Family Cruise Shopping List

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Our family loves to travel. One of our favorite family trips is a cruise. We have been on a number of cruises. We have sailed with Disney Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean.

As we have gotten to be more ‘expert’ cruisers each time we sail we add to our “must have” list.

Below we will share our top list of what to pickup before setting sail on your family cruise vacation

Lanyards:

On a cruise your room card is pretty much the only thing that you need to keep with you. It will act as your ID, your wallet and of course getting into the room. Because of this it is important to take it with you wherever you go. Lanyards or bracelets are a great way to keep them on you without risking losing them.

Depending on the type of ship you are on, you may need to enter the key into the door or just swipe it at the door. These are the lanyards we usually take with us https://amzn.to/42BMskl, or these bracelets are a great option too https://amzn.to/3KcERCy.

Heavy Duty Hooks:

Unless you are in a really large suite the staterooms on a cruise are not very big. Which works out great because you really don’t spend very much time in the room. But because of this it is hard to make sure you have room for everything. One way that our family of 6 makes sure to use all of the space we can is hanging items on the wall such as hats, lanyards as well as canvas shoe holders (more on that below).

We take these hooks on every cruise we sail on https://amzn.to/4pDPkHu.

Canvas Shoe Holders:

Now you may be thinking oh I am not going to bring that many shoes. These holders are not for shoes (though they can be). They are actually told hold other things. For our younger kids, we roll up their outfits and put them into the holders and then hang them on the walls. We also put in brushes, sunscreen, and other toiletries. It just help with keeping the room better organized and clutter free.

This is a great one to grab https://amzn.to/4pFYXp9.

Door Magnets:

One of the fun unofficial cruise activities is decorating your stateroom door. The doors are metal so magnets work great. If you have a theme on your cruise you can a theme for your door. If you are celebrating a birthday or anniversary you can get great magnets like these https://amzn.to/46ie8xa. Also magnetic white boards are fun to have on your door for people to write messages- or you can leave messages for people in your stateroom. This is a great one to use https://amzn.to/3VYzSrA

Waterproof Phone Case

As you can imagine there are so many beautiful photo opportunities on a cruise. You will want to keep your phone handy to be able to get pictures all the time. But on the cruise there are plenty of water opportunities, whether you are swimming, cruising down a slide or if you get a sudden down pour on the pool deck. I know a lot of phones say they are waterproof but personally I don’t like to risk it. I always make sure that anyone that has a phone brings one of these, and we always have extra too https://amzn.to/3IyHFJA. These are great for your beach excursions too. I personally don’t put them underwater though I have seen people do that, I just use them when keeping my phone above water.

Steel Water Bottle

All of the major cruise lines have beverage packages that you can add on and these are great for delicious drinks on board. Our family also makes sure to bring water bottles. There are many places to get your water bottle filled up on the ship if you do not have access to bottled water. We prefer the stainless steel water bottles because when the plastic ones drop they can break. These are great ones to grab for the whole family https://amzn.to/4mqwErG.

Ducks!!

One of our favorite things to do on a cruise ship is hide and find ducks! It is an unofficial game that happens all over the ship. Guests bring and hide rubber ducks of all sizes. If you find a duck the etiquette is to keep it for yourself, re-hide it or leave it hidden. We like the regular yellow rubber ducks, fun coloured ones and the little mini ones, here are the links to these:

There are these really fun tags to add to your ducks as well, it shares your ship and sale date as well as where you are sailing from. Sometimes we even find ducks that have traveled on many different sailings. https://amzn.to/3KazX9f

Floaties and Sand toys

These can’t be used on the ship but they are great for the beaches at the ports. These floaties are perfect because they don’t take up much space and the mesh space allows you to enjoy the refreshing water https://amzn.to/4nbDaDP.

The collapsible sand toys are perfect so they don’t take up too much space. If you are enjoying a day that beach your kids will be glad they have some sand toys https://amzn.to/46fKusk.

We hope that this list helps you be prepared as can be for a fun filled cruise vacation. For more family travel tips and ideas be sure to check out our other posts at Blog – Together We Can Travel.