How to Plan Your Next Cruise

Cruises are making a big splash in the travel world, offering stress-free bucket-list adventures that simplify every aspect of vacation planning. Many cruise packages include meals, flights and top-tier entertainment allowing vacationers the ability to personalize an experience. Broadcast Retirement Network's Jeffrey Snyder discusses how to get the best experience from today's cruises with Daniel Kline, Come Cruise With Me.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(0:04) This morning, how to plan your next cruise. (0:07) Joining me now to discuss this and a lot more, Daniel Kline is the editor of Travel Host. (0:13) Dan, always great to see you.

(0:14) Welcome back to the program and great to see you.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(0:17) Hi Jeff, been a long time, happy to be here.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(0:19) It has been a long time, but that doesn't mean that you and I haven't spoken. (0:23) This is just your, you've been off the air on our network, but you've been doing a lot of other things, which we'll cover throughout this interview. (0:30) Dan, I want to start kind of at a basic, with a basic question and ask you how popular is the cruise?

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(0:40) So cruising is about 35 million Americans. (0:44) It's growing in popularity. (0:46) It used to be seen as something older people did, because cruising used to be built around, you get on the ship, you go stop at a destination, you do some historical stuff, maybe a beach, and then you get on, you dress up and you go to a formal dinner.

(0:59) Maybe there's a show at night with like acrobats or magicians. (1:02) It's gotten a lot younger and the ships themselves, at least on the mainstream cruise lines, like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, MSC, they've gotten a lot more destinations. (1:12) It's like being in a huge Las Vegas hotel.

(1:14) There's water slides, there's pools, there's music all day. (1:17) There's all sorts of things to do. (1:19) So it's become a little bit less formal and a little bit less about the destination, at least on the mass market way.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(1:24) I think of the cruise, I think of the Poseidon Adventure and the love boat. (1:30) As a child born in the 70s, that's what I think of. (1:33) But as you said, things have really changed.

(1:36) Dan, do they have different cruises that appeal to different demographics? (1:41) Like say if I like music or if I like, as you said, history? (1:45) Yeah, absolutely.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(1:45) So just in the past year, I did a Viking cruise, which I would call high end. (1:50) We went to Norway. (1:51) So we sailed into the midnight sun.

(1:53) The sun did not set for five days. (1:55) And a lot of the places we stopped, we were learning about the community, about the history. (1:59) It wasn't like, let's stop here and go shopping and go to the beach.

(2:02) Now, we had some of that. (2:03) We went to Edinburgh, Scotland, and we went shopping basically and had some beers and had some food. (2:08) But on the ship, there were history, there were enrichment lectures.

(2:12) The entertainment was great at night, guitarists and a band. (2:15) But there was also a lot of like, we're going to play this symphony from, you know, a video from three years ago. (2:20) That's still pretty chill.

(2:22) You don't have to dress up. (2:23) You don't have to, well, the food is good. (2:24) The price is much higher.

(2:26) Then you get your cruises that are just about fun, that, you know, maybe you like to dance, maybe you like to drink a little, maybe you want to hang out in the pool. (2:34) If you go on like a carnival cruise or a Royal Caribbean cruise, that's generally the focus. (2:38) But you can make your cruise what you want it to be.

(2:41) So if you go on a Royal Caribbean cruise and you're stopping in, you know, Nassau, well, you can choose to go to the beach or you can choose to tour historical Nassau. (2:50) You can choose to learn, you know, so like you could spend your whole day at the bar or you could spend your whole day playing cards with your friends. (2:56) It's really about sort of whatever you want to make it.

(3:00) And what I like about cruising, I'm going on a cruise with my mom on Celebrity in a few weeks, is I like to stay up late and listen to music. (3:07) We both like to gamble. (3:09) She liked the production shows.

(3:10) So we'll meet every day for dinner. (3:12) We won't necessarily do the same thing all day long. (3:15) And some of the ports will do things together and some I might be working.

(3:17) So maybe we'll do separate things. (3:19) Everyone in the family could kind of have their own experience. (3:22) If you're on a line that caters to kids, your kids might not want to be with you at all.

