Welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 339.

The first day of your cruise is without a shadow of a doubt, the most exciting day of your cruise,

because your cruise begins and with it, all the fun you've been looking forward to for the months and even years.

This week, I wanted to share a list of Embarcation Day do's and don'ts to help make your

first day on board perfect. Here we go.

The first day of your cruise, better known as Embarcation Day, is when your vacation begins.

I think that's pretty obvious. But it's also a point of which

you've got a lot to do, a lot to see, a lot to explore, and it can be a little overwhelming,

especially if you're new to cruising, new to Royal Caribbean, or something I want to make sure

you're not missing out on something. I think the idea of FOMO, fear of missing out,

is really something I get a lot of questions about when it comes to

Embarcation Day specifically. It's your first day on board. It's your first exposure to the ship.

And in a lot of cases, this may be your first time on this particular ship or class of ships.

And there's a little bit of an adjustment period. And even when I go on a cruise on my first day,

regardless of the ship or the class or anything like that, there's always that adjustment period in the beginning in which I feel like you have a lot that you've got to kind of cover.

And embarkation today is when a lot of people do that.

I feel like if you're going to do your cruise errands, all those things that you meant to do once you get on board the ship, they usually get taken care of on the first day. But with that, you've also got to balance having a good time, right?

You're not just there to make appointments and book reservations. You're there to enjoy

yourself and have a great time. And before we really get into the weeds of this episode about

what you should or shouldn't do on embarkation day, I really think it's important to always remember something about a cruise, and that is,

you're on vacation.

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