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(The Cruise Rule Book)
The passport problem that stops people at the pier, the day Medicare stops paying, the credit the cruise line already owes you. Twenty rules, and the exact words to say at the desk.
Tap the video below to play it. Thomas explains everything in 1 minute. Sound on · 1 minute
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Nothing ships, and there is no account to make.
The honest math
Six rules from the book, counted as the cash that leaves or comes back. One balcony cabin for two, two weeks; penalties are per person, counted once.
The Cruise Rule Book, pp. 25, 66, 70, 130, 136 · 19 CFR 4.80(b) · CBP · State Department
Difference, with the book: $4,236
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Real pages from the real book. This is exactly what opens on your phone at the document desk. The type is set big on purpose.
← swipe to see more pages →
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Twenty rules in five parts, six printable companions, one file. Every rule ends the same way: the official page it sits on, what it costs you when it catches you, and the exact words to say at the desk.
And that is a fraction of it. Twenty rules, six companions, 177 pages, every rule with its dollar figure.
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$27 once. No subscription. Yours forever.
Instant PDF, on your phone about thirty seconds after you pay. Nothing ships. Print at the kitchen table if you want.
The Cruise Rule Book
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Goes with it
The Cruise Port Directory, and The Senior Flyer’s Rule Book by Sharon Dawson, from the same small team
the other two come to $22.99 together instead of $46
Don’t want all three? Build your own bundle →What readers write me
“The name on my wife’s booking was Betty. Her passport says Elizabeth. Chapter 2 caught it eleven months out and the line fixed it on the phone for nothing. I have read what that costs at the pier.”
“Medicare stops six hours from a U.S. port. Forty years of cruising and nobody ever told me that. I bought a proper policy the same afternoon.”
“Debit card. The hold was eight hundred dollars and it did not come back for five days after we were home. Chapter 16 told me exactly why. I use the credit card now.”
“Bought it for one cruise. Kept it for the next four.”
“Bought it for my sister. Then bought a second one for me.”
“I am eighty-one and I read it on my phone without my glasses. Big type. Thank you.”
“I bid on an upgrade the way she lays it out in Chapter 11 and got a balcony for two hundred and ten dollars over the inside cabin. The email had been sitting in my junk folder.”
“The shareholder credit. We had the shares for years and never claimed a dollar. Two hundred and fifty on the next sailing, from three lines of a page.”
“Six-month passport rule. Mine had five months and nineteen days. Renewed it, sailed, nobody said a word — because there was nothing to say.”
“The fare dropped four hundred and sixty dollars in June. I checked it the way Chapter 9 says, called, and got it as onboard credit because we were past final payment. Nobody telephones to tell you.”
“My grandson was sailing with us and not with his parents. The notarised letter is in Chapter 1. We were asked for it at Port Canaveral. The couple in front of us were not so lucky.”
“Booked the next cruise on board, asked the five questions on page 69 first, and walked away from a deposit that was not refundable. That is the whole value of a book like this.”
“Page 159 is on the refrigerator. My husband ticks it. He has never ticked anything in his life.”
“Very good. I wanted more on river cruises. There is a little but I would buy a whole book from him on it.”
“I read the whole thing on a Sunday. It reads like a man who has actually stood at that desk.”
“I got off early at a different U.S. port once to catch a cheaper flight. Nine hundred and ninety-six dollars, and I had no idea such a rule existed. I wish I had had this book three years ago.”
“Missed the all-aboard by nine minutes in Cozumel because the ship was on a different hour than the town. It is in Chapter 19 with the reason. I cost myself four hundred dollars learning it.”
“We are from Kent and we sail out of Florida every winter. The ninety-day counting rule was news to both of us and it could have been very expensive news.”
“Asked the cabin steward on the first afternoon, like it says. Mattress topper, extra pillows, the fridge emptied. Ten seconds.”
“The evacuation numbers stopped me cold. I had a policy with twenty-five thousand on it and I thought that was generous.”
“The script card. I keep it in the carry-on. I am not good at asking for things and now I do not have to think of the words.”
“We are Canadian and the chapter on flying into a U.S. pier is worth the price on its own. Our provincial plan covers nothing out there. Nothing.”
“Customs allowance is eight hundred dollars each and households can pool it. We had been filling in two forms and paying duty we did not owe.”
