Voyage of the Vikings

I like to take a lot of thin white coat hangers as you never get enough in your stateroom. I just leave them on the ship when we leave. I like to take some battery-powered stick on lights for the inside of closets, the inside of your room safe, and the inside of the bathroom (the light switch is on the outside so you awaken your spouse when you turn on the light at night). Take a small flashlight or head light for emergencies and for looking under the bed. I take at least a dozen plastic clothes pins and a good string for a clothes line (you usually have a clothes line in the shower already). The thin white coat hangers are useful for drying clothes also. You can not take a clothes iron on a cruise ship; they X-ray the luggage and it will be confiscated. Irons are available in the launderette. Take some stickers or pictures and double sided tape to decorate your cabin door. Stateroom cabin walls are usually metal covered with vinyl. Some really strong magnets are great for hanging papers, clothes to dry, daily activity schedules, and if strong enough for anchoring clothes lines. You always get a terri robe so you don't need to bring one. You will have a combination room safe. The cruise ship lends you a beach towel to take if you go to a beach. Take good sun screen and insect repellant and pack them in plastic boxes or Nalgene bottles so they won’t leak onto your clothes during pressure changes during airline flights. Take extra glasses and sun glasses. A copy of your vision prescription has been a Godsend to travelers on several of our trips and could come in handy in some ports such as Hong Kong where glasses are inexpensive. There is a large lending library of books and DVD's on all cruise ships we use. I like to have my insulated travel mug. I rip a lot of videos to my computer with Handbrake to view on my iPad. You move videos on & off of your iPad through iTunes. In much of the developing world you bring your own toilet paper with you to public toilets so we carry a lot of small packs of tissues. On most cruise ship shore excursions you can leave your backpack on the bus when you get off to visit sites. Susan carries her own dual voltage curling iron. You get a hair dryer in your stateroom. You might swap photos with other travelers by using an SD card or usb stick so carry a few cheap ones. One of the most important thing not to forget is to take some photo copies of your passport picture page. Because you use the photocopy of your passport rather than the actual passport (which the ship holds for you) you may still need your driver's license or other government issued ID at some money exchanges etc or if you have marked your credit cards CID. We had to show photo ID to get back through the port security in Canada and we used variously our passport photo copy or USA drivers license.

Be sure and take some bandaids. Carry medication for a common cold, for gastroenteritis, for cuts & scrapes, & for seasickness. Carry several types of antibiotics. I like to have some Augmentin, Cipro, cephazolin, and some doxycycline. Take some handkerchiefs. We have learned to get medical evaluation of infectious diseases in the area the disease it was acquired as so very many local physicians and pharmacists know exactly what is prevalent in that area and it's treatment. I would rather have invasive or surgical care back in first world countries. Know what your health insurance will cover over seas. Oceania and Holland America have excellent physicians onboard. Take some laxative as you will be less active on a cruise than at home. Sea sickness medication would be a good idea as would cough drops, ear drops, & eye drops.

Because this was summer we had been warned to bring our head nets for black flys and mosquitos in Labrador and Greenland. Many people on this cruise were ill prepared and didn’t use adequate insect repellant or their nets (always over hats of course) in Red Bay, Labrador.

