How to Smuggle Liquor on a Cruise

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I tried a couple different ways, and by far the tried and true method has been using Rum Runners! I tried boiling water bottles and popping the unbroken caps back on, but I just ended up with an exacto knife sticking out of my hand, and a bunch of confiscated liquor.

Most cruise lines allow one bottle of wine or champagne per person of 21 or older. There are ways to remove the cork replace the wine with liquor and then put the cork back without it being at all noticeable. After watching the How-To’s I strongly suggest saving your time and energy and just getting Rum Runners.

rum runner

Rum Runners are just plastic, collapsible, washable, reusable flasks. They come in different sizes, so I buy a few Big ones and a few little ones, so I can carry the little ones around with me without going back to the room for every drink. PUT THESE IN YOUR CHECKED BAGS AND/OR ON YOUR BODY. DO NOT PUT THEM IN YOUR CARRY ON! Putting them in your pockets is the best way but depending on how much you like your beach drinks, the excess will need to go in your checked bags. These are also refillable when you get off the boat, refill them at an island liquor store and discreetly hide them on your person, voila! refills! These are also great for concerts, festivals, family reunions etc.

The Wine Rack

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or Belly Flask

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or Saddle Bags

saddle bags

are always viable options, however, a little more ridiculous in my opinion. And by ridiculous, I mean totally awesome, just over priced.

They also make Shampoo/Conditioner/Listerine etc look a like bottles to fill with liquor. Again, in my opinion, rum runners are the least ridiculous, and you can easily take them onto the islands to refill and easily return to the ship with.

Also, most cruises will offer an “open bar” type option (Carnivals is something like $50/day for 15 drinks/day) depending on how many ports your stopping at, this may not make sense. If you are off the boat for 9 hours, its probably not worth your money to pay to drink all day on a ship you won’t be on. Unless one of the ports is Half Moon Cay, which is owned by carnival so you use your Sail & Sign card on the island as well. A good way to get your monies worth on this would be to split it with someone else, the only cons are your drinks are cut in half and someone has to be the beer bitch the whole trip. But if you think that will work for you $50 for 15 drinks a day isn’t bad! But I’ve always stuck with Rum Runners and we have never run out or stayed sober, so I think we’ve had a good approach!

How to Plan a Cruise

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Have an idea of what you want out of your cruise. Are you wanting to whale watch in Alaska or ride dolphins in the Grand Cayman? The more general your goal, the easier it is going to be to find a great deal, so staying vague is best in this case. Tropical with a preference to the Bahamas or to the Caribbean is a good generality.

Search for flights BEFORE buying your cruise/selecting a port! This is a MUST! My first cruise cost as much as the flight to get to the port. Grant it, the cruise was insanely cheap but the flight was mediocre in terms of deals. Flights can easily cost as much or more than your cruise if you don’t search first. Try to fly to a port that has flight specials often (like Miami or New Orleans) or one that is geographically closer, thus cheaper. Keep in mind that most ports cater to certain destinations. California/Washington state ports go to Alaska/Hawaii/Fiji for the most part, where as Florida ports go to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Jamaica, and parts of Mexico. New Orleans departs to a lot of Mexico and South American ports. It’s a lot to keep in mind, but once you get to the port, everything else is taken care of! I usually stay in the port city a few days at the beginning or end to extend my vacation, which can help you get a better deal on your flight by being more flexible on which days you fly!

Find a cruise! I have always cruised with Carnival, in my searches they have been the cheapest. They also have a military discount, and all cruise lines offer certain discounts based on your state of residency. I usually go directly to Carnival and search with my state and the military rate selected. Then I look for the most days with cheapest cost per day (last year we went on a 6 day cruise to Key West, the Grand Cayman, and Jamaica for $243. And then a 5 day cruise  to Nassau, Freeport, and Half Moon Cay for $199) I divide the total cost over the number of days and compare it to how much I would spend on a hotel. Vacations-To-Go is also a great deal site that searches ALL cruise lines for great last minute deals, the site is out of date and not enjoyable to look at, but they do have great deals that will make it worth it! If you are a AAA member/military/senior citizen ALWAYS check for discounts either by a google search or calling to book. A few more seconds of your time could save you hundreds!

Here is an article of a few cruise deal sites with their pros and cons listed. If you have some time, its worth searching them all because you never know who might have the better contract for the specific cruise you are looking for!

Getting from the airport to the port. This is VERY easy, the cruise lines want to make this as hassle free as possible, and they have. You can purchase your shuttle while you are checking out, or any time after you have booked before your cruise. In my opinion, going through the cruise line is over priced, so I call the airport I am flying into and ask what shuttle services service to whichever cruise line I am sailing through. They usually give a list of at least 3-5 companies, some of which you can haggle with! One way to go about this to be sure you aren’t late to board your cruise is to arrive a day early. Stay in a hotel with a shuttle service to the airport, and then you wont have to pay any cab fare to or from the airport and you can arrive a day early to make sure you catch your shuttle to the port.

