(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and if you're even remotely interested in cruises, this is going to be an amazing episode. And spoiler alert, I'm recording this after the interview, and I'll be honest, I was a little bit of a skeptic on cruises, and I am totally convinced and excited to go on one.

And who better to join me for this conversation than Emma Latisse, a cruise expert and content creator, to talk about every way you could optimize your cruising experience, we'll cover everything you need to know from the best destinations, picking the right operator, the right cabins, different activities, and entertainment on board, and even ways that you might be able to use cruise loyalty programs to snag the best, or even free deals.

Emma's been cruising since she was 11, has been on over 50 cruises, and has a wealth of knowledge on everything from luxury yachts to huge mega ships, and getting great deals on everything. I am so excited to have her on the show, so let's jump in right after this.

- There is nothing better than finding a brand of clothing that's comfortable, functional, and looks good. And that's exactly how I feel about our sponsor today, Viore. If you saw me in person, you'd know I believe it, because there are very few days that go by where I'm not wearing one, two, or even three pieces of Viore.

They make performance apparel for men and women that's incredibly versatile. Everything is designed to work out in, but doesn't look or feel like it at all. And it is so comfortable, you'll wanna wear it all the time. I've long said that Sunday performance joggers were my favorites, and don't get me wrong, I have at least three pairs, and they are the most comfortable pants I've owned.

But I've been running a lot more, and it's still warm in California, so I'm wearing my core shorts all the time. Their products are incredibly versatile, and can be used for just about any activity, whether it's running, training, yoga, but they're also great for lounging and running around town.

Honestly, I think Viore is an investment in your happiness, and for all the Hacks listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase, as well as free shipping and returns on US orders over $75. So, you should definitely check them out at allthehacks.com/viore. Again, go to allthehacks.com/v-u-o-r-i, and get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet.

(upbeat music) Emma, thank you for being here. - Thanks for having me, I'm excited. - It's funny, when I think of travel traditionally, and in the past with this show, I think of flights, I think of cars and hotels, but cruises aren't usually in that top three, but you have enough experience to make a case for it.

So I'm curious if you can make a case for cruises that people maybe haven't heard or might be neglecting. - Okay, so I think for me, one of my favorite things about cruising is it makes travel so much easier. Like you say, you're used to talking about hotels and flights.

Often if you book a cruise, you book one thing, you pay once, and that is it. For a week, for two weeks, it's like being looked after, and it's a really good way to sort of get an insight into different countries. You can go on a cruise and visit five different countries in a week, which if you were going to do that on land, that requires a lot of planning, and that's quite hard.

- Do you feel like you get time in those countries to really see them, or is it usually you're there for five hours and you kind of just get a little quick glimpse? - It does depend. I mean, it's quite common to have two days in a port. I've done three days in a row in port.

I often go back to places that I've visited on a cruise, and you can find out within a day whether you want to spend more time there, or if you don't want to go back there. So it's quite nice for that. - When did this whole cruise passion begin for you?

- So I was 11 when I took my first cruise. That was not my deciding. That was a big family cruise, and from that moment, I was hooked. The things that I liked about it when I was 11 are very different to the things I like now. You know, for me at 11, I had so much more freedom than I had in my regular life.

I was on there with my cousins, so my parents might want to do a formal sit-down dinner, and me and my cousins could run off and go to the buffet. And for me, to get pizza in the buffet by myself at 11, I got to go to the kids' clubs.

I would think I was so cool. I had American friends, Australian friends, and it was just so much fun. - It's funny. I decided that I really wanted to go to boarding school for a lot of the same reasons. - Really? - It seems like a much different proposition.

You could just do it for a couple of weeks, but I wanted the freedom to be able to do things and go over without having to ask for rides for my parents. But this is not a conversation about boarding school. For people who are unfamiliar, I wonder if we could try to set the landscape of cruising, because some people might think, "Oh, it's just these massive carnival cruise ships "that go to the Bahamas." So how do you think about different types of lines and ships, but then maybe next, after we can talk about the kind of destinations and lengths and that kind of stuff?

- It's really interesting to hear you say carnival cruises, the thing that comes to mind. 'Cause when I speak to someone from the UK, the first thought that they have is, "Oh, cruises are really boring. "They're for old people. "They're very traditional." Whereas in the US, it's seen much more as a party thing.

And both of those things are true. I'm not saying they're not true, but there is everything in between. So there's a couple of big American cruise lines, which are probably the ones that people would recognize. They're the ones that tend to be more sort of family focused, but there's also many, many more luxurious cruise lines.

And there's so much in between. I mean, I've done cruises with as few as 19 guests on board on tiny ships. And then all the way up to 6,500 guests, I think is the biggest ship I've been on. So if you're someone who wants to, just sit by the pool with a book and eat good food and enjoy drinks that are brought to you, there's so many cruise lines that do that.

And if you're somebody who wants to do, I've done skydiving simulators, surf simulators, zip lines. If you want all of that adrenaline filled stuff, that's there too. But there's just so much variety, I think within the cruise industry. I don't think I've ever found anybody who I've not thought you would suit that one.

- Maybe some examples that people want some inspiration. What are a few other kind of brands that if someone wanted to just quickly look online to understand kind of a little more down what you're talking about? - The main ones are Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival. They're sort of the biggest ones.

You'll probably recognize those. We also have a lot of British cruise lines. That's a different conversation. And there's also a lot of European cruise lines that I don't think people should ignore. I think it's nice if you're gonna go to Italy to cruise with an Italian cruise line where everybody on board is Italian.

I find that really fun. I know it's not for everybody, but I really enjoy it. And there's a lot of sort of smaller, more adult cruise lines. If you wanted to do a cruise with a cruise line like Princess, Holland America, Celebrity, you won't find as many children on board, but you'll find very good food, very good service.

They all have theater shows every day. For me, if I think about what my ideal day is, it involves lots of eating out. It involves live music, maybe involves going for a swim. All of that stuff is on a cruise. So there are some more quirky cruise lines if you're interested in doing a very spontaneous adult cruise.

Virgin just started a cruise line, so there's just so much in there. - So in my mind, it's like, oh, it's a family thing, right? There's kids running around. You just said some of them are adult only. Do you think that works at every tier? Are there places that people should focus on if you're younger versus older?

Want kids, don't want kids? How do you think about it from that perspective? - I would say generally the cheaper the cruise is, the more kids you're gonna get on there because you get a lot of discounted third and fourth passenger places. So when you have a cabin, often they'll hold three or four people, but in reality, normally you'll only have two in there 'cause they have sort of bunk beds.

Normally four adults wouldn't share a cabin. If you go on the cheaper end, sometimes, you know, I cruised recently with my family and the children were 49 pounds, which is about $60 for 13 nights. So if you do go down to the budget end, obviously you're gonna fill those spaces with children.

When you get a bit more luxurious, and I would say a ship with around 1,000 or less, I would class as a small cruise ship now. I know it sounds a lot, 1,000 people, but on those ones, they tend to be a bit more expensive and they tend to be a bit more adult focused.

Not that children, they can still go on some of these, but they tend to be a bit more adult. - And what's that price range, right? You said obviously at the low end, but if someone's thinking about a cruise at the highest level, you're spending from what to what per night?

- For me personally, I'm gonna try and translate into dollars in my head. For me, my sort of happy space would be around $150 per person per night. That's where I'm happy. A mainstream cruise line, you can do that. If you're gonna do something like a river cruise, they can be $500 per person per night.

You could do $1,000 per person per night if you wanted to do that. And I think the cheapest I've done was around $50. So from 50 to 1,000, anywhere in that range. - Well, we're gonna talk about getting deals in a bit, but one thing I'll share for inspiration, a friend of mine, Ramit Sethi, went on this amazing, beautiful cruise.

So if people wanna see the other side of high-end, beautiful, there's this cruise in Japan and it's like a floating hotel and the website's gone to guntu.jp. I don't know if you've seen this one before, but I just want for people who wanna go online and look at that other end of cruising that doesn't look a thing like a giant cruise ship with the most beautiful food and hospitality.

