Cruising Accessories, Fun Finds And Great Gifts

LOOKING FOR A GREAT BON VOYAGE GIFT?

Looking for a great bon voyage gift? Want some solid ideas to make your cruise experience even more enjoyable? We’ve curated a number of great items to help you make a splash!

Bon Voyage Ideas!

Our extended family has done some cruising and it is a family tradition to have a bottle of wine delivered to the cruisers stateroom as a bon voyage gift. That’s not a new idea and that tradition goes way back to the era of those famous trans-Atlantic liners. Todays cruise lines are perfectly happy to help you keep that tradition alive.

The cruise lines want to make it as easy as possible for you, just check out their web sites. Take a look at Royal Caribbeans Bon Voyage Shop for some gift ideas. We’ve got a few ideas of our own and ours just might give you a bit more bang for your buck.

Fun Cruise Gifts To Give or Use Yourself

One of our favorite cruise bon voyage gift ideas is to give them a Cruise Specific Gift Card before they leave on their cruise. After all the money spent booking the cruise and getting to the ship it’s a nice way to help their money go further.

[Note clicking on an image links to the items on Amazon.com]

Door Magnets

Royal Caribbean Door Magnets

Let them know who’s cruising. Marking and decorating stateroom doors is becoming a fun way to show who you are and celebrate the occasion. This makes a great bon voyage gift too. This door magnet design is customized for Royal Caribbean cruisers.

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Carnival Cruise Door Magnets

Marking and decorating stateroom doors is becoming a fun way to show who you are, where you are and celebrate the occasion. A great bon voyage gift idea too. This item is designed to be customized for Carnival cruisers.

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Onboard Gift Cards

We can’t think of a better bon voyage gift than an onboard gift card. After spending all that money on a cruise what could be a better gift than extra money to spend onboard. Save money on board by applying this gift card to the onboard cruise account! Use it for drinks, a special dinner or to take a land tour. Note: we receive no commission on gift cards.

Know someone taking a Princess Cruise? How about a little more fun on that cruise? This is a fantastic bon voyage gift! Get this gift card and apply the amount you select. These cards allow the guest to apply the money on the card right to their onboard charge account. They’ll love you for it!

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Know someone taking a Carnival Cruise? Get this gift card and apply the amount you select. A great bon voyage gift! These cards allow the guest to apply the amount on the card right to their onboard account. They’ll love you for it!

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Know someone taking a Holland America Cruise? Get this gift card and apply the amount you select. These cards allow the guest to apply the amount on the card right to their onboard charge account. They’ll love you for it!

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Gadgets & Helpful Ideas

Little things that make a big difference. These simple items come in handy when you cruise. After a couple of decades of cruising we’ve discovered a number of items that we think are worth their weight in gold. Nightlights, hooks, beach-towel clips and more.

There’s Never Enough Outlets

Most cruise ships have a pretty limited number of electric outlets and often they are difficult to use, especially with odd sized plugs like voltage converter plugs. Be prepared with a single device that provides three grounded outlets (125V/15A, Max 1875W）and three USB charging ports（3.1A Total) . It auto-detects charged devices to deliver optimum and fastest charging speed up to 5V/2.4A. Don’t cruise without this cube.

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Some Ships Have Built-In Nightlights But Unfortunately Many Don’t – It’s Good To Be Prepared

These are great for cruising but also they’re a great travel accessory anywhere you go. From cruise staterooms to B&B stays, this will save a lot of stubbed toes and unnecessary middle of the night noise. Battery operated with charging by USB outlet they are motion activated. We put one on the bathroom counter wherever we travel.

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Need To Stay In Touch While On Board?

Traveling with a family or group? Sometimes catching up with people can be a hassle. From pools to cafe to buffets, spa and games, where are they? Cruising with children adds a whole other challenge with missed meetings and kids not checking in. Here’s an easy answer. Carry a set of walkie talkies.

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All Cruise Lines Use A Keycard As A Stateroom Key And For Charging Onboard – Carry Your Seapass Card In Style.