(3:25) They might want to go to the kids club with kids their age, where they can get all the different activities, the video games, the water slides, the flow riders, the rock walls, you know, and maybe they'll come back with you to dinner and everybody talks about their day. (3:37) So it can be a very varied experience depending what you're looking for.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(3:41) Yeah. (3:41) And the key there, Dan, is the personalization you're talking about. (3:44) How do you, how do you, what's the best way to, you know, you're obviously an expert and you, and you, you're the editor of travel host.

(3:49) You do a lot of coverage around cruises and travel. (3:53) And so, you know, the environment really well, you know all the different lines. (3:56) If I'm a newbie, someone like a Jeff Snyder, I've never been on a cruise.

(4:00) My wife has, but I have not. (4:02) What's the best way to get started? (4:04) Do I go to a travel agent or do I go directly to the crew cruise line?

(4:08) Sorry.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(4:08) Good travel agent. (4:10) And here's what I, what I mean when I say good, you want someone who it's their job. (4:13) They're not doing it on the side, or if they are doing it on the side, they're making a full-time income doing it.

(4:18) Because I do know some people that have two jobs but are great travel agents. (4:22) You want a travel agent who specializes in cruises. (4:25) They might book Disney vacations too.

(4:26) They might book other things as a courtesy. (4:28) But you want them to have been on cruises, to know the ships, because it becomes about what do you like to do. (4:34) So my father-in-law and mother-in-law are going on a cruise.

(4:37) They want to go to Alaska. (4:38) And there were two real choices. (4:40) There was celebrity and there was Royal Caribbean.

(4:42) And my suggestion, when they asked, they went through my travel agent, was that maybe they'd want to go on Royal Caribbean because the music selection that night I think my father-in-law would really like. (4:53) Whereas celebrity has really good music. (4:55) They kind of move it around.

(4:56) It's all different places. (4:57) Royal, it's really focused. (4:58) He can go sit in the pub, watch a guitarist play, go sit in the scooter bar, watch a piano player play, and I think he'd be happy there.

(5:05) But could they both have a good vacation on either one? (5:08) Absolutely. (5:09) You just kind of have to set expectations.

(5:10) I wrote this week about we met a couple in the hot tub. (5:14) We were at a resort in Cozumel. (5:16) And this couple was going from celebrity to carnival all the way up to Oceania, which is a very high-end line.

(5:24) And they were going to have fun on all of them. (5:26) Having the mindset where you can go on a lower-end carnival cruise, which is going to be a bit more of a party, it's going to be a lot more kids, it's going to be a lot louder, and then go on a line, kind of a white-glove service line and enjoy both of those things equally, that's sort of the level of flexibility. (5:39) As I say, you don't go to Applebee's expecting it to be Ruth's Chris.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(5:43) No, although some people probably do have that expectation. (5:48) Dan, there's a lot of logistical challenges. (5:52) You happen to live in Florida.

(5:54) I would imagine you have easy drivable access to the cruise lines, but some people who may live in the middle of the United States, they may have to fly. (6:03) So there are some logistical challenges. (6:05) That probably makes the point that you need to have somebody kind of coordinate all that for you.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(6:10) Yeah. (6:10) Here's what a travel agent does for you. (6:12) They are there when things go wrong.

(6:14) Besides that, you might get a better price, you might get group deals, there might be other things they can help you with. (6:19) I was supposed to cruise last year, again, with my mother, and there was a hurricane, and she could not get from Boston to New York. (6:26) Once she heard the word hurricane, she wasn't getting there no matter what.

(6:30) But my travel agent came up with five scenarios where she could get there and then came up with, well, you could fly to Florida, we can get you on the ship. (6:38) That's actually illegal now. (6:39) You can't board a second U.S. port. (6:42) But they could have gotten her to Nassau, and she could have gone on a day three. (6:45) They do problem solving. (6:47) They also know things like, okay, I can book you the day of because there's 17 flights coming from your airport, and if you miss one, it's not a big deal.

