give a general picture here.)
We ended up going with the premium package which ended up being over $800 because it includes tip. Overall, it was not worth it! We had to force ourselves to drink more to make it worth our money. What’s done is done but I personally don’t drink that much and am a lightweight so do with that information what you will. If you do drink a lot and want to drink a lot, then it may be worth it. But if you are only going to order a drink or 2 a day or a few drinks only a couple days, you are better off paying as you go.
Overall, all the fun I had on the cruise made up for all the hassle with booking. Will I go on another cruise again? Yes, because I have a cruise credit that expires at the end of this year. But in all honesty it was so much fun and I would go again regardless. Everyone should go at lease once!