What was your worst DCL rookie mistake?

[mevelandry]

Second rookie mistake (2017): thinking I would be comfortable meeting princesses... Turns out that I can't handle a conversation "in character" very well. It really wasn't for me! LOL

 

[ivanp91]

We were told the following, and it helped tremendously - look at the rugs in the halls. You will see a map of the world about every three feet. If you are walking toward the north pole, you are heading to the front of the ship. If you are heading toward the south pole, you are heading toward the back of the ship. It really worked for me. Many, many times, I'm embarrassed to admit...

You don't even need to look at the map - the stars on the carpet have the "point" pointing towards the front of the ship.

 

[TestingH2O]

Not taking time to really explore the ship. We were in Concierge and we spent a lot of time in the lounge. My SIL did the ship tour and loved it so I've made that part of my plan on subsequent cruises.

 

[BMDisney]

1. Going on a Carnival Cruise for our first cruise instead of Disney
2. Mistaking Bourbon for Whiskey then doing the Whiskey tasting. I thought I liked Whiskey (fireball, Tennesee Honey, etc, but apparently those aren't Whiskey) Yuck.
3. Not booking a Palo Dinner (We did do the Brunch though)
4. Doing the Mixology class, then going to our state room and drinking half a six pack.

 

[cadien]

You don't even need to look at the map - the stars on the carpet have the "point" pointing towards the front of the ship.

I will say Norwegian makes that part easier to notice/remember. Their carpets have fish swimming towards the front of the ship.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

My biggest mistake was taking my DS when he was 3. All children are different, but he just couldn't handle the crowds and sensory overload. He was really uncomfortable the whole cruise. I took him on his second DCL cruise when he was 6 and it was a different story altogether. At 7, when we did a B2B, he was happily and totally immersed.

 

[Sarahraegraham]

Not taking advantage of the free room service!!! Not that we EVER went hungry, geez, they fed us like kings, but still... I wouldn't have minded the milk and cookies before bed or the PB&J's you can get for your day offship.

OMG that’s brilliant

 

[Keyser]

This is not exactly a "mistake", but I'd second whoever posted "not having to do everything."

The biggest thing I had to learn as a rookie was the different mindset for cruises vs. other vacations. On most vacations, I schedule/plan things down to the minute (to give you an idea, my family made me a camo t-shirt with "vacation commando" printed on it one year) and am often packing as much in as is reasonable to do. I tried this on my first cruise - feeling like I had to plan every minute and do every activity to maximize what I could get out of this one experience. Beyond a few things like "don't miss the boat", though, there's much less need for that on the cruises - the relatively short walks from one place to another, the generally laid-back attitudes, the fact that there really is NOT something to immediately be doing every minute, and even the things worth doing are not "the trip is pointless without this show/activity" things, etc. all took some adjusting, but we all found we loved it. And no, I don't feel that way at all when I'm not on a cruise - even when I've tried, I find I'm very anxious with "downtime" in non-cruise settings.

That, and realizing that there are lots of things out of our control that might mess up plans, but they don't mess up the vacation. We've certainly had a little of this on our non-cruise vacations (getting caught in a summer hail storm in Arizona that shattered our windshield and nearly totaled our car was the most recent!), but we've been pretty lucky overall on those trips. On the other hand, we've run into a lot of "issues" on cruises: bomb threat that closed Port Canaveral delaying boarding/leaving by hours, rain effectively wiping out all the port activities on a trip (including Castaway Cay), excursions being cancelled, daughter accidentally breaking a glass and cutting herself in the stateroom leading to visiting the medical facilities and then not being able to swim the rest of the trip, motion sickness, overtired kid meltdowns, etc. Even when all that happened, we all (eventually) realized we were still having a great time, and the details about what we did or didn't get to do didn't matter so much. It took me until basically the end of my first cruise (when we ran into some of those issues) to realize

we're just as happy when we don't do everything we'd planned for.​

I can't say I've managed to bring that attitude over to our non-cruise vacations, but I've come to feel that on cruises, we can roll with pretty much whatever happens.

I am not sure that if we were on itineraries that were more "sightseeing-focused" (e.g. a Mediterranean cruise) that I wouldn't revert back to my commando ways, though... Going to islands or Alaska is less about seeing or doing one very particular thing, and more just enjoying the experience overall, but if I had 1 day in Rome, I imagine I would be back to maximizing my time there!​

 

[RedSox68]

Not trying the Drink of the Day. 7 cruises later, still haven't tried one. In 107 days, I'm going to try one, or two !!!!!

One of our favorite things to do - on any cruise line!