(6:56) But most people, you want to fly in the night before. (6:59) But Miami's very expensive, so maybe it's cheaper to fly into West Palm Beach, stay there, and take the train or a car service or whatever. (7:06) So it's all of those little things.

(7:08) But it's also when you get on the ship, and I know Jeff, he's high roller. (7:11) He's booked the suite. (7:12) He's booked the butler.

(7:14) There's like a guy carrying the end of his coat. (7:16) Every little thing. (7:17) And he gets there like, sorry, Jeff, you're in the basement room.

(7:20) It has one bed, and there's no bathroom. (7:23) Well, the travel agent's the one who gets on the phone and says, no, this is what Jeff paid for. (7:27) Oh, you don't have that?

(7:28) Well, give him the best you can, and you've got to give him $10,000 back or give him a free cruise or whatever it is. (7:34) That's who advocates for you. (7:35) I've gotten on, and all the things I paid for weren't there.

(7:39) And all I have to do is message my travel agent partners, Dennis and Amy Post, who are often with me, to be fair. (7:44) But all I have to do is message them, and they call the home office. (7:48) I don't have to go stand in the line with every person whose room key is wrong.

(7:52) Those lines can be terrible. (7:54) So having someone who can advocate for you is valuable. (7:57) And more importantly, things do go wrong, weather, as you know, happens.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(8:02) Yeah, I mean, you live in an area where there has been a lot of bad weather, hurricanes, et cetera, so you have to be prepared. (8:10) Dan, what are some of the, let's go through some of the costs, the things that maybe the costs that are included in, I'm talking about a general cruise, and then things that may not be included. (8:21) Let me ask you, let's start with alcohol.

(8:23) That seems to be pretty popular. (8:25) Is that something, is food and alcohol included with the room and et cetera?

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(8:30) There's no shortage of included food. (8:33) That doesn't mean there aren't specialty restaurants, but on any mainstream cruise line, you can eat in the main dining room for dinner, for breakfast, and on sea days for lunch. (8:43) There'll be a full sit-down meal.

(8:44) There's also a buffet. (8:45) You can go to the buffet for any of those meals. (8:47) There's almost always a pizza shop that's nearly 24-7.

(8:52) Room service will cost you, but it's more like you pay for the delivery, so maybe it's $7, but you can order as much as you want. (8:58) And then there's usually like a couple of other places, a burger stand, a Mexican, whatever it might be. (9:04) Carnival does this really well, actually.

(9:07) So you will not go hungry without paying extra for food. (9:10) That said, the dining room menus are repetitive, so as a frequent cruiser, I often do specialty dining, because then you're getting like, I'd call it like a Ruth's Chris level steakhouse. (9:20) It's not the top tier.

(9:21) The Italian, you know, it's not like where you'd go for your anniversary, but it's still pretty good. (9:26) And then alcohol is the big added expense. (9:28) There are some bundling.

(9:30) Sometimes Celebrity will sell you a package that includes it. (9:33) Sometimes Norwegian will do it. (9:34) But whether you're buying it as part of a package or buying it on its own, individual drinks are going to cost $6 to $8 for a beer, $8 to $10 for a glass of wine, $12 to $16, maybe even higher for a cocktail.

(9:46) So you have to look at, am I someone, like I look at it this way, I'm going to drink five or six bottles of water. (9:52) Right there, that's like $15. (9:54) I'm going to drink a specialty coffee in the morning.

(9:57) That's $6. (9:58) I am probably going to have a few cocktails at some point. (10:02) Let's say I have four or five cocktails spread out the day.

(10:05) All of a sudden, that $60 or $70 up to more for an all-you-can-drink package is worth it. (10:11) And hey, maybe once I'm going to indulge and I'm going to get a fresh juice. (10:14) Maybe I'm going to have a milkshake to offset whatever the fresh juice has done to my body.

(10:18) You know what, I don't want to get too healthy. (10:19) So you really need to do the math. (10:21) And if it's close at all, you kind of want the peace of mind.

