A cruise? Haven't you heard of all the people and couples mysteriously "disappearing" from cruise ships at sea? You're a brave man. I am just razzing you a bit. But there were some stories recently.
You'll see everything from a few people wearing tux's to guys not wearing a tie at all. I usually just wear a button up, slacks, and a tie. If nothing else, it's a good opportunity to get some professional pics of you and your wife all dressed up. That's another thing, the cruise staff takes pictures constantly. Before dinners, at dinner, as you're going in to port, cruise events, etc. They have a designated photo section and usually towards the end of each day they will display all of the pictures. If you see one of you that you like you just grab it and go pay the person working the desk. At dinner you will get an assigned table and sit with the same people each night....I think there is usually 10 or 12 people per table. They usually try to sit you at tables with other couples and/or people in your age group. Me and Makayla went on a cruise for our honeymoon, and it was cool because at our table was other young married couples that we got to know. We ended up partying with them a lot of the time.
Yeah, that should be fun, meeting other people. I finally got around to reading the pamphlet they sent and it answered a bunch of these questions. Apparently you can choose to have them automatically put the suggested tips on the Sail and Sign account. Hey Tray, check your e-mail.
A lot of people do this because it's convenient and you don't have to think about it or make sure you have enough cash at the end of the trip. But, I don't recommend it. IMO, tipping should be according to the level of service they provide. I have not found the Head Waiters/Maitre D's to be very worthy of the suggested tips. OTOH, the cabin steward or waiter may be deserving of more. Tipping bartenders and such during the trip is usually added to the cost of the drinks automatically.
For excursions, I would suggest not touring the Mayan ruins in Progreso. It was hot, with a ton of walking. Wish I would've just done some drinking there, as it seemed there wasn't much else to do. After that excursion, we just walked down the street by the beach, and there were guys selling beers for like a dollar, so we just sat around and had a few before it was time to get back on the boat. In Belize, we did the cave tubing, which was pretty neat. There may be better options though- I don't remember there being a shark swim I don't think. You should be able to find some Belikin beer around there for pretty cheap - also picked up a couple Belikin beer glasses for cheap. Good stuff. In Cozumel, we did sort of a snorkel/booze cruise combination - this was the best of the three. Then we went to Carlos n Charlies, as was mentioned earlier, which was pretty out of control. Also, don't worry about how much drinks cost. Saving a hundred dollars or so by thinking too much about it probably isn't worth it in the long run, especially since this is the only first honeymoon you'll ever have. Congratulations, by the way. One cool thing I liked was the copies of NY Times Digest they had laying around every day. They take all the best news stories from the Times and condense them into just a few pages. I never have time to read the paper so this was perfect.
Unreal. Best time of my life. I'll provide more details later, but I could not have imagined a better vacation/honeymoon. I don't have to eat for about four days.
Question: Do you think this would be fun as a vacation with some buds if you were single, or is it more of a couples thing?
There were some single women there, so I think that would be OK. However, I would look into a singles cruise or something.
