Using The Cruise Planner to plan a cruise.
One of the crucial elements of planning a cruise is good preparation and it's important not to underestimate the amount of background work that needs doing beforehand so that things flow smoothly and you have the relaxing and enjoyable cruise you deserve!
Firstly there’s all the information you need to keep at your fingertips - flights, reference numbers, logins, transfers, packages, upgrades, loyalty level perks. hotel booking, excursion bookings & DIY plans, all need keeping track of!
This is why I think you'll love The Cruise Planner - its a great way to keep all your information to hand. It shows you what still needs to be done and planned as it keeps everything neatly in one place. Grab a Planner as soon as you book your cruise and get things organised!
But The Cruise Planner is more than just a place to record all the information and details that you need to remember - secondly it also helps you plan what you are going to do ashore.
Get all your excursions and trips ashore planned and sorted before you leave home - apart from anything else once you’re onboard you will be amazed at how much it costs to get online. You really don’t want to waste valuable time ashore looking for WiFi hotspots so that you can check out Tripadvisor for ideas of things to do!
There are two ways The Cruise Planner helps you do this - start with the Cruise Arc planner - this gives a complete overview of your cruise with spaces to note times of arrival, departure, sunrise and sunsets well as local currencies and other information. Its really helpful when you’re looking at a the whole cruise experience as you can see if you’re in danger of overload by planning too many full day excursions, hikes or long hot walks round archaeological sites on consecutive days. Considering the Cruise Arc gives balance to your cruise - to help you use the Port Excursion Brainstormers which help everyone discuss and decide on what the focus of each day ashore should be.
Fully customisable Packing lists have a page of suggestions next to a blank page
Then there are loads of other things to discover things in The Cruise Planner
Comprehensive packing lists to persoanalise
A list of suggested cruise apps - download before leaving home!
Worksheets for each stage of the preparations and cruise.
Cruise Diary
Journal pages
On board information and memories
Contact sheets
The Cruise Planners is a handy size..
The Diary pages have space where you can make a note of any invitations or bookings for a specific day - there is also have a Journal section to record all the special moments of your cruise. With more space to note down all the details about your cabin and about the staff and crew the you meet the Cruise Planner eventually becomes a permanent Travel Journal which you can see keep, both as a handy reference of arrangements that you made and as a reminder of your perfect cruise
Taking notes at the port & Destination presentation
I’ve been overwhelmed by the lovely feedback people have sent had since the first Cruise Planner was published last summer. People say it both enhances your cruise experience and ensures your memories of it stay fresh. This is a recent message from one happy customer…
"I’m having so much fun preparing for our February cruise using The Cruise Planner! I always do a Journal of each trip, but this is special and so helpful with keeping everything together. I don't want to rush the cruise, but I can't wait to use it onboard nightly and then to complete it at cruise end. Since it's signed by Cathy Rogers, the author, I may add a few more autographs from Crew. I Love The Cruise Planner." Debi B-M
Filling in the journal at the end of a day ashore…
At present there are actually TWO editions of the Planner - the original portExplore Version and the new limited edition Cruise Addicts Planner which is very similar but has an added section of puzzles - cruise related word search, sudoku and Travel Dingbats - to while away the time!
The two versions of The Cruise Planner with our book The Confident portExplorer - also available through the links above.
More versions will be coming out in the spring - some targeted at a specific Cruise location - Alaska for example and some of the original design but in different colours - we've been asked for this so that if you have more than one cruise in preparation you will be able to know quickly which Planner is for which cruise!
Both versions of The Cruise Planner cost £8.99 and are available either through Amazon or the bookshop
I hope you enjoyed reading about the Cruise Planners and why they are so useful - you can get yours through the Bookshop link above.
It would be lovely you could share this Blog on Facebook or Twitter so your friends and family can read too or maybe pin it on Pinterest for future reference.
Happy portExploring!
Love
Cathy
xx
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