That's just something to kind of wet people's palate. Let's talk about where, right? Are there major regions for cruising? I assume you could probably cruise anywhere, but are there kind of really common destinations? - So the main ones out of the US, obviously Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and sort of cruising out of New York.

Those ones are very, very popular. Cruising over here in Europe, we have a lot of Mediterranean cruises. Great for us in winter when it's a bit dark and a bit rainy in the UK, we can go to somewhere like Barcelona in two hours and get much better weather. There's also a lot of sort of Norway cruises around here.

I like to think of Norway as our version of Alaska, but you can cruise across the Atlantic if you want. You can cruise across the Pacific. I just got back from a cruise that went to Japan, which was absolutely incredible. And then we have cruises that are around Australia.

So yeah, pretty much anywhere where there's ocean, there are cruises. Cruises in the Middle East are becoming quite popular now. I haven't done that yet, but it probably would be easier to say where cruises aren't. 'Cause I mean, you can cruise to Antarctica if you have the budget for it.

- Yeah, that would be one at the higher end. How many cruises have you been on? - I'm on 61 cruises, which I know sounds bonkers and it is, but that's counting every single, you know, I've done some very big ferries, river cruises. I've done some press launches. I did one cruise that was canceled after four hours and they canceled it while we were at dinner and we had to go home.

And I'm still counting that 'cause I unpack. So that's absolutely every day. - Okay. When I first heard about Green Chef, our sponsor today, I told my wife, Amy, that we should try it out. And she immediately said no, because the few times we've tried meal kits in the past, it just didn't work out.

What had me excited was that Green Chef was focused on eating well and flavorful dishes instead of just trying to be the cheapest way to make dinner, though it turns out it's still a much better deal than ordering out. So we found an awesome deal to try it out, like the one I'll share with you, and the rest was history.

We've now been doing Green Chef for the past seven months and had well over 50 Green Chef meals. And after such a great experience, I reached out to the company to see if they'd become a sponsor, which as you can see, they decided to do, because I think it's one of the easiest ways to eat clean and align your food with whatever wellness goals you have, but without skimping on flavor.

Each week, you can pick from over 80 chef-crafted, nutritionist-approved recipes, featuring fresh ingredients like organic fruits and vegetables, and sustainably sourced seafood. So if any of this resonates with you, including my wife's initial objections, you should absolutely give Green Chef a try, and we have an awesome deal for you as well.

Com, go to allthehacks.com/greenchef, and use the code 60ALLTHEHACKS to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months. That's allthehacks.com/greenchef, and the code 60ALLTHEHACKS to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months of the number one meal kit for eating. We have a holiday tradition of making homemade pasta with the family, and I'm so excited to level that whole experience up this year after taking the Making Perfect Pasta class on Masterclass, who I'm excited to be partnering with today.

Masterclass makes a meaningful gift this season for you and anyone on your list, because both of you can learn from the best to become your best, from leadership to effective communication to cooking. Whether you're watching Masterclass on TV, listening on audio mode in the app, or on their site, the quality speaks for itself.

It's like Masterclass instructors are your own personal mentors that are gonna help you reach the next level. And just thinking about how much it would cost to take one-on-one classes from the world's best is crazy, but Masterclass membership starts at just $120 a year for unlimited access to over 180 one-on-one classes, with new ones added every month, like the Science of Better Sleep with Matt Walker, that's helped me sleep better every single night.

Boost your confidence and find practical takeaways you can apply to your life and work. This holiday season, give one annual membership and get one free at allthehacks.com/masterclass. Right now, you can get two memberships for the price of one at allthehacks.com/masterclass. That's allthehacks.com/masterclass. Offer terms apply. And I guess I forgot to ask, how would you, as someone trying to look at cruises, what are some of the evaluation criteria they should use comparing different cruise lines?

Are there things you would look at that maybe I wouldn't think to look at, other than pictures of a boat? Yes, you need to find a cruise line that suits you in terms of how busy it's gonna be. Some people like to be entertained all the time. They like to have diving shows, ice skating.

There's cruise lines that do that. Some people have no interest in that. So there's no point booking a cruise ship that has a go-kart track taking up a third of the top deck if you're someone who doesn't wanna do that. Some cruise lines do still have dress codes. And I know a lot of people find it really weird to be told what to wear.

Not all cruise lines do that, but that's something I would definitely research before booking, 'cause you don't wanna show up and then it's just not what you planned. And you mentioned 61. Are there some favorite highlights of cruises that you say, if you're just looking to do this for the first time, here are two or the three of the best ones I've done?

If someone came to me and they said, "I'm gonna only do one cruise in my entire life," which cruise should it be? It is Singapore to Tokyo, because it is absolutely unlike anything. Every place I went to was so interesting. And I think traveling in Asia by cruise ship is a lot easier because you know where you're gonna sleep.

You know what your food's gonna be. You can go out and be adventurous during the day and then you still have your sort of comfort zone that comes round with you. So I really like that. If someone's coming to me and they're thinking of a first cruise in Europe, I normally say a seven day Mediterranean cruise.

I think that's long enough to give you a taste of it. And you can see a lot of places in seven days. If you're in the US, the most popular first cruise is a Caribbean cruise, which is not my favorite. I feel like it's very man-made. A lot of the cruise ports, they're designed for cruise ships, but it'll give you a taste of, are you happy to be on a ship?

Some people find it really weird that they look out and there's just sea in every direction. And you only need one day on board to find out if you like that or not. - Where would you suggest someone start if they're thinking, "I wanna go on a cruise. "Do I pick the line and then look at the places "or do I pick the place and then look at the lines?" - What I do is I look overall at a place.

So I may say, "I really want to go to Norway." And then I will have a look within that. I think if you go very specific and you say, "I really want to visit this port," there may only be one cruise line or one ship that does that. So I like to start roughly with the destination, Mediterranean, Norway.

When do I want to go? That makes a big difference. Most of our cruise ships move from places like Norway down to the Caribbean in winter because the sun goes down to the Caribbean and no one really wants to go around Norway in the dark. So that makes a big difference.

But have a look roughly. Do you wanna go in summer? Do you wanna go in winter? What is the rough destination? And then you'll probably find, I mean, there's a lot of cruise lines. There's a lot of cruise ships. You have five or six different cruise lines you can pick from within.

- And is there some website that has all the destinations, all the ships, all the lines to make it easy to figure this out? - There's many, many, many, of course. But the one that I like to use just because it's very simple, it's literally a list of where the cruises are going, is an American website.

It's called Vacations to Go. And you're probably more used to this than me 'cause it's an American website. It doesn't include the fees and the taxes and the port charges and stuff. So the price is probably not what you're actually gonna pay, but it gives you a really good idea of what is where, which can be quite hard to work out.

'Cause obviously if you go to a cruise line, they're gonna say, you're not gonna go to Royal Caribbean. And they say, nah, go with another cruise line. But this is just a big list. It's quite a simple website. That's where I start. I do not book through Vacations to Go.

I'm from the UK, but it gives me an idea of what is where. - So let's talk about this. You're gonna search, narrow down your list, do some homework to understand what's on board and what the rooms are like. Then where are you going to actually book it and find the best deals?

- So it's a little bit different in the UK and the US, but the thing that is similar is we have many, many big travel agencies and there's many independent agents. So I use a specific person to book my cruises who's part of a big travel agency, rather than just booking online with a big company.

And I like that because when things go wrong, you can literally just phone that one person and say, my flight is canceled. Can you sort this out? Obviously in 2020, that was not a great year for cruising. It shut down completely. We spent a lot of time fixing things for people who'd booked through the really big agencies that sell them cheap because no one could get through.

So I think if you can find someone who knows you and trusts you, and once you've booked a few cruises, they'll know what you like. My agent messages me all the time. She sends me a link and it's like, Emma, this one made me think of you. More often than not, she's right and I book it.