Carrying your ship keycard (Seapass) on a lanyard is a convenient way to keep it handy. There are any number of clear cases available but this one has more style than any we’ve found. We also like that this one has a convenient pocket on the back that makes the card even more accessible. Order in pink, black or rose-gold.

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Lots Of Fun To Be Had Lounging By The Pool

A packet of these little jewels are the perfect way to keep your towel clipped to your lounger while marking your space with bright tropical colors. No more towels sliding down just as you go to stretch out. Comes in packs of eight. They also come in real handy holding clothes to dry in your stateroom. Enough said…

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Extra Secure Luggage Tag Holders Help Make Sure You Get Your Bags Onboard And To Your Cabin

Gone are those days when the cruise line sent luggage tags to you before the cruise. Today when you register for your cruise the website provides a set of printable screens to create your tags. The job is now yours to print, fold and attach those to your bags. Keep a set of these secure luggage tag holders handy and feel secure that you bags will make it to your stateroom. This set is designed to hold tags from Carnival, Princess, P&O, Norwegian, Costa, and Holland America.

This design was created to match tags from Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara. Travel secure knowing that your bags will find you on time.

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Freshen Up Your Clothes While You Travel

These items don’t just save money but time too. We travel over a quarter of the year with an average trip being around thirty days. Over the years we’ve developed a system that involves easy to rinse out cloths, travel detergent and accessories to hang up items and prevent wrinkles.

Our Favorite Inflatable Travel Hangers

These rugged hangers pack flat and inflate providing a broad shape to prevent those puckers that flat hangers can produce on shoulders of blouses, shirts and T’s.

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Wash Out Clothes On The Road

Handy packets of mild laundry detergent to rinse out clothes in a sink. There are a number of choices but these are easy to carry and meet our requirements.

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Spray Away Those Wrinkles

No Matter how carefully you pack there always seem to be a few unsightly wrinkles when you unpack. Here’s a quick way to deal with those wrinkles without spending much.

You can buy and carry a commercial wrinkle release product or you can make you own for just pennies. We carry a small 30ml spray bottle when we travel with just a small amount of ingredients inside. When we need to use it we just fill with water, shake and mist the wrinkles. Here’s the recipe:

To a 30 ml Bottle add the following ingredients

1 Teaspoon rubbing alcohol
1/4 Teaspoon uncolored fabric softener
Shake

Once you get to your room and start unpacking, just fill the bottle with water, shake and spray. If you run out, just plain water can also do almost as good a job. Just mist lightly and hangup the clothes to dry.

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If Seasickness Is A Concern – Stop Worrying

While issues with seasickness on a cruise are usually mild and short lived there are actions you can take to greatly reduce the likelihood of it occurring. My wife has a long history of suffering from motion sickness and was very concerned before our first cruise. She went to the doctor to get a prescription for a patch but received some good advice as well. The doctor also had a problem with seasickness but while boating in Australia he was told about taking ginger and claimed it worked great for him.

My Wife Swears By Ginger

Before our first cruise she went to the doctor to ask for a prescription for the patch. The doctor gave her the prescription but recommended she try ginger capsules first. She starts taking them a day before the cruise and takes three a day with meals (very important unless you want to taste ginger all day) during the cruise. Problem solved. She’s taken over fifty cruises with a few through high seas with barely a problem with seasickness.

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What Exactly Is Seasickness?

It results from a conflict in the inner ear, where the human balance process resides. The inner ear actually senses motion without relying on our sense of sight. Inside a rocking ship the inner ear detects changes in both up-and-down and side-to-side motion as the body moves along with the ship. Since the ships interior moves along with the us, our eyes register a relatively stable unmoving scene. Confused by this perceptual conflict, the brain reacts with a release of stress-related hormones that can ultimately lead to nausea, vomiting, and vertigo.

The first approach to lessoning the symptoms is to settle the stomach which is why Darmamine and ginger help. Another approach is to demonstrate to the mind that the perceptual conflict is real. Going somewhere where you can look out at the sea is and effective way to resolve the perceptual conflict. Going out on deck also provides fresh air which also helps.