And I may have already mentioned this -- but it is so worth mentioning again after 17 cruises and many lessons learned.......don't over pack! My rookie mistake on my first few cruises in fact, taking way too many clothes, shoes, toiletries and accessories and not using half of them -- forgetting to realize that on sea days you basically bum around in the same stuff except for dinner and don't need a complete outfit for every day My rule of thumb became that whatever I wore to dinner the night before for cruise casual was my excursion outfit the next day! Worst one -- packing for our extended Alaska/cruisetour trip in 2012 and bringing a whole suitcase of stuff we never even opened!

 

[eeyoreandtink]

1. Going on a Carnival Cruise for our first cruise instead of Disney
2. Mistaking Bourbon for Whiskey then doing the Whiskey tasting. I thought I liked Whiskey (fireball, Tennesee Honey, etc, but apparently those aren't Whiskey) Yuck.
3. Not booking a Palo Dinner (We did do the Brunch though)
4. Doing the Mixology class, then going to our state room and drinking half a six pack.

LOL. DH got chosen for the game in our mixology class. He had to chug a taxi cab before class ever started. Same result.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

One of our favorite things to do - on any cruise line!

And I may have already mentioned this -- but it is so worth mentioning again after 17 cruises and many lessons learned.......don't over pack! My rookie mistake on my first few cruises in fact, taking way too many clothes, shoes, toiletries and accessories and not using half of them -- forgetting to realize that on sea days you basically bum around in the same stuff except for dinner and don't need a complete outfit for every day My rule of thumb became that whatever I wore to dinner the night before for cruise casual was my excursion outfit the next day! Worst one -- packing for our extended Alaska/cruisetour trip in 2012 and bringing a whole suitcase of stuff we never even opened!

Not a DCL mistake but lessons learned: First ever cruise was on the Norway. Airlines lost our luggage to Ft. Lauderdale. Rushed to Target, got essentials (underwear, slacks, shorts, shirts, shoes, etc.) and was the last on the ship. Talk about not over packing for a cruise. Luggage was sent back home instead of next port. Filed all the paperwork for nothing. Oh, DH was a Capt. for that airlines. Double stab.

 

[hoff41]

Ordering soda from a bar on CC before i realized there were dispensers on the island too!

 

[nickle831]

Really? I did not know that.

Oh yea! LOL we learned that the hard way once when my daughter was a toddler. When I asked the dr, he said oh yea that happens to some people, they have the opposite reaction.
She was literally trying to climb the walls. She is normally a quite, shy, hide behind your legs kind of kid, so that reaction caught us completely off guard.

 

[Cheerio]

For us, it was not booking onboard for the next cruise. We weren't sure if we'd do it again and then we regretted it. Never again.

 

[RedSox68]

Not a DCL mistake but lessons learned: First ever cruise was on the Norway. Airlines lost our luggage to Ft. Lauderdale. Rushed to Target, got essentials (underwear, slacks, shorts, shirts, shoes, etc.) and was the last on the ship. Talk about not over packing for a cruise. Luggage was sent back home instead of next port. Filed all the paperwork for nothing. Oh, DH was a Capt. for that airlines. Double stab.

When we sailed out of Barcelona, they were having a baggage handler strike. Our luggage arrived for the first leg of our Med cruise. For the second leg of our b2b, we saw people arriving and standing in line at guest services in just a panic (and some hysterics) that their luggage had not arrived. We found out later that some handlers at the airport were switching destination tags and sending the luggage all over the world. We had friends whose luggage went to Germany. They got it back, but not in time for the cruise!

 

[Catvondita]

Not realizing how much money I would have spent on booze. Should have saved more and brought a bottle or two of wine with me

 

[Tim3888]

My two rookie mistakes (sort of):

1) Only doing a 3-day cruise to start. This is completely in hindsight. We chose the 3-day cruise because we had never been on any cruise before, and so we didn't want to spend thousands of dollars and potentially be stuck on a boat for a week being miserable. And at the time, the 3-day seemed plenty long to us. But after going on a 7-day, the vibe is so much better (everyone seems more relaxed, less of a rushed feeling, etc.) that I wish we'd done a 4 or 5 day.

2) What we chose to do after the cruise. Okay, this obviously not about the cruise itself. But the cruise was such a good experience that our choice of activity after the cruise just felt like a huge letdown. Some of it was just the 'resort' we stayed at was not nearly as good as advertised. But some of it was just compared to coming off the cruise, it was just... that much worse.

After our second cruise we stayed at a Universal Studios resort, and while not quite as fun as a Disney Cruise, we did have a blast and it was a much better way to end the vacation.

 

[cheermom2four]

Only doing a 3-day cruise to start.

We made the same mistake! Ever since, we have only cruise 7 nights. I will never cruise 3 nights again as its just too short and you are right, the vibe is just different even with room steward and servers. I love getting to know the wait staff and room steward.