20 Clever Cruise Hacks that Will Blow Your Mind!

These new cruise hacks, tips & tricks are easy and clever! If you're going on a cruise & want to pack well, save money & have a better cruise vacation, this video is for you!

In this video I share cruise hacks & tips that really work - for real cruisers! Whether you are cruising with Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises, Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises or any other, this video is full of cruise packing tips & more! First time cruisers and repeat cruise passengers will find some cruise tips that are simply genius!

Thanks to all who shared tips, comments and photos for the video!

RESOURCES I RECOMMEND

🛳 THE ULTIMATE CRUISE PLANNER 🛳

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ITEMS IN VIDEO

CRUISE ESSENTIALS

LUGGAGE TAG HOLDERS

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ABOUT ME
Hi! I'm Ilana! I live in Montreal, Canada with my husband Frank. We can often be found dreaming about and planning future cruises, ideally to hot and sunny destinations! I believe in having fun, being kind and that you are never too old, or too young, to live the life of your dreams!

Please note that I do not sell cruises on Life Well Cruised. This and all other videos are for entertainment purposes only. I share my own opinions, personal experiences and information with other cruise travellers, which I hope can be helpful. Please contact your travel agent or the cruise line directly for advice and any information specific to your booking.
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Music Credit: Surf Time by Lux-InspiraMusic

[bryanwhite]

My favorite cruise hack is to forget my cares and troubles and have a great time 😎

[TraceyKHouston]

9:16 As a former airline employee who worked in the Bag Service Office (BSO), here is a valuable tip I have to offer, and I always do this with every trip I take. Always print off extra copies of your full airline itinerary and place one in each of your checked luggage and carry-on baggage. Write your name and phone number on it. DO NOT put your home address on the itinerary, nor on the outside ID tag for security reasons. This way, if the luggage bag tag and your ID tag falls off, and the bag ends up at an airport BSO office where it doesn't belong, the BSO agent will open the luggage to find any identifying items to try to contact the passenger or find out where the bag is supposed to go. If there is a printed itinerary inside the luggage, then the BSO agent can bring up the PNR to see where the bag belongs in this point of a passenger's trip, manually tag it and send it to the correct airport to arrange for delivery to the passenger. OR, if the bag actually belongs to another airline, the BSO agent may not receive a request on the printer with the other airline not knowing where the bag may have ended up, or they may not see the bag inquiry from the multitude of alerts that come in on the printer from other airlines, this tip is especially helpful for the BSO agent to determine which airline the bag belongs to who may be searching for it.

If a passenger has written their home address on the ID tag and/or the printed itinerary inside the luggage, a BSO agent without discernment skills might be lazy and just return the bag to the home address without checking the PNR in the system to find out where the passenger actually is in their trip at any given time. It would suck if the lost bag was shipped back to a passenger's home instead of being forwarded to their destination, as the passenger would have to go their entire trip without their checked bag, because it's sitting at their home airport. (Yes, this has happened before!) On a current trip I am on, one piece of luggage didn't make it. The bag tag had fallen off somewhere in the origin airport (ticket counter agent didn't secure it well enough?). Thankfully I had my printed itinerary inside, they were able to determine where it belonged and put it on an evening flight to my current destination, with it being delivered the next afternoon.

[lap]

Here’s a useful hack when you go on an excursion — costs nothing and save you a hassle. Before you climb aboard your bus/van/car, take a couple of seconds to take a couple of photos of the vehicle: one from the side, showing the whole vehicle, including any signs or logos, and one from the back or front showing the license number. When you get back to the pickup point, you can easily find your own vehicle in a large parking lot of similar vehicles.

[patricialittle]

I bought a pack of 8 clear shower caps at the Dollar Tree for only $1.25, these make perfect shoe covers to pack your shoes!

[SandySnider-hv]

You were talking about upgrading we were ready to go pretty much out. The door was like two days before Cruise and the phone rang and it was Princess Cruises asking us if we would change our cruising date three weeks later than what we had and they would give us the penthouse suite and an additional $1600 onboard credit could not believe it. My husband and I have our own business so we could make changes it was no problem. We waited to three weeks got our penthouse what an upgrade plus $1600. Thanks for all your podcasts. I love each and everyone of them.

[pattymc]

For my first cruise I made little folded envelopes for tips. First though, I found the spelling for “thank you” in different languages. I repeated them over and over in small text on a page (on MS word) so the page was full. I then printed and cut them to appropriate sizes for origami envelopes. I put the tip in the envelope and handed it directly to the person with my thanks. This made tipping more personal and avoided the envelope being overlooked as a piece of scrap paper on a table or night stand etc. I don’t know why but handing people money makes me uncomfortable for some reason and I found this to be a good solution. It took a little time to make them but I’m retired with nothing but time on my hands so I enjoyed it. My sister who has cruised many times and was on this cruise with us asked me to make some for her too as she feels the same as I do.