So I normally do recommend, if you can get to know one person, I think it's easier than just a big company. But I've booked cruises every single way over the years with some success and some less. - Is the price the same everywhere? Are there deals to be had?

- The price that a travel agent would give you would never be more than booking it direct 'cause the money comes from the cruise line. If you're gonna book a cruise direct on the cruise line's website, they're just keeping that money themselves. So the travel agents don't charge anything.

You either basically give the money to a travel agent or you give it to the cruise line. The way I see it is I might as well have free help, to be honest, but it's up to you. There's certain things. We have some supermarkets in the UK. You can get certain points for shopping, like grocery shopping, and you can only use those direct.

There's some sort of cashback sites where you can get a little bit. You know, when I go on a cruise with my YouTube channel, a cruise line will often say we'll give $100 on board credit to the first hundred people who book mentioning me. So sometimes they'll have extra stuff.

If a travel agent is trying to charge someone extra for a cruise, something's gone wrong and they should leave. - Okay, and what about some of those extras or discounts or promotions? Are there best times to book a cruise to get a deal? Is it last minute, far in advance?

- So if you're someone who can plan something three years in advance, that's great. And you can get a very, very good deal as soon as a new ship or a new itinerary is launched. I'm not someone who can, I just can't plan three years in advance. I have no idea what I'm gonna be doing.

So the next best time is normally between 60 to 90 days before the cruise, because everyone else who booked it two or three years in advance, they have to pay normally 60 or 90 days before. So some people don't pay and they know how many cabins they have left to fill.

So at that point, two months out, they might say, "Oh, all these people dropped out. "We've got all these rooms." And that's normally when the price will come down. I do tell people if there's a specific cruise you really wanna do, don't wait and assume that you're gonna be able to book it 'cause they do sell out.

So the best thing you can do if you wanna get a deal, keep a week off work in your calendar if you're not fussy, and then you can see which cruise lines you can book last minute. - What if you wait even more last minute? Are there deals to be had if you book next week?

- You normally have to do it at least two days in advance now just 'cause they have to put all the paperwork and everything through, but you just may end up with something, say you want the cheapest cabin, now only the suites are available or something last minute, which is not the worst problem to have, but you have to be very flexible, I think, to book very last minute.

- And what about things like points or loyalty programs? How did those factor into all of this? - So some cruise lines do have their own credit cards where if you spend money with that company, you'll get points, you can use them. I don't normally recommend that 'cause I'm not very cruise line loyal, and I think a lot of people think, I have the Royal Caribbean credit card, it makes most sense for me only to book Royal Caribbean cruises, and they don't look at one that they would enjoy just as much and is half price.

So that's what I think. Some people absolutely love it. One way that people get a lot of sort of, they're called free cruises, I don't think they're free, is through the casino. You can get points if you spend enough in the casino, they won't send you back, that's quite common.

Again, not something that I would do, but if you're booking a cruise, you can stick it on an Amex card. If you're doing your flights, you can use your normal points for that. There's nothing really that you can't do with a cruise that you would do if you're flying, and normally I'll stay in a hotel the night before.

- There is one deal that I went deep on a few weeks ago, and it's that because there are casinos on cruises and they make money, not as much as I thought, I'd originally thought like, "Wow, maybe they make all that money." I just looked before this, about two thirds of cruise revenue is from tickets, and about one third of it is on board.

And of that on board, there's food, there's drink, and we'll talk about some of those costs. But of that, a big piece is casino. And so if you go to a casino a lot in the US and you spend a lot of money, a lot of these casinos like Caesars have rewards programs.

And if you have status, which basically comes from spending money in a lot of these rewards programs, well, then you're able to show that status to some cruise lines and say, "Hey, Carnival," or, "Hey, Royal Caribbean, I have status on all of these casinos." Well, I'm guessing most of the people listening here, maybe I'm wrong, don't spend a lot of money gambling.

And so that's probably not going to be as lucrative. However, there are some ways to get status at casinos without actually gambling. And so I think that is the trick. So one is that if you have the, and I don't think there's a version of this in the UK, but the Wyndham earner business credit card, which is a credit card for Wyndham Rewards, which is a hotel chain, that gives you free Caesar's Diamond status, which is enough to get you a free cruise.

There's also Founder's Card, which is a program. I'll link to it in the show notes. I don't want to endorse all the benefits because it's quite expensive. It's like now it's $595. I signed up for Founder's Card many years ago and have locked myself into a lower rate. I'll put my referral link in the show notes if people want to check it out.

But that also gets you Caesar's Diamond status. And so once you get Caesar's Diamond status or MGM Gold status, then you can use that. And there's all these, you know, I'll put a link to an article that went way deeper than we'll go today. But it's like, you know, you want to target this cruise line first because I think Holland America owns Carnival or Royal Caribbean?

- Other way around. Carnival owns almost everything. - Okay. So it was, there was a sequence where it's like, if you try to use your free cruise on one of the cruise lines that's part of a conglomerate, they look, have you spent money on the other ones, but only in one way.

So it's like, you can use your status to get like a free Holland America cruise. And then after that you want to do Carnival or vice versa. And you could basically kind of sequence it out to get three or four free. And I'm using air quotes here, cruises. We'll talk in a second about how they're not always free.

But if you want to go down the rabbit hole of free cruises, getting yourself some casino status can often unlock a few. And people say, don't take your first offer because you'll get an email from Carnival. That's like, oh, do you want a free three-day Bahamas cruise? And then you wait a month and now you want a free seven day.

Do you want a free seven day with a balcony? And it goes on and on. So I'll put a link to an awesome article from the Frequent Miler blog that goes deep on this. I am currently, because I have this Caesars Diamond status, I'm about to try this out, except my Caesars, I matched Caesars Diamond seven years ago.

And my account has been on inactive. The only way to reactivate it is in the casino. And so I cannot currently explore this until I go physically in person to a Caesars Casino. And I just haven't, since going down this rabbit hole, haven't been to a Caesars Casino, which there are many of, but there are not many of in, you know, nearby.

So that's my little tangent on going down free cruises. But talk to me for a second about why they're not necessarily free, these kind of offers. Because I think there's more that goes into the cost of a cruise than just the ticket. - Yeah, so if you get a free cruise through a casino bug, it will not include taxes.

It won't include port fees. And sometimes those things can cost more than the other part of the cruise fare. In the UK, we don't see it split out. We just see the price. But in the US, it's sort of a very low, you know, 399 plus 300 in fees.

So you could end up spending more on that cruise just 'cause you think you're getting a free cruise than you would spend on a whole cruise anyway, if you were just looking at a different cruise line that had some sort of sale or something. So I think some people do get very happy that they got a free cruise, but it's not necessarily.

If it's something you want to do, fantastic. It's a good discount. It's a really good discount, but perhaps don't just blindly sort of follow it and think it's fantastic. - And some of these, you know, I was reading through this article. Some of them actually were really, really great deals, but you're right.

Some of them are not quite as great as they seem. - Yeah, it sort of goes back to what you said, that we're going to talk about other expenses, but most of the American cruise lines, they add on like a automatic tip gratuity every day, which can be $15 a day.

So if you're getting a free cruise, but then there's say two of you in the room and then you're doing two times 15 times, it adds up quite fast. - Yeah, what are some of the other costs? I'm sure the port fees and the taxes and even the gratuities are kind of things that are disclosed, but maybe not included in the marketed price.

But once you're on board, you did mention earlier, like the great thing about cruises, it's kind of, it's all there. You don't have to think about it. Surely there are things on that cruise that also cost money. - Yeah, if you want to spend money, you can spend more than your cruise fare easily.

But what I normally do is, cruises don't include drinks. That's one of the big things. They'll include like water, tea, coffee, but normally people want to drink soda. You want to drink alcohol and you can either just pay like as if you're in a bar or you can get a drinks package.

So a drinks package would basically be you saying to the cruise line, I'll give you $30 a day and you'll give me unlimited. And they're sort of thinking you won't get the money's worth, but you're thinking I'm gonna drink more than that. So I normally get a non-alcoholic one.