We carry two Nikon D-SLR cameras and take Nikon raw photos. Susan uses a D-90 with a Nikkor 18-200mm lens exclusively and I vary from a similar lens to a Sigma 10-20mm lens on my D-7100. Using different lenses give us the chance to capture different views and particularly the 10-20mm lens allows me to capture buildings or rooms in their entirety without having to get too far back from the subject. On buses and trains we both try to get window seats on different sides. We set our focus to manual and a little short of infinity and Susan leaves her lens at 18mm but I like 14mm an occasionally 10mm. Through the windows we set our iso to 6400 or 3200 or sometimes even faster as especially the D-7100 takes very sharp pix at this setting. We certainly do discard more of the wide angle pictures. The 18-200 is good for standing at a distance and capturing shots of people without being so very obvious. We have given up using lens filters as Aperture can simulate any of them. Because we were in higher latitudes, I used a circular polarizer some but would have rather have it fit my wide angle lens instead of only my normal zoom lens. We also carry on our trips small point and shoot cameras that often we carry to markets and areas where we don't want to take our larger more visible cameras or expensive iPhones. In most of the world we use neck or wrist straps but in some parts of the world (particularly Brazil) it is dangerous to use a strap as we have seen several people hurt by the straps when their cameras were stolen. We saw a lady dragged over a block by a thief in Santerem because she had her camera strap around her wrist. She sustained damage to her wrist. We had been warned that camera theft was so common that it was dangerous to use the straps. We carry plastic bags with us for two reasons. When we take our cameras out of air conditioned rooms in plastic bags they don't fog up from the outside humidity. The plastic bags come in handy if it rains. We import our pictures daily to Apple Aperture and quickly discard (reject) the out of focus or poorly-exposed ones. Then we next pick the best of any particular shot. Be sure all of your cameras are set to the exact same time to the second. Aperture handles the Nikon Raw files so much more seamlessly than the Photoshop or Lightroom we used to use. The most common adjustment we make in Aperture is white balance. Many light fixtures that in the past were incandescent now have the energy efficient fluorescent or LED bulbs and need white balance changes made. In safe cities we use our iPhones as cameras.

Both phone service and WiFi are available onboard at a cost. The phone service acts as a roaming service. We have Verizon and we have Verizon activate the SIM card for our iPhones for the countries we visit before we leave the United States. Verizon gives us the rates for the various countries and we keep them in mind. We use texts and I think Verizon's charge is 50 cents each to send and 5 cents to receive when out of the country. We seldom use our phones but carry them with us off the ship for emergency calls. The cruise lines give you a local number to call their port agent in each port. We seldom turn on our cellular data for foreign roaming. Verizon's texts come through WiFi so logging on to WiFi usually but not always gets these texts. We vary as far as how we use the ships WiFi services. You can buy so many minutes through your computer or iPad. On some cruises we make sure we visit coffee houses or McDonalds when we are in port. Cruise ship internet gets better every year but this was a particularly foggy & cloudy cruise. Some of the ports have free WiFi, just watch for crew members sitting around with their phones and ask them for the “crew password”. I save maps and Wikipedia articles of all ports, countries, cities, and bodies of water as pdf files and the night before we stop for a port we read over and plan our day. We signed up with Verizon’s Travel Pass plan for Canada for $2/day only when used. We got good WiFi in the port at Sydney, Reykjavik, Isafjordur, and we just sat down on a sidewalk bench in downtown Reykjavik to sigh on as “guest” to the various restaurants. There was actually great free WiFi in the terminal at Rotterdam.

We take only appliances that will run on either voltage and since we are from the US we use small plastic adapters that turn the 220v plugs to 110v. I carry a couple splitter cubes. We have seen people have power strips confiscated on cruise ships so don't take them. Some plugs only work when the stateroom lights are on or a room key card is in a slot in the room. The Nautica and Holland America ships have a shaver 110/220v plug in the bathroom but it is only on when the bathroom light is on. You don't need to take a voltage converter almost ever. Be sure and bring battery chargers for any appliance that needs one. Most modern chargers will run on both 110v & 220v but check before you come. There are hair dryers in Holland America and Oceania ships. The Rotterdam had an excellent 220 volt one at the dressing table. There is a wake up function for the phone so you don't need an alarm clock but we often use our iPhones for alarm clocks.

We have special travel socks and underwear such as those by Exofficio or Magellan that we can wash out daily and need very few pairs. These usually dry within a half day if washed in the room, thoroughly rung out, rolled up inside of towels, and hung up to dry in the stateroom. These dry more quickly inside than outside on the veranda. We also have travel shirts and pants (long & short versions of each) that dry quickly when hand washed in the room. We carry a small Nalgene bottle (from REI) of concentrated washing detergent for this and I pack this Nalgene Bottle inside a waterproof box or Nalgene water bottle to avoid the consequences of a leak in route. There are usually laundromat services on cruise ships but be advised that these are closed if there is an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness on the ship. The Rotterdam had the best laundromats of any ships we have ever been on. Cruise ships offer laundry services at a charge but we got free laundry on the Rotterdam as a benefit of being 4-star mariners. We have culled the clothes we take over the years to be those with the most wrinkle resistance and to dry the quickest. In many parts of the world, we really appreciate the secure zipping pockets of our travel clothes (safari type clothing). Don't forget your hat for sun protection. The more years we travel the more we find we can take less and less clothes with us on our trips. Holland America has one formal night a week but a suit is fine as very few formal clothes are seen on those nights. Some cruise ships are cold so be warned. Even if you don't plan to swim, take a bathing suit as the hot tubs and saunas are wonderful and you might need to work on your tan.

