Seasoned cruise travelers know that getting ready for an upcoming cruise vacation takes more than just packing and making sure they have the right travel documents. Those two things are important but becoming familiar with the ship, the ports of call and taking a good look at other elements of the cruise experience before boarding is just as critical.
Getting Ready Can Be Easy
Not to say passengers should make a job out of getting ready to cruise but taking advantage of resources provided by major cruise lines and travel agents before sailing can elevate a good vacation to trip-of-a-lifetime status easily.
Getting ready to sail on a Princess Cruises ship, we received a series of emails from the cruise line to help in the process. One of them asks and answers common questions with links to information about a variety of topics. Reminders, checklists, directions to the pier and more were found here, giving even the most experienced Princess passenger critical information. The thoughtful email even tells us what movies will be playing on board, invites us to join the Princess Book Club and more.
This is not something we will find in advertisements for the line, but paying attention to details like this series of pre-cruise emails that all passengers can have access to can add real value to our cruise experience…if we are aware of it.
This is just one reason why completing online registration with the cruise line as soon after booking as possible is important. Without our email address, none of this information would be available.
Cruise Boarding Pass Is Not Line Airline Boarding Pass
Often, booked guests on a number of lines look a pre-cruise registration much like printing a boarding pass for an airline flight, something to do at the last minute. As we can easily see, there is a whole lot more to be gained from registering early than the piece of paper that makes getting on the ship easier. That’s important too but the benefits of receiving pre-cruise information, only available via email, is staggering compared to not having it at all.
Cruise line websites too allow booked and registered guests to access a wealth of information on a number of lines. Carnival Cruise Lines has a similar program that features a countdown to cruise clock, updated every time we log on. Royal Caribbean‘s Pre-Cruise Planner allows much more than simply booking shore excursions and printing a boarding pass too.
It May Be Personal But It Needs To Be Correct
Aside from all these benefits, booked guests get to see their personal information as it appears on the cruise line records which may not always be the same as an invoice created by a travel agency. I can’t count the number of times when passengers have told me they did not realize that “Bobby’s” real name that appears on his passport, the document used to board the ship which must match cruise line records or boarding could be denied, is really “Robert”.