Some of them are very expensive and I think I would be constantly chasing, trying to get my money back. But the main things that I sort of pay for on a cruise would be some drinks. Wi-Fi is not normally included, is on some luxury lines, but I work from cruise ships now, so I need to pay for Wi-Fi.

And people do spend a lot of money on cruise line excursions in the ports. I don't, I think I'm a bit more sort of confident doing my own thing than a lot of other cruisers, but I'm quite happy to get off. You don't ever have to do a trip with the cruise line.

You can wander off by yourself. You can order something online. You can buy your ticket to the aquarium or wherever you're going. But the cruise lines do charge an awful lot, I think, for their included trips. If you're someone who's a bit nervous, like I did some excursions when I was in Asia because I thought I have one day in Vietnam.

I want to sort of make the most out of it, but they can be, especially with the American cruise lines, you can pay $150 a day, which that's what I like to pay for the cruise, so. - And Wi-Fi, is internet connectivity pretty easy on a cruise? Is it reliable?

Could someone actually work while they're, I mean, you do, I guess. - I do, but if I still had my old job, I would not have lasted. I would have been in big trouble because it can be really good and it can be really bad. And there's so many things that affect it.

If you're thinking you're a ship and you're sailing between a fjord, there's massive things, there's massive rocks in the way of everything. If you hit bad weather, it can knock out the internet. So it can be good, but it depends on your boss. You know, for me, if I couldn't get on the course, if I had my old job before I worked for myself, I would have been in big trouble.

- And what about just kind of like wireless reliability? Is there cell reception when you're cruising between ports? - So as you sail away, what I normally say to people, if they're nervous, they need to just put their phone in airplane mode and not mess around with the internet because you will connect to like a maritime network when you're out in the ocean.

And that can be very, very expensive. I've heard horror stories of people who thought, right, I'll just put my phone in the safe and it's connected in the middle of the night and it's racked them up a massive bill. So what I like to do, it's a bit different for me now.

I kind of need to stay connected, but if I didn't work in the cruise industry, I would be putting my phone on airplane mode when I sailed away in the evening. Normally you sail away sort of 6 p.m. and I would be enjoying an evening without internet. I think it's quite nice.

But yeah, when you're in port, if you have roaming, I have worldwide roaming on my phone plan. You can use it like normal. If you're sailing and you're near to the land, it's okay, but I would recommend going into the settings and making sure your phone will ask before it changes network.

I know not everyone likes to sort of do that, but if you're confident, you can just make it not connect to maritime and you'll be fine. - Okay, perfect. And what about on board? All these activities, the go-karts, the shows, all of that is included? Or are there some activities that cost extra?

- It does depend on the cruise line, of course. Normally everything in the theater is included. You'll have live music included. There'll be trivia, game shows, dance classes, that kind of stuff that's included. The one with the go-karts, the go-karts do cost extra, but that is because that ship holds thousands and thousands of people.

And if they were free, no one would ever get a go, I don't think. So there's a few things like that. Generally speaking, I don't normally spend extra on entertainment on a cruise. I really don't think I'd need to. But yeah, you see water slides, you see pools, everything like that is included.

- What a ride. Am I right? It has been an eventful few years with two kids with constant reminders of how uncertain life can be. Having quality term life insurance can help put your mind at ease knowing that your family is taken care of. If something unexpected happens. So definitely check out our sponsor today, Fabric by Gerber Life.

Fabric was designed by parents for parents to help you get a high quality, surprisingly affordable term life insurance policy in less than 10 minutes. And when I say surprisingly affordable, I actually went online to compare prices and found that Fabric was highly competitive with great policies like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day.

And you can go from start to covered in less than 10 minutes with no health exam required. So join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/allthehacks. That's meetfabric.com/allthehacks. M-E-E-T fabric.com/allthehacks. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states, prices subject to underwriting and health questions.

When it comes to building wealth, taxes are such a big part of the strategy. And even if you've already filed, being proactive right now to lower your future liability is so important. And now that I'm working with Gelt, I feel like I finally have a partner I can trust to handle everything for my personal and business taxes.

And I'm excited to be partnering with them today. Think of Gelt as the ultimate modern CPA. They not only offer an amazing tech platform that gives you personalized guidance to maximize deductions, tax credits, and savings, but also it's so easy to communicate with them. There's an in-house team of expert CPAs who can recommend the most effective tax strategies to minimize risk and grow your wealth.

And my favorite story is that when we first onboarded with Gelt, they reviewed our past returns and found a huge mistake our prior CPA had made. So they refiled and got us back all that money. So if you're ready for a more premium, proactive tax strategy to optimize and file your taxes, you have to check out Gelt.

And as an All The Hacks listener, you can skip the wait list. Just head to allthehacks.com/Gelt, that's G-E-L-T. Again, that's allthehacks.com/G-E-L-T to stop overpaying on taxes. I just wanna thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show. Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

So please consider supporting those who support us. - You look at some of these cruises and you hear how many people are on there. Is everything crazy crowded on these big cruise ships, like, you know, waiting for a water slide or even getting a pool chair at the pool?

Is it just chaos with thousands of people on board or have they done a good job at putting enough pools and enough chairs and enough stuff so that a full cruise ship doesn't feel full? - I mean, some cruise lines do it much better than others, of course, but I will say, I don't think it is the case that the bigger the ship, the busier it is.

Not at all. Like, some of the ships that I've been on that have felt a lot busier have been, you know, one or 2,000 guests. And sometimes you'll go on a ship with 5,000. It's not like you see 5,000 people at any one time. So you just don't realize.

The last ship I got off was around 5,300, but there's 30 restaurants and bars, it said. So even if everyone is eating and drinking at the same time, that's just as busy as it would be on land. You know, the theater, I guess, is the only time you see a lot of people.

Sometimes they'll hold 900 people, but it's the same as going to the theater on land. It's no busier than that, I don't think. If you do pay more, you get more space per person. - It's funny, we went on a cruise, one of these Bahamas cruises that was so cheap.

It was three days. We stopped at a manufactured island. I wouldn't say it was like the best experience. Like, it was good, and it opened our eyes up to something. One of the things we didn't talk about that was the most interesting was we just met lots of people.

I found that, you know, if my wife and I were to travel to some country, we would probably meet fewer people than if we cruised somewhere. And we met a couple from Finland, and we actually stayed in close touch with them. We randomly found out one year. We emailed them and said, "Hey, how are you doing?" And they said, "Oh, we're in Thailand." And we were in Thailand, and we literally met them again in Thailand, serendipitously.

- Oh, wow. That's amazing. - Have you found that experience on most cruises? You meet lots of interesting people? - Yes, absolutely. And you sort of get into a routine, and you see the same people doing the same things. So when I was on my last cruise in Asia, when you would go to trivia in the pub, all Brits.

And so if I wanted to meet other Brits, we would be there. If I take an American cruise, certain groups of people will be in certain places. And depending on what you do, you sort of, you just get to know people without even really trying. You don't have to, of course.

I think some people are very afraid that it's gonna be sort of forced fun. There's no forced fun. You don't have to take part in anything. But if you do want to, everyone just chats to everybody 'cause everyone's in the same thing. I quite like that you have a plan for the week.

You're all sort of on the journey together. Everyone's having a good time. You know, that's the whole point of it. So I've met so many people who I've kept in touch with. Even when I was a teenager and I was cruising, I'd go to the kids clubs, and I still have a few of them that I keep in contact with.

- Kind of reminds me of the hostel experience, especially now that we have kids. It was kind of fun when my wife and I were traveling, and we'd stay at a hostel, and we'd meet some couples, and we'd have, I think we called them like ephemeral relationships. It's like you have a best friend for three days, and then you don't talk to them again, and it's okay.

- That's exactly it. - We were actually talking recently about how we, it's hard to do that. Like we don't do that as adults. We don't do that as families, but maybe cruises is like the adult version of a hostel. I'm sure they would never want to market themselves that way, but.

