The World’s Best First-Time Cruise Tips

Frequent cruisers often plan their cruises way in advance, much further out than other vacations. For those with specific itineraries and dates in mind, holiday sailings you’re interested in, celebratory dates or anniversaries you’re planning a cruise around, or favorite cabins you fell in love with on previous sailings, locking in trips early is the best way to ensure you get exactly what you want for your vacation.

So lock in that silver anniversary, Christmas cruise, retirement sailing, or 50th birthday party at sea early, and then rest easy knowing you’ll get to go on the trip you want when the date rolls around. This is also ideal when you’re working around various work schedules and want to ensure everyone involved can take the vacation days necessary to cruise.

If you’ve never been on a cruise, the first step is to decide where you want to go. Certain parts of the world are especially ideal for cruising. Some of Europe’s finest cities, from Barcelona to Nice, grew up alongside the Mediterranean Sea. This makes a cruise a wonderful opportunity to see a lot of exceptional destinations in one trip, faster and more efficiently than you could on your own. 

The Caribbean is also a place where spectacular islands cluster close together, from the British Virgin Islands to Anguilla and Antigua. This can enable a “cruise sampler” of a vacation to help you determine which islands you’d like to return to on future vacations for longer stays. 

Another ideal cruise: One that takes you to a place with language and cultural barriers, and holds your hand while you get to explore what might be a more challenging destination with ease and comfort. A good example is the Mekong River, which runs from Vietnam to Cambodia and Laos past rural rice paddies and small floating markets. Here, few locals speak English fluently, and the insights of tour guides are always a welcome addition to the day.

Like hotel companies, no two cruise lines are exactly alike. This makes booking more challenging, but it also means there is a best choice for every traveler in every destination. 

Let’s take Scenic Yachts’ 228-passenger Scenic Eclipse and Star Clippers’ 227-passenger Royal Clipper, for example. These two ships carry roughly the same number of passengers but offer vastly different cruises. Scenic Eclipse delivers a luxurious experience even on a cruise to Antarctica, with spacious suites, personal butlers, and high-tech expedition gear for adults from a helicopter to a submarine, Zodiacs, and kayaks. 

Star Clippers, on the other hand, is known for its tall-masted sailboats. Onboard Royal Clipper, you’ll have the opportunity to climb the rigging up to a crow’s nest on a forward mast, visit the bridge, stretch out in the bowsprit net, and even take knot-tying classes. This is all while you cruise around some of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, from Tobago Cays to St. Vincent and the Grenadines (which, in our experience, are also home to the softest-sand beaches). 

Larger ships are more likely to carry some show-stopping amenities — think carousels, zip lines, bumper cars, full Broadway shows, drag brunches, tattoo parlors, karaoke lounges, and laser tag arenas. Small ships, however, are more like small towns where passengers become friendly neighbors throughout the sailing.

As cruisers explore cities together on group tours and dine in the more intimate onboard restaurants, small ships foster a sense of community among passengers.

Plus, having a cruise ship passenger list in the hundreds rather than the thousands can lead to a better understanding of your preferences from the crew. This can noticeably up the level of service while you’re onboard and is especially true on small ships with higher price points that pride themselves on luxury, personal service.

Whether you’re traveling as a couple, with a group of friends, as part of a multi-generational family vacation, or with your gang for a reunion, you’ll want to hone in on what’s important to you. 

Have some travelers who are dedicated to their fitness routine, even when on vacation? You’ll want to research the gym options onboard, as they can vary widely. Most lines, including SeaDream Yacht Club, for example, have full gyms with several treadmills, elliptical recumbent bikes, and plenty of free weights, as well as yoga classes on deck when the weather allows. 

But it’s important to determine what’s onboard before you book, whatever your needs are. For example, some lines work harder to accommodate vegan cruisers. Windstar Cruises offers a fully plant-based menu in their dining rooms, and SeaDream Yacht Club excels well here, too, with chia and quinoa on the breakfast menu and vegan soup at lunchtime. Still, other lines excel at showcasing the local cuisine onboard more than others. 

On AmaWaterways AmaDara on a cruise through the Mekong, for example, you’ll be blown away by the spicy pho noodle soups and rich Vietnamese iced coffees at breakfast, served alongside western favorites such as made-to-order omelets and fluffy pancakes. 

Frequent cruisers know that while a cruise line’s newest ships generally have the highest price tags in a fleet, they also have the latest bells and whistles. Emerald Cruises’ Emerald Astra will be one of a few ships in the fleet when it debuts in 2026 with an indoor heated pool boasting a retractable roof that converts to a movie theater in the evening, for films under the stars (when the weather permits) as you cruise the Danube or the Rhine River through Europe.

Some of Scenic’s newer river ships also have expanded spas with salt therapy lounges in their spas that are perfect after long-haul flights. 

While you will find informal talks on celestial navigation and lessons on the history of clippers on all Star Clippers ships, only Star Clipper’s newest teak-lined vessel, the stunning Flying Clipper, has (among the three swimming pools onboard) a pool designed especially for scuba instruction and another that funnels sunlight through the atrium and on into the dining room.

Once you pick a ship and a region, you may find that different itineraries and cabin categories have different prices attached. Even in the same region, you may have the option of vacations with widely different lengths and routes. Think through what’s important to you regarding cabin size and amenities, as well as the length and depth of the sailing. For example, you may want to forgo a suite in favor of a longer trip, or vice versa, depending on your preference for the trip.