We like suitcases that will compress enough to keep under the bed so they don't take up room in the stateroom. We often carry a thin gym bag in case we buy items that will require another suitcase on the way home. On every cruise we take there are passengers whose luggage did not arrive on the airline and they are stuck without their luggage. We put a couple changes of clothing in our carry on luggage and we almost always go a day or two early so any tardy luggage has a chance to catch up with us before we board our ship. On the flight to catch our cruise I label each luggage item with our final destination for the flight (hotel name) because luggage could get mixed up on the shuttle from the airport (this has happened). When flying through remote third world airports we often choose to pack our clothes in plastic bags inside our suitcases as we have had our clothes soaked with rain or covered in dust in the past. Susan & I mix our clothes in each other's suitcases in case only one suitcase doesn't make the airline flight. I use Nalgene water bottles and plastic waterproof boxes to pack my fragile or liquid items.

We have found that having a couple hundred dollars each in one and 5 dollar bills (or euros in parts of the world) opens up so many possibilities to get us good service, pay porters, and buy trinkets. We find out immediately upon entering a country how to tip and who. The US dollar is still king. We split up our credit and debit cards so if we are robbed we can continue our trips. One of the most important thing not to forget is to take some photo copies of your passport picture page. Because you use the photocopy of your passport rather than the actual passport (which the ship holds for you) you may still need your driver's license or other government issued ID at some money exchanges etc or if you have marked your credit cards CID. I have records of credit card numbers and the international phone number for the card. We know which ones have foreign transaction fees. Before we leave on our trip we call the credit card company and let them know which days we will be in each country so they will allow the transactions. We still have cards frozen by the banks when we withdraw large amounts out of the country or make large purchases. This problem is easy to resolve by logging in to the card's web page and checking messages. Keep up with your plane tickets and any vouchers you carry with you. In Europe and Japan in particular be sure your credit cards have been upgraded to Smart Cards that carry the computer chip. Take photos with your iPhone of passports, drivers licenses, hotel vouchers, trip vouchers, airline tickets, credit cards etc. We needed to exchange no money in except for Euros on this trip.

Public transportation and taxis are usually much more available, inexpensive, and user friendly in foreign countries than in the United States. This was widely the case on this trip. The shuttle between the airport and cruise terminal in Boston is very short and taxi service was inexpensive. Roads were good everywhere we went on this trip. It was a short Metro (subway) ride to Central station in Rotterdam to catch the train to Antwerp & then to Bruges and the English language was fairly-well listed although Europeans are quick to tell you that that will change quickly after Brexit.

We love our travel agent Dianne Blackburn at Gateway Travel in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She usually follows our progress when we fly and has even called ahead and rebooked flights when she knows we won't make connections. We call her from all over the world. We have used her for over 20 years and feel she consistently gets us the best deals. Susan takes whatever deals she can find to her and Dianne tries to get a better deal. Even when we book a cruise etc we make sure Dianne gets credit with the Cruise Line.

If you have read my tips on multiple of our travel by cruise trips I need to point out that the cruise lines are constantly changing their experiences and previous writings may well not apply to this particular trip. We were most impressed with the entire dining experience on the Rotterdam and most of the guests with whom we discussed this had the same opinion. We choose “open seating” for dinner and tend to go to the Lido (buffet dining) the most. This particular cruise was unique in our experiences as there were 1250+ 4-star Mariners on board and many 5-stars also. In other words, very experienced cruisers who often got in sync with their times for dinner etc and caused special log jams that the crew became more and more expert at handling as the cruise progressed. Small changes from how things had been done on previous Holland America cruises were much more-noticed. We feel these represent ongoing evolution in the improving experience.