- It is similar. And it is so nice to sort of, by the time you've been on the ship for a few days, you see people who you know, you see friendly faces everywhere. You check in, you say, "Oh, I heard you're going to this place. "How was that?

"I haven't had dinner yet. "How was that?" And you chat just sort of about the cruise, and that's the way to start a conversation. And then you can be out in the bar having a drink in the evening. You don't ever have very far to go back to your room.

You don't have to worry about, "Are you going to get a taxi? "Someone's going to not drink." You just wander down, up the stairs, down the corridor, and go to sleep. So I find that really fun. - You mentioned there are some cruises where it can be crowded. Are there any cruise lines that you're kind of like, you try to steer away from?

- Not me personally, because I, as long as I get what I pay for a cruise, I'm more than happy. If I've paid nothing, I'm expecting nearly nothing. But there's certainly cruises that I go on where I think not everybody would like this. And there's a lot of people who would find this very busy and chaotic.

Some of the Italian cruise lines that I mentioned earlier, it's just very different. They just have a different routine in Italy. They just start their parties at one in the morning, and they're very loud and very colorful. I find that fun, but I can tell a lot of other people would not enjoy it.

So I think that's the main thing for me is even if I don't like something, you know, Italian dinner goes on for like three and a half hours, 'cause it's an event. The waiters are dancing, like it's a big thing. For us in Britain, that's not something we normally do, but I can say how much fun this person had and who this is for.

I've done a lot of American cruise lines where the entertainment is really, I did "The Price is Right" was on the cruise that I took recently. And I was terrified that they were gonna call me. I was absolutely so scared. I couldn't think of anything worse than getting on that stage in front of everybody.

But everybody else, they had t-shirts, they had the dance you do, like walking down the stage and everything. And it's just, I think matching those right people to the right things. But for me personally, I've never done a cruise that I've thought I wouldn't do it again. And I've done a cruise on a yacht this year.

That was very, very nice. But even on the yacht, I think if you took someone from the big party ship and you put them on the yacht, they'd be bored out of their minds. And if you did it vice versa, they also wouldn't like it. So just right people, right cruise ships.

- I will say, and this may or may not have full validity, but I think I saw it. There was two guys that went on a cruise and there was a newlywed game show. And they were like, oh, we're not in a relationship. We're not even interested in men, but let's pretend and see if we can win the free drinks.

So the comedy and the outcome here, which I'll just forewarn anyone that might have that same idea, was that they were like, this was great. They actually won. We rehearsed, they practiced, they knew each other's favorite and everything. They won the newlywed show. They didn't realize that for the entire week cruise, they replayed the game show in all the cabins.

And so every single person on the entire boat knew them and every single room they walked into, they would clink their glasses and tell them to kiss and all this stuff. - Say cheers. - And so keep in mind that if you enter any of these game shows, you will be on every single television for the entire time.

- You do get to know people like that. You're like, oh, it's the man from that. Or it's the person who knew so much about this random thing in trivia. You don't know who they are. You don't know their names, but you're like, oh, that's Harry Potter quiz man, for example.

- What about other logistics planning? Thinking about cabins, right? There, you know, I've seen some of these ships with so many decks and interior, exterior suites. How do you think about making those kinds of decisions and what's worth it? - Okay, so if your main priority is price, you just want to get on a ship.

That's it. An inside cabin's totally fine. It's literally just a small hotel room with no windows. Every cabin has its own bathroom now, thankfully. Some people are still nervous that you have to go down the corridor. Everyone has its own bathroom. That's perfectly fine. You're not going to spend much time if you have an inside cabin, because just sit there and stare at the wall.

It's not much fun. If you do have a bit more and you're not worried about the budget, an ocean view is next up, which is just a window. Quite nice for some daylight, but that's about it. And the most common is a balcony cabin where you have a small piece of outside space.

You have a couple of chairs on it and a table. Great for, you know, watching a sail in, watching a sail out. I took a cruise recently. I went to the Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights and I had a balcony cabin and the Northern Lights came out in the middle of the night and I was so grateful that I knew.

'Cause if I was in an inside cabin, I have no idea what was happening. So we just sat out on the balcony and that was incredible. But that's the most common type now, is a balcony. Above that, you can get two-story suites with slides, pianos, if you want to.

And often big cruise ships will have like an area within them, which is like a ship within a ship where they keep all their suites together. So if you're in, for example, the ships with the go-karts, they're Norwegian cruise ships. They have an area on board called The Haven and that'll be a collection of suites that has its own pool, it has its own bar, it has its own restaurant.

So you sort of get that smaller ship feeling, but you can just go out and go on the drop slide that goes down 10 stories that I did that was absolutely terrifying. So a bit of best of both. I think for me personally, people say, "Oh, if you spend more on a cruise, you'll enjoy it more." Generally, that's what people think.

I don't think that's true because a lot of expensive cruises are small ships and I would miss the big theater shows. I would miss the slides. I would miss the go-karts. So a ship within a ship is a good compromise, I think. In a hotel, you'll often see if a hotel room is $300, a slightly bigger one's $400, and then the suites can be like two, $3,000, like almost an order of magnitude bigger.

Does that same kind of principle typically apply on cruise ships or are suites or bigger rooms maybe a better deal there? They can be. If you have a big group, say you have five people and you were gonna have to get two or three cabins, two or three normal balcony cabins, sometimes it's cheaper to get a suite if you're okay with all being in together.

And a lot of cruise lines will do free drinks packages for the suites, stuff like that. So you don't wanna assume that just the worst cabin is the cheapest 'cause it's not necessarily true 'cause they're selling it based on how many do they have left. So sometimes a balcony will be cheaper than an inside because they've only got one inside left and they've got 400 balconies.

Okay. And then any other factors when you're booking that I'm not thinking of, decisions you have to make, you know, you have to pick the line, the destination, the cabin, the drinks package, any other things that you have to decide? I'm normally deciding, do I want to fly to the place and spend a couple of days there, spend a couple of days at the end?

I ended a cruise in Tokyo recently and absolutely had to stay in Tokyo. I would have been so sad to get off in Tokyo and fly straight home. But if you have a travel agent, then they'll put all of that together for you if you want. If you don't want, you can just book the cruise, you can organize your own flights if you wanna use points or anything like that.

But I think it's nice to extend it if you can. No one wants to be rushing around. I mean, I've done a lot of cruises where I've flown at five in the morning and got on the ship in the morning and you end up having a nap and you sort of waste the day.

So I would recommend at least one day wherever you're going if you're flying. - How important is that just from a pure timing perspective? If you get to the cruise and you're late, I assume you miss the cruise and you lose your money. - Yes, that is one of the benefits of if you've booked through a travel agent though, it's sort of on them to sort out, but it would be very stressful.

I think it's a bit different for me now and I take that risk because if it went wrong, it's a great story, it's a great video and it's fine. I travel a lot. If you were someone who was saving up for one a year cruise, like I used to, it's not worth risking missing the ship for the sake of just staying one extra day because they're not gonna wait.

They have 5,000 guests, they're not really gonna wait for you. They're just being honest. - Is travel insurance important in the cruise world? - Yes, so much. So the cruise I just got off, we had a medical evacuation. When you're at sea, if something goes wrong medically, that's very expensive.

We had to make a diversion at two in the morning to stop in Spain to drop off a lady. And I hope she had travel insurance 'cause that can get very expensive. Also travel insurance can give you extra things on a cruise. So you need to have ticked the cruise box.

If you just have a normal travel insurance policy, it normally doesn't cover cruises. A lot of the bank account travel insurance doesn't cover cruises 'cause it's more risky. Just because, imagine you break your leg, you need to be helicoptered off in the middle of the Atlantic. It's gonna be pretty expensive.

But what I benefit from most is my policy has missed port cover. So if I miss a port because of weather, I get a lump sum of money, which I cruise a lot. And I do miss ports because I cruise in odd times of the year in odd places.

So I think I'm benefiting from my travel insurance policy this year. - And you mentioned like if you break a leg and have to get medevac for kind of minor stuff, given how big these cruise lines, do they just have doctors on board that if you're like, "Oh, I need to see a doctor," you can?

