Life on-board
As you enjoy your day-to-day life aboard the ship, there are a few quick things that might come up that are worth mentioning.
Tipping
Tipping, as on land, is a personal decision, but because of the way a cruise experience works, there can be a lot of confusion about when you should tip and when it's not necessary.
For most cruise lines, tips can be applied either prior to your cruise as an add-on to your initial purchase or can be applied automatically to your on-board account during your cruise. Each cruise line has a predetermined daily tip amount that you'll be charged. You will have the option to remove these automatic tips by visiting guest services. You may choose to remove tips for a number of reasons, including poor service on the ship, or a preference to manually tip those that serve you. However, it's strongly encouraged to use the automatic tipping system as the primary way to reward the hard-working staff. In this way, you ensure those that aren't necessarily customer-facing but who contribute to your cruise experience get a fair share of the gratuities. When you tip directly, this isn't usually the case. If an individual staff member offers exceptional service, it's common to give them an additional gratuity. Room stewards are often provided with an additional tip either at the start or end of the cruise, as are bar staff at your most frequented bars. This is, of course, completely up to you and your preferences.
Cell phone and Internet
Let's be honest, most of us love our phones and have them with us nearly all the time. On a ship, however, there are a few things to beware of. Since you are at sea, you likely won't have access to your normal phone plan, so both phone calls and Internet access can be extremely expensive. If you really need to have voice service while cruising, contact your provider to see if there is a travel plan that they can offer you. If they don't, you are either going to be stuck paying very, very high rates or using the ship's phone system, which is also costly.
Internet access is a bit easier to solve. Cruise lines all have various Internet packages available to you and they've been getting faster and coming down in price over the last few years. Selecting the right package is fairly easy on the cruise lines' websites, so if you can't stand to completely disconnect, there will be an Internet option available to you.
When you get on the ship, it's often a good idea to put your phone into airplane mode to ensure you aren't incurring any unexpected charges as you sail away. If you have purchased an Internet package, you can enable just your wifi and leave mobile services disabled. Some people go as far as to manually disable the cellular connection in their settings to be absolutely sure they aren't using cellular networks.
Seasickness
How do you know if you're going to be one of the unlucky ones that get seasick? Well, you really can't tell ahead of time. If you're prone to motion sickness in the car or playing video games, you are more likely to be seasick but doesn't guarantee that you will be. Your best bet is to plan for the worst and hope for the best, which means you probably want some treatment for seasickness in your bag.
With that dire warning out of the way, it's worth saying that most cruise ships today have stabilizers that help prevent rocking and rolling of the ship. The larger the ship, the less you're likely to feel movement. In all but the most extreme cases, seasickness won't be a problem with some simple planning.
The first thing to do is to try to get acclimated to shipboard life as quickly as possible. Spending time out on deck with the horizon as a fixed point when you're underway helps tremendously. Sail away parties, usually held on deck, are great for this, although people may wonder why you're staring into the distance instead of dancing! It can also help to be conscious of why you're feeling the way you are. Some people are able to mentally talk themselves out of feeling ill.
If non-drug solutions fail, the three most common over-the-counter seasickness drugs are Dramamine, Bonine, and Benadryl. Bonine seems to be the most favoured of these options at the moment, and both Bonine and Benadryl have kids' versions available. For a first-time cruiser, picking up some Bonine to have handy is a good idea. If you forget, at least one of these options will be available on board, so you can visit guest services or the ship doctor to get some help.
Finally, if you are really sure you're going to suffer from seasickness, either because of previous experience on the water or a history of motion sickness, you could look at Transderm Scop, a scopolamine patch applied behind the ear at least eight hours before exposure. The patch is effective for up to three days. Scop is available by prescription and is preventive, not a treatment, and can cause possible side effects such as dry mouth, blurry vision, drowsiness and dizziness.
If you haven't booked yet and you are still worried about seasickness, choosing an itinerary with more ports and fewer sea days might help, as will sticking with larger ships.
Guest Services
If you've read all this advice and still have questions once you get on-board, Guest Services is where you should either call or go in person. They are there to help and have fielded every question you can imagine, so don't be shy. Guest services is usually very busy immediately following embarkation but it will quiet down and you'll be able to find a time to get your question answered quickly by a smiling employee.