(10:24) You're on vacation. (10:25) You don't want to be sitting there like, can I have a pina colada? (10:27) And you have to do the math.

(10:28) You really want to look. (10:30) But if you're someone who's going to have one cocktail with dinner or someone who doesn't like coffee and really just loves water, there are free options. (10:37) There's black coffee with milk and sugar available.

(10:39) There's tea. (10:40) There's hot chocolate packets. (10:42) The buffet will have like juice.

(10:44) You know, when I say juice, I mean like the way like Fanta Orange is orange juice. (10:48) Yeah. (10:49) You'll have, so you won't go thirsty.

(10:51) And then there's other things. (10:52) Wi-Fi. (10:53) If your kids are home or your adult parents or whatever, you need to stay in touch, Wi-Fi is going to cost you $15 to $20 a day.

(11:00) Usually it's better if you buy a package than buy per day. (11:03) There's also things like shore excursions. (11:05) Now, you can book those through the cruise line.

(11:06) You can book those on your own. (11:08) But it's going to cost you money. (11:09) Now, in most ports, at least in the Caribbean, there's a beach.

(11:12) There's something you can do without having to spend. (11:15) But you're going to want to plan. (11:17) Cruising is different than a lot of vacations.

(11:19) You're going to want to do your homework before you take a cruise.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(11:22) Dan, two questions, and then I want to get your answers on. (11:26) And I want to talk about travel hosts for a minute. (11:28) I'm a landlubber.

(11:30) Even though I grew up in Maryland, I've been to the beach, I grew up in Baltimore. (11:35) Do I need Dramamine? (11:36) Am I going to feel the sway of the boat?

(11:38) And two, well, answer that first.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(11:41) So if you're someone who traditionally gets motion sick, I would have it with you. (11:46) I would have maybe some ginger supplements, like some things that. (11:49) But I would also book on one of the larger cruise ships.

(11:53) So I've been on the Celebrity Summit, which is a 2,000-passenger ship. (11:58) And it was really bad weather. (11:59) They closed the pool deck.

(12:00) Some of the musicians couldn't perform. (12:02) The ship was moving. (12:03) Well, people were throwing up in the corners.

(12:05) But that's a little ship by today's standards. (12:07) I've been on Oasis of the Seas, which is, you know, on par with the largest cruise ships in the world, during really terrible weather. (12:14) And the only reason you knew it was terrible weather is because you looked outside.

(12:17) And they put out air sickness bags, but I didn't see any signs of it. (12:21) So if you book in any of the, like, top third size, the stabilizers, and if you're in the Caribbean and it's not hurricane season, they're not traveling that far if you're leaving from Florida. (12:31) So they can sail away from bad weather.

(12:33) And if it's really bad, like, you know, when I got on a New York trip my mother missed, there was a real chance they were going to send us to Canada instead of the Caribbean because there was a storm. (12:43) We ended up coming in behind the storm instead. (12:45) So they're never going to put you in harm's way.

(12:47) And the reality is a lot of people go in worried about it, and it ends up being perfectly fine.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(12:53) And my second question, thanks for that, Dan. (12:54) My second question is about passports. (12:56) So if you go on one of these excursions that takes you to a different country, do you have to validate and verify that you have your passport, or do they do that?

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(13:08) Most Caribbean cruises are what's called closed loop. (13:11) They start in a U.S. city and they end in a U.S. city. (13:14) On those cruises, you technically need an original copy of your birth certificate and a valid license.

(13:20) You don't really want to do that because let's say, God forbid, Jeff, you go and you're, I don't know, you're eating lobsters in Nassau and you stand up and you break your ankle. (13:31) Well, you can't fly home if you don't have a passport. (13:34) So you're going to have a real trouble getting back when you can't get on your ship because your leg broke.

(13:38) So you want to have a passport. (13:41) You almost never in the Caribbean need to bring your passport once you've gotten on the ship. (13:46) What happens is you show it to them when you get on and they scan it.