- Yep, they have medical centers on board if you need. Obviously they're not gonna wanna perform surgeries and things on board, but their plan is to keep you okay until you can get to a hospital if it's something serious. But if you break your leg, you need an x-ray.

They have all the x-ray machines. They have pharmacies. If you forget your prescribed medication, they can do everything like that. Depends on how big the ship is, but they'll have at least a couple of doctors on board and a nurse team. - And that probably comes at an extra charge, I assume?

- Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to see a doctor, it's probably gonna cost you $100, something like that, just to go to the medical center, so. - Cheaper than it would cost with no insurance in the US, so. - Yeah, well, I'm from the UK, so people are outraged that it would cost that much.

- Oh yeah, I was like, maybe in the US you could save money. - Yeah, well, the only time I've ever really been in the medical centers was when I started cruising again after COVID, because sometimes you would have to do COVID tests on board for certain reasons. So I got to go in there and I took a picture of all of the price list of, I think CPR was like $800.

- Oh, wow. - Which is crazy, but obviously, you know, they'll do it and you'll sort it out later, but you don't wanna risk that. - And that's something that travel insurance might also cover. - Yeah, travel insurance will cover all of that. Anything in the medical center, really, but you do need it.

People say to me, "I can't afford it." If you can't afford it, you cannot afford the cruise. If you can't afford the cruise plus the travel insurance, to be honest, stresses me out. - Okay, any travel insurance providers, I mean, I get you're in the UK, but are they mostly local or are there international companies?

- I don't think the one I have is international. What I normally recommend is using one of those comparison sites. I think Aldi is the one in the US that I recommend, just so you can see how much each one covers in terms of medical, missed ports, baggage. Obviously, if you're flying, even in the cruise port, there's a risk that someone's gonna lose your bag or something like that.

So it's definitely worth having, but I like to use a comparison site, put in all your information and then see the different packages. For me, it's normally worth it to pay more for a higher package, 'cause I'm guessing I'm gonna have to claim on a missed port and it is true based on how much I cruise.

I cruise a lot now, but I'm not a normal situation. - Of course, of course. And what about visas and stuff? You mentioned the cruise through Asia, who takes care of the logistics of that? Not everyone's eligible for easy on-demand visas to every country. - Yeah, so for the Asia one, it was actually pretty easy for me being from the UK.

We didn't need in advance visas. If I'm coming to the US, I need to get the visa. So it's actually harder for me to go to the US than to go to Asia, but it's on you. I mean, if you have a travel agent, they'll tell you, they'll remind you.

The cruise line will have it in the booking documents, but it has a lot of words in the booking documents and people do get turned away. Say when I was going on that cruise in Singapore, they check all of your documents if you need them and they wouldn't let you board the cruise if you didn't have the right things in place for the rest of the stop.

So we had to fill in a lot of landing cards, declaration cards and stuff in Asia. But that was all, every day it would arrive in the cabin, it would say, here's an example, here's how you fill in this form. And I didn't need any visas. - But it's all in advance.

So let's say for some reason you were ineligible to go to one of the destinations, you probably wouldn't be able to board. It's not just that they would say, hey, you have to stay on the boat, you can't leave this port. - No, they couldn't take you in. They wouldn't do it.

Because imagine if you did break your leg, they couldn't disembark you for a stop. They wouldn't even risk it. If you need to go somewhere, I mean, we had to do this a lot more. After the pandemic, we used to have to have different forms for every single country and it took ages 'cause they'd have to go through every single person's form, but they check all of that stuff.

What most cruise lines do now is you'll check in before you go, like an airline, you'll check in on the website, you'll check in on the app and you'll upload anything you need. The computer will say, yep, that picture's the same one as the passport. Yep, you've attached a credit card.

And then when you get to the port, it just makes it a lot faster. - And you mentioned the pandemic earlier. I know there were obviously, everyone saw the news during that time where there were cruises with outbreaks. Are there any kind of lingering concerns cruising in kind of a post-pandemic world or is everything kind of back to how it was before?

- To be honest, I think cruising was better positioned than most of land in the way that there were always hand sanitizers at the entrance to every restaurant, to the buffet. They're very, very clean cruise ships 'cause they're held to way higher standards. Every time I stay in a hotel on land, I'm like, this would not pass the cruise ship test.

So I think it's back to normal now on cruises, but normal on cruises is sort of how the world had to adapt. So yeah, it's back to normal now. There's no limit. There used to be limits on how many people could be in each venue. You couldn't even touch anything.

Everything would be in its own little sanitized bag for a while. It was a bit bizarre, but everything's back to full capacity now. I took a cruise, a Caribbean cruise. It was 24% full and it was brilliant. - Amazing. Last question before someone takes off on a cruise and then I'll ask a little bit about the experiences.

Any thoughts on packing? Are there things that you think, having done this 60 plus times, that you do differently now? - Well, a lot of people, they hold up something and they think, I haven't worn this in three years, but perhaps this is the time. And it's not. If it's not something that you actually wear in real life, don't pack it for a cruise.

Of course, you may have an extra formal dress or you may have a tuxedo or something. Add that. But a lot of the times, the people I know who overpack, they bring half of it home again 'cause they put it on and they realize, oh yeah, that one's really itchy.

I forgot the zip's broken on that. Things like that. So when I'm gonna go on a cruise, I just stop putting away my clothes and I start putting them in the suitcase once I've washed them. 'Cause I have my favorite pair of jeans. I have my favorite t-shirts and that's what I normally wear on a cruise.

So I don't think it needs to be as complicated as some people make it. I see people bring their own pillows. I saw someone bring a, like a water filter jug. You have to take, takes up so much room in your suitcase. You don't need to bring your own coat hangers.

You don't need to bring towels. You don't need to bring hair dryers. They have all of that. As long as you have money, access to money, your passport, you can sort anything else out. If you did forget a hairbrush, you'll be fine. They have shops on cruise ships. You know, if you need something, if you have a headache and you need something, you can buy it.

It's fine. - And what about laundry? You know, I know at hotels, it can be the most egregiously expensive thing to be like, "Oh, I need to clean some underwear and it's $10 a pair." Like, is it similar? - Yes. On the American cruise lines, yes. You can pretty much pay per thing to have it washed for you.

Or you can buy like a laundry bag and you can fit as much as you want in it, kind of a bundle. What I like about some of the British cruise lines, I suppose a few of the Americans, they have just a laundry room where you can go in.

You can do it yourself. You can use the machines. You can iron stuff. I prefer that. Not all cruise lines want to do that. On my trip in Asia, I ended up just washing a lot of stuff myself. I just bought like a little travel wash. I was changing my clothes like three times a day 'cause it was so humid on that cruise.

And things would dry so fast 'cause it was so warm. I put it out on the balcony, dry. - Love it. So that's a lot of the logistics. I want to talk about some of the ways that you optimize your experience on board. At any point in time, if you have tips or hacks, definitely lay them out.

Maybe we'll start with food. - Okay. So when you go on a cruise, you don't have to spend any extra on food. At all. And I very often don't. You'll at least have a main dining room and you'll have a buffet where all the food's included and you can go there anytime.

Normally the buffet's open like 20 hours a day or something. So there's no shortage of food. If you're someone who wants to go to, they may have like a special steak house or it may be a Mexican restaurant. Sometimes they have ones like that that cost extra. They're called specialty restaurants.

The idea is that they're better. That's up for debate whether you think they're better. Quite often people will go there if it's a birthday or something. I've done them and they're great, but the way I see it normally is I've paid for this cruise and I'm gonna eat the food that I've already paid for because there's no way I can eat everything in a week or two.

So you don't have to spend extra money on food at all, but you can. - How's the quality of the food? Like, you know, where would you rank it up against a typical restaurants in the UK or the US? - I think it's tricky because what other people rank as really good food, I don't think is what I like.

