10 tips to AVOID CROWDS on a cruise ship!
In this post today, I'm going to go through 10 of my top tips to help you avoid the crowds on a cruise ship.
You've seen the Instagram posts, the YouTube ship tours, and the photos of the ships in the sales brochures - gorgeous, deserted swimming pools and vast open decks with lots of sun loungers. You've also seen the 'real' photos, where there are often thousands of other passengers onboard, and they all seem to want a seat in the sun! It might surprise you that there are some pretty easy ways to avoid the crowds, in order to prevent you from feeling like you're surrounded by lots of other people at all times on your cruise!
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Ok, let's get started with how you're going to avoid the crowds on your upcoming cruise...
1. 'Ship within a Ship' concepts
Unfamiliar with the 'ship within a ship' concept? Well, this is where you can cruise on a megaship, but in a private part of the ship that most other passengers aren't able to access. You'll usually find this is where the top suites onboard the ships will be found, but there are often some cost-effective room types in these areas too! Some examples of this 'ship within a ship' concept can be seen with MSC's 'Yacht Club', Norwegian Cruise Line's 'The Haven' and Celebrity Cruises 'the Retreat'. Interestingly, Princess Cruises are also now launching into this market, with the introduction of what they call 'the Sanctuary Collection' onboard both Sun Princess and Star Princess - it'll be interesting to see how this product evolves over time!
In these areas, you can expect to find exclusive sun decks, private lounge spaces, staterooms with private butlers dedicated to each room, and often very premium in-room setups. However, it's worth calling out now that you can also score yourself a bargain with some of these products - did you know that you can stay in an 'Inside' (room without a window) cabin within the MSC Yacht Club? Guests in these rooms will still get access to the same wonderful facilities as those staying in the top suites, but at an absolute fraction of a price! Worth looking at, right?!
These spaces are often absolutely stunning - here’s the Swarovski staircase within MSC’s Yacht Club on MSC World Europa"…
There are other ‘ships within ships’ out there. Norwegian Cruise Line also offers a solo traveller concept area, where this part of the ship is closed to all passengers who aren’t travelling solo. This then gives you a lounge to relax in, which is usually much quieter than elsewhere onboard the ship!
2. Book your own balcony!
Know where you won't find any crowds? On your own private balcony!
There are so many different room types to choose from, and it can often be pretty confusing. However, a balcony stateroom always means that your balcony is YOURS - nobody else will be sharing that space with you. They might not be huge spaces, granted, but they'll often provide you with a little bit of privacy away from the crowds, if you need it at times! Throughout my cruising life, I've stayed in many different types of cabins - I recently cruised in a solo balcony cabin (yes, a balcony cabin designed for just ONE passenger) onboard P&O Aurora - you can click below to watch my tour of this room over on YouTube, or click here for my website post to show you around!
3. Use busier parts of the ship during their 'non-peak' hours
This one might sound obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't think about it. Each evening, those beautiful venues in the main 'heart of the ship' will come to life, but have you ever thought about relaxing in them during the day? So often, I see people struggling to find a seat in the onboard coffee shop, and then giving up and standing at the side or going back to their rooms - instead, why not just take your coffee along to another venue and relax in there? On this point, you’ll often find that the inside areas of a cruise ship are much quieter during the day, as most passengers will be out walking on deck, or trying their best to get a sun tan while on vacation!
Let’s talk about cleaning - most cleaning operations for public venues takes place during the night on cruise ships, so you'll usually find that venues are always open for you to enjoy during the day (unless there's an event going on inside). You'll also find that most lounges will play music quietly in the background too, so it's quite a nice environment to relax in!
4. Does your ship have a Promenade Deck? If so, explore it!
I'm always surprised at this one - everybody always seems to want to relax up on the top deck of a cruise ship, and it's as though very few people think about the Promenade Deck, which is much lower down. Yes, one drawback is that you might only have sunshine on one side of the ship, but that works for me!
You'll usually find that these Promenade Decks will wrap-around the ship, and will often house benches, chairs, loungers and sometimes even sofas - I've never been unable to find a seat on a Promenade Deck on any cruise, so it's maybe one to try on your next trip!
The other real benefit to Promenade Deck seating is that you're much closer to the water than you would be if you were up on the top deck - absolutely perfect for wildlife spotting when you're cruising around on a day at sea! Even if there aren’t any seating options down there, you’re sure to be able to exercise in a relative degree of peace - here’s the Promenade Deck onboard Rotterdam, the Holland America cruise ship. While there wasn’t a massive amount of seating down here, there was a great track all around the ship that provided you with somewhere to exercise in the open air, rather than having to use the gym!
5. Have a night in!
On so many cruise lines now, you can order Room Service for a minimal (or zero) fee. You'll also often find that ships will deliver drinks to your room (often as part of the Room Service menu). Why not relax in your cabin / stateroom, and watch a movie on the TV? If there's a sports game on and the ship you’re cruising on has decent satellite signal, they'll often play that through the TVs on one of the channels - why not relax with a drink in your room to watch this, instead of crowding into a busy bar? Just a thought!