[amymorrison]

I am a Travel Consultant and when I call in final payment I always recheck the price for my travelers before final payment... whenever I can get them more for less it shows my value as an agent and ensures they will choose to rebook with me :)

FYI: for those who do not know... MOST travel agents do not charge for MOST services... we are paid by the Hotels, resorts and cruiselines. You are getting a person on your side who does all the research for you and helps direct you to the answers of your questions without paying anything more for it.

[davidmiller]

My aunt, me and 2 others are cruising together on Norwegian Spirit out of Honolulu around Hawaii and French Polynesia. My aunt has a travel rewards credit card so we all gave her our payments for the cruise and excursions and she made the final payments on her credit card. We gained enough points to purchase two amazing premium beach front balcony rooms on Waikiki beach for the night before our cruise departure. My aunt was the brains behind that.

[brwombat]

Awesome ideas! Building on the Ziploc bag in the safe idea: you can often leave some of the bag hanging out of the door - just close the safe over the top of the bag. That way you have a visual indicator on the outside that the safe has not been emptied!

[karenjohnson]

Hi! We normally use washing detergent sheets so it is an easy hack for us to bring a couple along to do that hand washing ...no spillage in the suitcase and you could easily tear them into smaller pieces to do just one or two items!
The motion sensor light was a great item to have in our interior cabin...we set it up to face the bed so if we got up at night it would light the way. It's small light bounced off the mirrors in the room...so convenient!

[davidschiller]

We love the magnet hooks. We have a string of LED lights that we attach to the ceiling of our cabin. It looks cool and provides light during the night making bathroom trips safe.

[johnnastanton]

I bought 2 small silicone containers at Dollar Tree. They are actually for salad dressing but they are perfect for taking dish and laundry soap.

[joanbjornas]

One more interesting fact/helpful tip: If you put the hook magnets on the ceiling, they will hold a heavier load. So- if you have a heavier item you want to put on a hook (like our jackets in Alaska), put the hook up there, instead of having it slide down the wall :)

[emilyerojas]

More great tips! My favorite tip I learned from you was taking a picture of my luggage tag and setting it as the background to my Lock Screen. Whenever anyone asked for my room number a quick tap on the screen or just a shake to wake it up and everything I needed was right there. So helpful! Next cruise we’re taking collapsible Tupperware containers for the snack tip from the buffet and to have snacks for excursions.

Also!! Wide mouth water bottle filled with ice before excursions. It’ll take a few hours to melt and we’ll have cold water to drink for later

[mitchellbelinda]

I have done the packing with the plastic hangers and just hung up once arrived. I like the idea of the hanging organizer being prepackaged as well. I will use the sponge trick as well! I’ve been bringing biker shorts to wear under dresses for years, great tip! Wow that’s a really smart idea putting cruise planner in plastic sleeves and using dry erase marker’s! Yes please continue to share these tips and include viewers ideas as well!

[carolynknierim]

I always wear bike shorts or similar item (like Jockey ones) under a dress anyway, it avoids chafing injuries! 😂

[KathrynJordan-wf]

This tip is in place of using a laundry hamper to use pillow cases for dirty clothes. We all have them, they take up very little room in your suitcase. You can separate into colors or his and hers, they can also be washed if you need to do laundry on your cruise. Kat from SoCal

[carolbanack]

I used to be able to purchase essay folders at the dollarama store. It had several pages of plastic sleeves. I use one to put all my paper copies of flights, hotels reservations before & after cruise, Eta information, excursion paper copies, proof of Covid vaccations, & of course, cruise information as well as any other information or ideas to check out, once I reach the hotels .( We like a mini holiday of 4 to 5 days, before & after a cruise.
Those essay/report booklets with clear plastic pockets/pages are all great to hold your daily intinary on the ship.( 12 sheets hold 24 daily intinary pages). I also try & buy a postcard of each port city. Then when I develop any pictures, I know the order to put them in. If I've forgotten where the picture was taken, the postcard with city's name on front is a great divder
between each port.

[ashoemaker.dreamvacations]

I love the idea of taking the picture of the names of the crew members. 👍 I am very big on good Customer Service and always compliment the staff and thank them for their great service.

[jenniferperez]

We booked our Mediterranean Cruise coming up in April when we were on our Alaskan cruise last May (HAL). We got the beverage package, $200 on board credit and a dining credit include for an outside cabin. I started seeing specials/discounts and without logging into my HAL account, I searched for prices with the new specials. I found prices for obstructed view Veranda cabins to be about $50 cheaper than my current booking. I emailed HAL and they upgraded me and gave me an extra $50 onboard credit. About 6 weeks before our Alaskan cruise I noticed HAL was sending me emails about upgrading cabins for a small fee. We had an inside cabin booked and thought about upgrading. I noticed every other week the prices for the upgrades were getting cheaper. finally 3 weeks before our cruise I took advantage of the upgrade and for an extra $50 we upgraded to an outside cabin on a better deck. Fingers crossed I get similar emails for the next cruise!