Of course on the cruise boat, life is both more difficult and easier. You need to bring more clothing because of the formal and informal nights at dinner. You will also have lots of opportunities to get pro quality photographs of you and your significant other dressed to dine with the captain etc. The good news is that you can easily do hand washes in your stateroom as you won't be leaving it anytime soon so it would be easy to keep up with the laundry.

Speaking of luggage, if it doesn't have wheels on it, forget it and go buy some new bags. On this trip, we each had a suitcase with good wheels for towing (wide wheels and spaced apart), and in fact, our carry on luggage had wheels on them as well. I have had enough of lugging my cameras, medicines, and emergency clothing through airports. Get ahold of a Consumer Reports as they have reviewed luggage.

Keep in Mind about your medicines, vitamins, pain pills, and the like. They are often very difficult to get overseas and quite often, the strain of travel can reduce your resistance to viruses and the like. This is especially true if you don't sleep well while traveling. Going to Copenhagen took almost 24 hours of travel as we had four flights to deal with on this trip and if you can't sleep, you will be in trouble. Also take an anti-bacterial waterless hand cleaner.

If you like to keep in touch with the rest of the world while you travel, you do have several options. Today's cruise ships actually have internet access while on board but be prepared to pay dearly for it, up to $45 per hour online. If you are on your own while at port, you will find quite a few interent cafes or shops at very reasonable prices. While in Warnemunde, Germany, there was one at the dock and they charged just $5 per hour. When a ship is in port, you might be able to go to most large hotels that are Three star or better rated and they will often have a business office where you can connect to the internet. Usually the rates are pretty reasonable.

Before you go though, you should have signed up for one of the internet based email accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo so all you need is the internet connection. With it, you can easily keep in touch. You can also access your AOL Account if you get the internet connection.

If you plan to call home, the best way is to get a phone card. These are unlike those you find in the states, which are primarily good for long distance calling. These phone cards overseas have microprocessors imbedded into the card and contain a set amount of money for overseas calls. You will find them much cheaper for calling overseas than anything else especially the ship to shore phone calls available while on board. When a phone card costs around $1 per minute to talk versus $10 per minute onboard ship, wait until you get to a port to make your calls. Your calling cards that you may have gotten with Sprint, MCI, AT&T and the like again are only for long distance calls from within the USA. Unfortunately with the phone cards, they must be sold in what ever denomination your country is and can only be used while in that country.

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E-mail Robert Sanborn at:  Copyright 2002 Page Last Update:11/23/2002