Like some people have very, I don't know, they count themselves as foodies. The portions are really small, but it's very fancy. That's not really what I like. I like to try different foods when I go to different places, like when I was in Asia, but I also like to know that I could just have something that I recognize as well, but it depends.

I mean, there's so many cruise lines, there's so many ships, there's so many different things. If you do wanna sit down and you wanna have some of the restaurants, it's more of a show than a meal. You know, it will be, this is on fire, this is steaming, this is bubbles.

And then other times you'll just go, my last cruise, you know, it had a roast dinner, it had fish and chips, it had poolside burgers and pizza and stuff like that. So it just depends what you want again. - Things like that, like getting poolside service of a burger, is that part of the meal plan?

- That's all included, yeah. Normally there's some sort of pizza, burgers, hot dogs, you know, it might be like a chicken shack they have on a carnival. Fast food like that is normally included in the cruise, yeah. It's more if you wanna go for a sit down dinner and you wanna do, you know, sometimes they'll cook the food in front of you, that kind of thing.

Those ones will be specialty restaurants. If you do book a more luxurious cruise line, it tends to be smaller ships, so they tend to have less restaurants, but there'll be included more. - You mentioned some ships might have 30 restaurants. Any tricks for figuring out if you don't have time to eat at every restaurant, which ones to prioritize?

- I mean, I would default to the main dining room is where you have a guaranteed space for every meal. So I tend to start there. Some days you just don't wanna sit down. Sometimes you just wanna get pizza or you just wanna get room service or something like that.

And anything else is normally, you fancy that type of cuisine, I would say. You feel like, "Oh, I wanna have a Mexican today. "I wanna have Indian today." Most things like this, you can pre-book them. And if you're gonna pre-book the ones that cost extra, it'll be cheaper if you do it at home.

Generally speaking, if you want something, if you can pre-book it on the cruise line's website, it's cheaper. If it's Wi-Fi, if it's drinks, I don't think I've ever seen things be cheaper on board 'cause they wanna fill those spaces, don't they? - Okay, and you mentioned room service. Is that also included?

- 50% of the cruise line? Yes, 50%, no. (laughs) Quite often, it'll be included for breakfast, but not for dinner. But even still, on my last cruise, it wasn't included, and I think it was like $6 or something. It's not the end of the world. If you do just wanna stay in bed, it can be quite nice.

- When you say things aren't included, that doesn't mean you pay $100 a person for dinner if it's at a restaurant that's not included. It's probably just a little upcharge. - Yeah, it can be. I mean, my last cruise, I think it was between five and 10 pounds in this restaurant I went for, so say like $10, which you wouldn't get that same food on land for that price.

So it can be quite good. You normally, well, not normally, but quite often, you'll get onboard credit when you book, which is basically like money that you can only spend on board, and it disappears when you get off. So I spend that on specialty meals sometimes 'cause it doesn't feel real.

It's gonna go, so I might as well try stuff. - And what about non-food, other activities? How do you think people should kind of plan their cruise and all the activities they could do throughout the week? - It's definitely better. I know just saying planning is a bit of a cop-out, but the more you can plan, the more you can pre-book things.

Like a lot of cruise lines, you have to pre-book theater shows now just for so many people who wanna go. If you can just book things like that on the app, the apps are very easy to use on the website. It just means that you're not gonna be disappointed because you may see, sometimes they have big Broadway musicals, they'll have hairspray.

And if you get on board, you'd have to join a line, I guess, if you haven't already pre-booked. So just save yourself the hassle. If you wanna do something, just pre-book it as much as you can. - Any hidden gem activities you've done in all the cruises you've done?

- I've done some really weird things on cruises. I mean, I did a 10-story drop slide recently, which was terrifying. One where the floor just drops out and you go down the side of the cruise ship and it has glass. And in the glass part, I don't know why, but you just get stuck and you're in this little cocoon thing.

It's like a sack, like a, I don't know. You get in the sack, cross your hands, and then you have to scoot down trying to get through the gap. Glad I did it. Not rushing to do it again. But I've also done, you know, I've done surf simulators. I did a skydive simulator, the one that's sort of in the tube, you know, where the air just comes straight up at you and you sort of hover.

That was good fun. That is one thing, the skydiving, it is free sometimes and paid for sometimes. And that's a thing that some cruise lines do. They'll make it free when it's not a popular time. For example, if you're in port, everyone's off, it'll be free in a port.

But when you're at sea and everyone's on there, they'll charge for it. So it's not just as simple as if you see it and it has a price that it's always gonna be that price. So just a quick Google of, is the North Star on this cruise free? And it will say it's free these times, not these other times, at the moment.

- What about things to avoid? Are there things where you see people being like, "Oh, I'm really excited to do this." And you're like, "Oh, you got suckered into the thing." - For me, it's the art auctions. I'll never understand it. So they get everyone around, people buy these paintings and stuff.

But I look at the paintings, I look at the artists, I Google it and I can get it cheaper at home. I don't know why people are buying them on board. It's just weird to me, I don't understand it. - Any other things to avoid or focus on or other hacks you have for cruising?

- I think we've covered most things. I think generally speaking, the more flexible you can be, you can get a better cruise deal. And the more you can pre-plan, the more enjoyable your cruise is gonna be. But once you've planned, once you've booked everything, you get to the ship, you don't have to do anything.

And I think that's what's really nice. You can just go on your own schedule. If you're cruising with a big group, I often cruise with my family, not everyone wants to do the same thing. Someone will go to dinner, someone doesn't wanna go to dinner, someone wants to see that show, someone wants to go see the live magician or something, you can all do that.

So that's one of my favorite things. - You said family, what about going with kids? I don't know whether you've been in that situation yourself or witnessed it. How should people with especially young kids think about it? - Yeah, so my last cruise, I cruised with two of my nieces who are five and 12.

And that was quite different for me 'cause I don't normally cruise with kids, but I got to see all of the kids menus in all of the restaurants, the little kids cutlery they have, the coloring. They all have kids clubs on board and they normally split into age ranges and the kids clubs are free.

So it's quite a good way to sort of drop off your kid. They have a great time for three hours and you get to have a bit of a break from looking after them. Sometimes they'll have a kids club that's free, but then if you want late night babysitting, you'll have to pay for that.

But I say make the most out of the free kids club. The kids clubs are so cool. I used to go when I was a teenager and when I was a kid. When you're a teenager, it's more sort of, this is just a place to hang out. We have Xboxes and we have snacks, but they're cool.

(laughing) - Yeah, kids love it. - When I was prepping for this, I know that in most hotels, the kids clubs only work for kids five and over. And I've dug into why. It seems to be that in most countries to get insurance at a resort, it's almost impossible to get insurance for under five.

So if you're traveling a big resort, a lot of the kids clubs five and up. But for a lot of cruises, when I did some quick research, and this is not gonna be blanket advice, they have younger kid programs, like baby and toddler daycares for six months and up.

So that was something I didn't expect. - You have to be six months to go on a cruise just 'cause I guess medical risk under six months. But once you're six months, yeah, you're on board, you have access to all of the soft play areas and they'll have splash parks outside and slides and different things that aimed for different age ranges.

But yeah, for kids, so much fun. That's where I started. I do appreciate different things about it now. I went to Alaska, my first cruise. I don't remember anything about Alaska. What I remember is going up and down in the elevators and just being silly, but it was so fun.

- One thing we didn't mention was about seasickness. Is that more common, less common on a big ship? How should people who are a little bit worried in that department think about it? - People will find it weird, but I'm someone who can get seasick because I'm a travel sick person.

I get travel sick in a car. I take medicine to go in the car for a long time. I can't go backwards on a train. VR makes me feel quite sick. So I'm somebody, I think if anyone is gonna get seasick, it's me. And I have been seasick before, particularly when I went into the Arctic Circle in March on a ship that was 25 years old, but you would kind of expect that.

As far as seasickness goes, cruising out of season increases your risk because you're just more likely to find a storm. If we don't hit a storm, you barely know that you're moving. And even when we do hit the worst weather, and I try and show people that the ship is rocking, it's like this curtain is swaying two millimeters this way.