(13:49) And I've been in one or two ports where they've said, yes, please bring your passport. (13:53) Usually they say, please bring a legal American ID. (13:56) So like I carry my passport card in my phone holder just in case I lost my wallet or whatever.

(14:02) But in general, you actually don't even need to bring out your passport when you disembark because there's facial recognition in most U.S. ports. (14:09) You just walk up to it. (14:10) Don't smile.

(14:11) You're not supposed to smile. (14:12) And it looks at you and it goes, walk through and you walk through and you're done. (14:16) It's actually really easy, but spend $180 to get a passport if you possibly can.

(14:21) Yeah.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(14:22) And I was going to ask you something. (14:25) Oh, thank you for that. (14:27) Let's talk about Travelhost.

(14:28) And most of us know you from the street where you're editor in chief. (14:31) But take a minute and talk about Travelhost and some of the work you're doing there because I think that's really what your love is. (14:40) I mean, you love doing the street.

(14:42) You've been a writer for a long time, but you really like traveling.

DANIEL KLINE, COME CRUISE WITH ME

(14:46) So Travelhost is a legacy brand. (14:48) It used to be Coupon Magazines. (14:49) It is in some markets still Coupon Magazines, and we support that.

(14:53) But what we're trying to be is a national brand that enhances your travel. (14:57) That sort of like I've done in cruises where most of my writing in our video is just how to make your trip better. (15:03) All the questions you just asked are the questions we try to answer beforehand.

(15:07) And with travel, with Travelhost, we want to make it so, you know, you're going to Nashville. (15:11) Well, where do you stay? (15:13) What's the one thing you have to do?

(15:15) How do you meet your favorite country star? (15:17) Like whatever it might be, we want to give you that and get it across. (15:21) And it's really just about making your travel experience better.

(15:23) People ask me, do I write reviews? (15:26) I don't write reviews, but I tell you what I think. (15:28) So I'm going to try to tell you, hey, Jeff, you like it really quiet.

(15:33) You'd probably be more happy on a celebrity cruise. (15:35) There's more. (15:36) There's more alone space.

(15:37) There's places to work. (15:38) It's just a little more chill. (15:39) Whereas Royal Caribbean, you're sitting there with your laptop and there might be like a parade around you on the Royal Promenade or a 70s party or who knows what.

(15:47) So it's really about helping people have the best experience. (15:50) Because if you want to just chill by a beach and I send you to the world's most awesome water park, you're going to be angry with me no matter how awesome the water park is. (15:59) So, like, that's the goal is I always look at the person on the first day of the cruise doesn't realize drinks aren't included.

(16:06) And just realize that them and their spouse have, you know, a twelve hundred dollar bill they would have to pay or they have to go a la carte. (16:13) I want to prevent that. (16:14) I want you to go in eyes wide open.

(16:16) So at the end of this, you're like, I spent what I wanted to spend. (16:19) I had the vacation I wanted. (16:20) And that might mean, you know what, I was going to get a balcony, but I'll downgrade it.

(16:24) I'll get an interior or an ocean view or maybe I don't need to be in the prime spot near the elevator. (16:28) Maybe I can take a cheaper room here or maybe it's not that important for me to swim with the dolphins. (16:34) But it's really important for me to, you know, to hug a monkey or like whatever else it might be.

(16:39) All of those different excursion options are out there. (16:42) And I would just don't just get on a cruise not knowing what you're doing because you're not going to have the right stuff. (16:47) You're not going to plug anything in.

JEFFREY H. SNYDER, BROADCAST RETIREMENT NETWORK

(16:49) There's going to be all sorts of disasters. (16:51) Yeah. (16:51) Well, I'm going to call you Mr. Travel Host from now on. (16:53) Dan Kline, always great to see you. (16:55) Thanks for joining us. (16:56) And we look forward to having you back on the program after your next cruise very soon.

(17:01) Thanks for having me. (17:02) And that wraps up today's edition of BRN. (17:04) We're back again tomorrow with another great edition.

(17:07) Until then, I'm Jeff Snyder. (17:08) Stay safe, keep on saving and don't forget, roll with the changes.