First-time cruise travelers often become frequent cruisers rather quickly for one reason or another. Cruise lines deliver on promises made before the actual experience, often exceeding traveler expectations. A bona fide good travel value, travel by ship is also an efficient way to see the world. One good experience leads to another. Blink a couple times and you’ve lost count of how many sailings are in your cruise history. Here, we have some tips to help keep accounting accurate and gain from that history.
A Cruise Log With Comparable Categories Rated
An accounting system of some sort is a good idea, just to get the basic details recorded for reference later. “Which cruise was that where we met the Smith family?” is a question that can be easily answered with a log we can make on our own.
Basic information is pretty straightforward and should include:
- Ship Name
- Sailing Date
- Itinerary
- Booking Number
- Stateroom Number
- $Cruise Fare
- Who Sailed
Taking that thought a step further, we can add ratings and tools much like we are writing a review. That valuable information can help guide future cruise buying decisions.
Those broad topics to rate might include:
- Dining- an overall impression of culinary efforts experienced while sailing. Make notes on venues liked, disliked and anything in-between. In the beginning, all you are doing is recording your impressions. There are no right or wrong answers here. Add plenty of detail.
- Accommodations- Compare what you experienced in your stateroom space compared to your expectation. Disparity here is a red flag.
- Ship Shape- What venues did you frequent most? Which ones did you have zero interest in? Complete this sentence: The ship was too _______? Anything that fits in the blank is an important fact in your cruise history as it is at that time. Priorities will change over time.
- Crew- “Were they friendly and helpful?” is real cut and dried answer I wish cruise lines would not ask. It’s about like asking “Do you love life?” Well yes, I suppose so, is there some particular part of life we’re talking about here?
- Passengers- this is a really personal part where you make notes about the general clientele you find on board. Were they people like you or someone else?
- Itinerary- If you absolutely did not like the stop in Grand Cayman, that needs to be noted. More importantly: The Why behind the dislike? Also important on itinerary evaluation: the ones you really liked a lot.
This can be as detailed (or not) as you want it to be. Twenty years from now, the details will be a little trip down memory lane. Just after sailing and falling in love with it, this is good information that will help point your cruise history in the right direction.
Chris Owen shares frank, inside information about cruise vacations on ChrisCruises.com