“The final statement had the same bar round on it twice. I asked for the signed slip, the way he says. There was no signature. Off it came.”
“The daily service charge times two people times eleven nights. Three hundred and seventy-four dollars that was never in the fare I compared. At least now I budget it.”
“Went to the medical centre on day two instead of day five, because he says to. Consultation, antibiotics, receipts, done. The claim paid in three weeks.”
“Put the phone in airplane mode the moment you board. That one sentence saved me more than the book cost. Ask my brother-in-law what his bill was.”
“Tender priority. I told guest services the evening before and they had someone waiting for me. Twenty years of standing in that stairwell.”
“My insurance had a twenty-day notification window. Twenty days. It is on page 49 and it is in my policy and I would never have looked.”
“My mother is eighty-eight and sails with us. The medication list alone is worth it — one page, in the wallet, generic names and all.”
“Cannabis edibles bought legally in the state we sailed from. Our friends had their bag pulled at Galveston and did not board. Chapter 15 is not being dramatic.”
“I booked a guarantee cabin to save money and got a room under the pool deck. Chapter 11 explains exactly what I gave up. I will pay the difference next time.”
“He tells you what the ship’s doctor cannot do. No surgeon, no scanner, no intensive care. That is why you go early and that is why you carry the cover.”
“Read it, checked two of the government pages myself. Both right, both current.”
“Four sources of onboard credit. Four. I knew about one of them in nine cruises.”
“Prepaid gratuities before the increase, the way it says. Saved about forty dollars and locked the number in.”
“I bought it the night before we flew down and read the pier-day chapter in bed. We were on the ship in fifty minutes while people around us were still arguing about paperwork.”
“The complaint letter template. I filled in the blanks and sent it. Three hundred and forty dollars back, by the line’s own credit, in nineteen days.”
“Four stars only because I would like an index. The contents and the page numbers are right, I checked. I am simply an index person.”
“Wine at the pier, one bottle each, corkage if you open it downstairs. I had been leaving it at home for years.”
I am sixty-one and I live in Fort Lauderdale. For over thirty years I ran the guest experience aboard cruise ships, and I retired as a cruise director. I am not with a cruise line now, and nobody pays me to write any of this. The dining room, the cabins, the upgrades, the complaints and every charge the brochure never mentions came to me.
I did not make up these rules. The cruise lines, Customs and Border Protection and Medicare wrote them, and every chapter names the official page it sits on. What I did was pick the twenty that cost passengers the most, put them in order, and write down the words that work at the desk. I know which ones work, because I was on the other side of it.
What is in it: the papers, the medical cover, the credits and refunds, and the customs form. What I leave out on purpose: which ship to pick, which cabin is best, and anything the line is happy to tell you itself.
The brochure sold you the trip. Knowing what to ask is how you actually get it.
Thomas
No. It’s a PDF, a book on your screen. Nothing comes in the mail. It’s on your phone about 30 seconds after you pay. Want paper? Print it at home or at your library.
That’s okay. You tap one button and the book opens. No account, no password. If you get stuck, write to me here and I’ll help you, or give you your money back.
No. You pay once. That’s it. No monthly fee, ever.
The link is in your email. Open the email and tap it again. Lost the email too? Write to support@theseasonedcruiser.com and I’ll send it the same day.
Get off the ship at the wrong U.S. port and it costs $996 per person. Page 130 shows you how to avoid it. That one rule pays for the book many times. And you get 30 days to ask for your money back. You keep the book.
Some of it, yes. But it’s spread out in long contracts and government pages. Here, all twenty rules are in one place, with the exact words to say. Right on your phone at the pier.
Most likely. Did you know about the $996 fine? Or when Medicare stops paying at sea? Or the price drop the cruise line never tells you about? Most cruisers don’t.
Yes. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Princess, Celebrity, Holland America and MSC, from U.S. ports. Where a line has its own rule, I tell you.
Yes. Closed-loop trips are where most people get caught with the wrong papers. Medicare also stops 6 hours out on those trips. And you can bring back less: $200, not $800.
Yes. Chapter 4 is for you. Your home health plan pays little or nothing on a ship. UK guests need an ESTA before they fly. Canadians need a passport.
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Twenty rules, 177 pages. Instant PDF, on your phone about thirty seconds after you pay. Nothing ships.
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