Cruise Packing & Preparation

In exactly 43 days I will be boarding my first cruise ever!  I am so excited that I've already started a packing list and have already bought stuff for the trip.

The actual trip itself is eleven days and the cruise will be for five nights.  We will be flying into Orlando on Thursday, April 24 and staying in a condo in Daytona for two nights.  On Saturday, April 26 we will drive a car from Daytona to Fort Lauderdale, which is where we are boarding the cruise ship.  

Our cruise is through Royal Caribbean and we will be sailing on the Liberty of the Seas.  We have one day of sailing, then we stop in Belize on Monday, Cozumel on Tuesday, and another day of sailing on Wednesday.  We get back to Fort Lauderdale on Thursday at 7:30am.  After that we return to Daytona and will stay until Sunday, May 4, when we fly out of Orlando.

I am staying in a promenade stateroom, pictured below.

The promenade staterooms look out over the Royal Promenade, which is like the "downtown" area of the ship with shops, bars, and food.  Here is what it looks like on our ship.

The Royal Promenade is located on Deck 5 and my room is on Deck 6, so I will be looking down on all the action throughout the day, which apparently includes parades!  

Now that I've given you an idea of what the trip will be like, I want to share some packing tips that I've been picking up during my preparation for the cruise.

Here are some items to pack that you may not think to bring:

• Hanging Shoe Organizer - almost every site I went to suggested that you bring one of these.  Everyone says it's a lifesaver for living in such limited space because it allows you to have one place to store all kinds of small objects you might lose track of, like power cords for your phone or travel-size toiletries.
• Power Strip - apparently power outlets can be hard to come by in the staterooms, so a lot of people suggest bringing a power strip so that you can multiply your outlets and have enough space to plug in everything at once.
• Travel Alarm Clock & Night Light - it sounds like most staterooms do not include an alarm clock, so bringing a travel one with you is a good idea if you would like to be able to check the time without using your cell phone.  Also, the rooms are very dark at night (especially interior rooms) so a night light can help you get around without bumping into things.
• Binoculars - a lot of packing sites also list binoculars as an item to bring that you might not think of.  They are nice to have on deck and also on excursions to view wildlife.
• Misc. - a few other items that were mentioned are magnets for your stateroom door to be able to distinguish it from all the other identical doors in your hallway, a highlighter used for your calendar of activities to keep track of the things you want to do, and suction cup hooks so you have plenty of places to dry things.

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I will keep you posted as the cruise gets closer.  I've already booked my excursions, so I'll definitely do a blog post about what we'll be doing on the cruise.