Two cruise lines in particular that I’d call out for having really good Room Service are both Cunard and Princess Cruises. With Cunard, you can expect restaurant-quality dining (from my experience), and with Princess you can expect impressively digital ordering systems - give it a try!
6. Set your alarm clock - get up early!
OK, this one's a bit of a no-brainer, but so many people message me after watching my YouTube ship tours to ask how I was able to cruise on a ship that was so quiet. The reality is that I hate filming PEOPLE in my ship tours, so I get up really early to capture the ship without everyone else being in it. If I can do it (and I absolutely HATE the mornings...) then you can too!
We're not talking hideously early - I find that on warm weather cruises, the top deck will begin to get busy around 9am, so why not set your alarm an hour earlier to go for a walk around the decks before everyone else gets out of bed, or out of the breakfast rooms!
7. Use the hot tubs at sunset!
If you haven't already, let me introduce you to the term 'human soup'. I'm often amazed at how many people are attracted to really busy hot tubs on cruise ships. My general rule is that when there's about 4-5 people in there, I'm not going to enter.
I never usually try to go 'hot tubbing' on a cruise ship during the day, as it can be SO busy out there. Instead, I love to plan to go out there for sunset - what better place to enjoy a cooler evening as the sun goes down than inside a bubbling hot tub? I often get the hot tub to myself at this time too, so it's a 'win win'!
It's worth mentioning - if you want to do this, then you need to first check what time the tubs will close on your cruise line. I've been on some ships where you can't bathe after about 7pm, but I've also been on others where they close at midnight - you'll find the times advertised on your Daily Schedule!
The general point I would stress here is that your cruise ship will get amazingly quiet once it gets to the time of day where most people go to get ready for dinner - I tend to find this is from about 4pm onwards on most itineraries. You'll sometimes find that you're almost alone on the top deck in bright sunlight by the time the main Dining Rooms open downstairs, as most people have gone away to prepare for dinner. Why not go to the buffet one night, and have a REALLY relaxed few hours out on deck? You'll thank me later for this tip!
8. Put some thought into Dining times...
I often turn up at a Dining Room onboard a cruise ship at 7.30pm, and then get annoyed at the fact I need to wait in a line to even get seated. On the other hand, those who opted to dine earlier (or later) would probably get seated straight away, and their service from the kitchen would probably be much faster, too!
To avoid the crowds in the Dining Room, you might want to think about eating slightly earlier, or later, in order to dine outside of the 'peak' hours down there. Remember - you're on a cruise ship with so many food offerings. If you're going to have your dinner later than usual, just plan to head to the buffet for an afternoon snack to keep you going for dinner. Alternatively, if you plan to eat earlier than usual to avoid the cruise ship crowds, then you could plan to head to the buffet a few hours later for a 'top up'.
I'll guarantee you now - you're not going to starve on your cruise!!
9. Stay onboard while the ship is in port!
I wouldn't recommend this for every single port of call, but you're probably going to find you might have 1 port on your cruise that you're not totally excited about, or maybe even a port you've been to before. In these cases, it could be worth planning to stay onboard the ship, in order to enjoy the facilities onboard while your fellow cruisers are all off the ship and enjoying a day ashore.
I often find that, on European cruises, the ship is EMPTY for most of the day, especially if I'm cruising with an American cruise line. I've put this down to the fact that the ship will have lots of American passengers who have travelled long haul to see some of our incredible European cities - they want to go and explore, rather than 'staying put' on the ship. As a European that's been to lots of the Med ports before, that's a WIN for me! A good example is Civitavecchia (the port for Rome) - when we dock there, I’m staying onboard to relax and enjoy the ship while everyone else flocks into the city!
10. BOOK what you want to do as soon as you're onboard!
Ok, this tip doesn't help you to LOSE the crowds completely, but we'd be lying if we said you were going on your cruise to avoid doing all of the activities, right? While you won't lose the crowds with this one, you'll be on the more organised side of the ship, and your experience will be MUCH slicker!
Once you get onboard, find out if you're going to need to BOOK any of your Speciality (pay extra) dining venues, rather than just turn up. This will avoid you waiting in lines to be seated - you'd then just turn up at the time booked, and you'd be taken to a table! Also, check if you need to book any entertainment on your ship! I was surprised to find so many bookable options on my recent Royal Caribbean and Virgin Voyages cruises - if you didn't book the show, you could risk just turning up and seeing if there was space. However, you had to join a long queue and were only permitted entry to the venue about 10 minutes before the show would start, so it all felt a bit chaotic.
In short, find out if you can book, and just do it early on in your trip!
Hopefully the tips in this post will help you to beat as many of the crowds as you would like to on your upcoming cruise. If you have enjoyed this post and found it useful, please do SIGN UP to my newsletters (they're free) by clicking here, and also SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel (this is also free!) by clicking here.
Happy Cruising!!