Weather can play a big role in a cruise experience, so picking the right sailing date can be critical. Cruise too late in the fall or early in spring, and you may face France’s famous mistral winds. Book a river cruise in Laos in August, and you’ll be impacted by the monsoon season when there could be intense downpours every day of your trip.

One more caveat: There is no denying that the weather patterns and temperatures change from year to year, so when you research the best times to travel, you’ll want to make sure you’re looking at recent data. This is especially true in Antarctica, where climate change has created longer sailing seasons and access to previously inaccessible areas.

It’s also important to note that the rapidly melting ice shelves and glaciers are quickly leading to rising sea levels, significant changes in ecosystems, and a steady decline in wildlife, especially for Emperor penguins.

Flights are a sensitive issue with cruisers. If you’re traveling a great distance or to a destination with only a flight or two a day from your hometown, you should plan to fly in the day before. This is especially true at times of year and in destinations where storms and snow can delay and even cancel flights. And, while insurance is always important for travel in these post-pandemic times, it’s even more critical during times of year when weather can impact flights and the sailing itself, and during shoulder seasons when weather can be less reliable. The good news? Flying in early gives you an opportunity to explore the embarkation port.

In addition to the sailing itself, we offer pre-stays and post-cruise extensions (with hotel stays) that give you additional opportunities to see the embarkation and disembarkation ports. If you can spare the extra time, consider them because they can help you see a destination in much more depth. Otherwise, if, say, Athens is your embarkation port and Barcelona is your disembarkation port, you’ll miss the opportunity to explore these exciting cities as part of your trip. It would be especially unfortunate if these cities were part of the allure of the itinerary for you when you chose your sailing. So, instead of being disappointed, be sure you get to see, say, Athens’ Parthenon and Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia (Antoni Gaudí’s unforgettable modernist basilica) before you head home.

You may have taken trips where you’ve been highly prepared, with museum and lunch reservations in some ports, booked shore excursions in others, and shopping lists with detailed information about which boutiques to visit — and what to buy when you get there — before getting back onboard. Or, you may have taken trips where you have just boarded and planned to figure it out when you arrived. 

We can guess which experience was the richer one. So if you’re traveling to a part of the world you have never been to or somewhere so far away you may never go again, you owe it to yourself to do your due diligence. 

On a Windstar Cruise on the Star Legend through France and Portugal, for example, you should visit Maison du Beurre in Brittany’s charming town of Saint-Malo, where you can buy Bordier Butter (said to be the best in the world) to pair with the ship’s excellent bread each night of the sailing. Or visit a creperie for a “gallette” — a buckwheat crepe topped with ham, Emmental cheese, and a runny fried egg — served on a sunny terrace with a glass of hard cider from a local apple farm. 

Could you have just walked off the ship and found a creperie? Yes, but without the research, you may have missed the Romanesque Saint-Vincent Cathedral’s brightly colored stained glass windows, which tell the story of Saint-Malo’s history. Or Mont Saint-Michel, a tiny island off the coast of Normandie (pictured) that’s topped with an eponymous abbey dating back to the Middle Ages. If you had missed this imposing fortress, just an hour’s drive from where the ship docks, you would have regretted it.

On Mediterranean and Baltic sailings, you may find that cultural tours are the highlights of the trip. For example, in Florence, art lovers won’t want to miss a visit to the famed Uffizi Gallery, where Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” and many other paintings by European masters from the Renaissance and Middle Ages wow visitors with their timeless beauty.

But, especially during peak summer months, if you don’t book a tour in advance, you may find no more tickets left on the day you’re in port. And, while tickets to the Uffizi Gallery can sell out days in advance in July, tickets to the Vatican Museum in Rome can sell out months in advance during peak travel periods. The Alhambra Palace in Grenada, Spain, is another site you want to plan ahead to see if you’re traveling in summertime. In addition, if you have your heart set on lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant in, say, Lisbon or Nice, you want to book that reservation well in advance of your cruise.

Fortunately, we can book tickets for attractions — as well as transfers, hotels, and restaurant reservations — for you. So think through what’s important to you before you set sail, and let us make your plans a reality in advance.

On a cruise vacation, few things can derail a trip as completely as luggage that doesn’t make it onboard the first day. Our solution: Pack light so you can get by with a carry-on suitcase and a handbag. Nothing takes up as much space in your luggage as shoes, so narrowing those down to a pair on your feet and a pair in your bag makes this more doable. So does packing outfits that allow you to mix and match tops and bottoms.

In addition, think through your technology needs while you’re packing. Will you want an iPod to watch movies on the plane, catch up on your favorite TV show in bed, or check your emails by the pool? Do you want to bring a power bank to charge your phone during long travel days? You’ll also want to ensure all your charge cords make it into your carry-on bag.

Some cruise lines deliver your luggage to your cabin for you, which means you may be without your suitcase for part of your first day. Be sure to pack all documents you need for boarding, all medication, and anything else that’s hard to replace in your carry-on so you don’t have to worry about them. Also, if you plan to stretch out on the sun deck that first day, be sure to put your swimsuit, sunscreen, and sunglasses in your carry-on. This way, your vacation can start the moment you arrive onboard, with no delays.