It's not the dramatic things that you think of where glasses are falling over and everything's smashing. That's not what happens. So if you're worried about seasickness, cruising the peak season, there's a reason it's the peak season. You're just less likely to get bad weather. Pick a cruise that doesn't have any sea days.

If you're not at sea, you're not gonna get seasick. And there's plenty of cruises where every single day you have a different port. And if you can sort of book a cabin that's in the middle, you feel less movement. If you're right at the front or you're right at the back, you just feel more because it's just how ships work.

- What about interior versus exterior? For some reason, my instinct would be if you were seasick, interior would be the worst. - I've tried all of them. It's nice to get the fresh air, I think, when you have a balcony, if you're thinking, oh, I feel a bit, get some fresh air.

But also, then you can see the horizon. I don't know if it really makes a massive difference. Sometimes just being inside, you just forget. So you have that perk. But yeah, balconies, I mean, inside cabins tend to be further down and more on the bottom decks. So the movement is less there.

It is perks and downsides to every single cabin type, but people shouldn't worry about it. I think a lot of people think, even if they don't get travel sick on land, in cars and stuff, they think they're gonna get seasick. Most people don't. Even if I say we're on a cruise and the captain says, we're gonna hit a terrible storm, the waves, I'll just take a seasickness pill and then I'm fine.

So yeah, it doesn't affect me at all. The only thing is the seasickness medicine makes me a bit sleepy, but it doesn't matter if you have a nap on a cruise. That's totally fine. I'm still doing it and I'm a very travel sick person normally. - Great. Anything on the horizon that's exciting for you in the industry, new ships, new destinations, some place you're going to?

- There is so much happening in the cruise industry. Because we shut down and now everyone wants to travel. Everything is booming. Every cruise line is, I mean, the shipyards are full. To get a slot to build a new cruise ship seems impossible at the minute, but I'm hoping to get to Alaska next year because that was my first cruise and I haven't been back there.

So I'm looking forward to that. I'm doing a river cruise soon, which will be nice. I really like river cruising. If you're someone who really is worried about seasickness, go on the river. You never feel a thing because no tides. - Yeah, my parents just got back from a river cruise in Europe and they went through France and Austria and said it was amazing.

And in my mind, I never even considered that as an option. It was a much smaller boat and they had a great time. - I've done some of the, I say bigger, some of the main big river cruise ships. And also I took a cruise recently on a barge that only had 20 people.

And it was basically like as if your hotel is just following you. That's it. Like every day you would go out. That was actually a cycling cruise. So we would cycle every day and then the ship would meet us and then you would have dinner and you'd go to sleep.

So instead of lugging all your stuff on the back of a bike and trying to unpack every day, your stuff just moves. - It was amazing. I love river cruising. - Had you not just gave that anecdote, I would have been so sad finding out about it later. You know, the idea that if you want to take a bike trip through Europe, you could do it with a cruise.

Are there any other, I don't know, strange is maybe not the right word, but unique cruise experiences like that? - I mean, there's all sorts of cruises. If you're someone who wants to do, I mean, I've done some 90s themed cruises. They were great fun where they get 90s bands on board.

Every day you have a different 90s dress theme. There's lots of music. Music is very popular for themed cruises, but sometimes they'll have, you know, it might be a TV show and they'll have actors from that TV show who are on that voyage or they're going to a place.

Say they're going to where "Game of Thrones" was filmed or something. They may have like a "Game of Thrones" themed week, which I think is pretty cool. - One cruise carrier you never mentioned. How does Disney fit into all of this? - So I've only taken one Disney cruise and I did it after the pandemic where we weren't really allowed to go anywhere.

So my cruise went nowhere. So I don't really feel like I'm qualified to talk about it. I mean, if you love Disney, it is very Disney. That's what I would say. You have to like Disney because everything is, every bit of music is Disney music. Every film is a Disney film.

People love it. There's so many people who cruise with Disney who would never look at another cruise line. You know what? Disney fans, how much they love Disney. Just that, but on a ship. - What would be either that you've been on or that you would love to go on the higher end side?

What would be kind of the aspirational cruise? If someone was like, you know, I'm going to spend all my money on the nicest cruise, not just for the sake of spending money, but what's kind of that end? - The one that comes to mind is this summer I took a cruise on a yacht.

It was around $1,000 per night. I will say that was a press trip. I don't think that's a surprise that I didn't pay $1,000 per night, but it was as close as you can get to having a yacht, but without any of the stress of having a yacht. So it was just fantastic.

We went around Greece. So we had like long ports. We could stop anywhere. There weren't many of us there. If you needed something, you just tell someone and it will arrive. - What was the line or the ship? - It was called Emerald. They're like a river cruise line mostly, and they have just moved into yachts.

So I've cruised with Emerald on the river, which is very, very nice. The yacht cruising is something completely different, but fantastic. And surprisingly, I didn't expect to meet people on that cruise who had cruised on the big ships, but actually I did. So I thought it would be more of a different customer base, but I guess not.

- We've looked and never done, but renting yachts is very expensive. So when you say $1,000 a night, it's like, whoa, 'cause it can cost $100,000 a week to charter a yacht. - Exactly, and crew, and cleaning, and how do you maintain a yacht? I can't even think about it.

So it was as close as I'll ever come, I think, to feeling like I had my own yacht. You're treated like absolute royalty. There's nothing you could say. I mean, I have these mascots here. You've seen them. My channel mascot is a cat from me describing. And every day, my cabin room steward would take my cat mascot and put him in a different situation.

So they took him to the spa. They took pictures of him. They took him into the galley. They took pictures of him making food. He went to the bridge. He steered the ship. And when I came back at the end of the cruise, I had my cat mascot on my bed with all of these pictures of what he'd been up to during the week, which was just so funny that even a toy gets treated so well.

It has the best holiday. - Okay, I came into this thinking, we'll see. And I was talking to my wife. I actually think this sounds like something that would be fun for the family. I don't know if it's the yacht, the Alaska. We got a lot of vacations to go.

Is that the site where we've got to start comparing? - Just have a look. They have a nice thing on there, which is like what's going in the next 90 days. If you just have a space in your calendar, you can sort it by price per night. So you can just see in the entire world, where is the cheapest cruise?

It'll be a really random one. It'll be like Barbados to Lisbon on a Costa cruise or something for $200. But it just gives you an idea. Then you can go to the Cruise Lines website and sort of look in a bit more detail. - Awesome. And I know you have so much content on this.

You have a free course. Where can people go if they want to go deeper on cruises? - Yeah, so I keep it very easy. I'm emmacruises across all of the internet. emmacruises.com is where everything is kind of based. And I review all kinds of trips. So it'll be everything that we've talked about.

I share a lot of tips for what cabins to book, how to book it, when to book it, where to go, everything I know. I make videos about it. So I have quite a lot of YouTube videos now. I think maybe four or 500. - I did some research on YouTube, on the website.

- It's quite a lot. - There's a lot of content. - It is. But the thing is, is you leave a look at a video and you'll think absolutely not or yes. And that's good. Sometimes I get comments and people will say, I'm so sorry, but this looks absolutely awful.

That's good. I would much prefer that someone watches the video and says, that would drive me bananas. I don't want to do that. Or yes, this one's absolutely for me. 'Cause I think that's the thing. It's tricky to try before you buy a cruise. It's a big commitment to do not only the money, but also a week of your life.

So what I try and do is as much as I can, show someone what they're gonna get. That's my plan. - I love it. Thank you for all that. I'm gonna be using that as we try to decide what we do. And I look forward to letting you know what we do and I'll share with everyone here what the cruise is, how we got the best deal and all of that good stuff.

So thank you so much for joining me. - Fabulous. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you. - Wow. I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did. And I hope you're interested in cruises even more than you thought, because I know I am. If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to shoot an email to podcast@allthehacks.com.

I read every email that comes in and it's a great place to send questions for a future Mailbag episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (birds chirping)