You can also look into a one way car rental, depending on how many people you are traveling with, this may be a much cheaper option. If you decide to do this, be sure to check for toll roads and distance to see if it is in fact more cost effective. Ports like Port Canaveral where you fly into Orlando have a long drive and tolls, may not be worth getting a rental, where closer ports like New Orleans, could be very cost effective.

Couch Surfing

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Couch surfing is an amazing way to travel if your budget is incredibly tight, or you are an awesome people person and/or want to stay with a local where you are traveling.

How couch surfing works: people offer their couches and sometimes meals in a “pay-it-forward” way, in that they will most likely couch surf too, or they love having international guests, especially ones who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford such an adventure. www.couchsurfing.com is the biggest host site and certainly most reputable. There is a verification process and rating system similar to ebay to deter from the scary “craigslist ad” anonymity. You sign up for the site, where you can surf or host, or both. Then search for hosts in any location in the world. You have to submit a little info about yourself and trip, like why you are traveling and a short bio. This is for the host to get a sense of who you are. They are letting a stranger in their home, so detail it so they know you aren’t creepy…unless you are creepy, and then make sure that gets across so they don’t let you stay with them. Hosts ultimately have the final say in who they host, and for obvious reasons larger groups may have a much harder time finding an accommodation.

I haven’t personally couch surfed before, but I’ve met MANY over my travels who have and had nothing but good things to say. As with anything make sure you are comfortable and get good vibes from the host, and be respectful of their homes. They aren’t your maid and they are inviting you into their space to share their life and culture with you. So do your dishes and don’t be an asshole.  

SkyScanner

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SkyScanner

This website/app is one of my very first go-to‘s for flights now. I learned of it on one of my adventures to Portugal from a fellow traveler, and I haven’t stopped using it since! This app let’s you do “unrefined” searches for flights. You can look for flights with no specific dates, no specific destination, no specific departure location…anything. If you have nowhere in mind, it will even pull up a globe you can spin looking at the prices pop up around the world. It’s amazing. You can surf through the dates to see the cheapest, and put general areas to see which airport in the general area is cheapest.

The app is way easier to use and navigate in my opinion, however the site is still very functional as well.

use.this.resource.

Rome2Rio

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Rome2Rio

Have you ever decided you wanted to go somewhere, then realized where you are, and where that is, and thought to yourself “well how da phuq am I gonna do that??”. Haven’t we all. Either in a drunken stupor standing outside a bar you can only read the name of if you close one eye, or crying on a curbside in a foreign country hoping the sign you’re sitting under is indicating a bus stop that may or may not be going somewhere within 50 miles of what may or may not be your actual destination.

Sure, google maps via 30 minutes of cussing and a friendly game of phone toss with the wall, can probably get you pretty close, this site not only will tell you exactly how you’re gonna do it, but also how many crumpled up, beer soaked, $1 bills (that you took back from the stripper because you realized you needed cab money to get home, alone… let’s be realistic), it will cost you.

Note the different options listed to the left, this ain't no one horse town.

Note the different options listed to the left, this ain’t no one horse town.

 

It’s very user friendly and intuitive, and gives you options. And don’t we all love those. This is climbing up the charts as potentially my new favorite website, this and my Airfare Calendar quite possibly might be the Pinky and the Brain to my quest to defeat option-less, expensive travel.

And then tonight, we try and take over the world!

Airfare Watchdog

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Airfare Watchdog

This site is great because if you really want to go somewhere but haven’t found the right price, this site will watch fares for you and email you when it hits low spots! Unfortunately, from my experience they typically have short turn arounds for when they depart, so make sure you look at the dates/times with the advertised flight.

House Swap

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First, you are probably wondering what house swapping is.

Home exchange, also known as house swapping, is an alternative means of travel accommodation, through which two parties agree to swap their homes for a set period of time, with no monetary exchange taking place.

house swap image

In other words, you find people who live in an awesome location you would like to visit, who would like to visit the awesome location in which you reside. You chat it up, set dates, and vacay for free. Often times never even meeting the people you are swapping with (unless you would like to). These sites are completely legitimate and each have their own ways of verifying participants identities to ensure everyone has a safe, enjoyable trade. Make sure you start looking ahead of time, since this is a trade, both parties would like to know well in advance when and what will be traded.

There are many sites that help you make these connections.

Home Exchange

Love Home Swap

Home Swap

Knok

Casahop

Intervac

are some of the more popular ones.

Important things to know about home swapping.

For starters, while the actual vacation is free, the membership to these sites is typically not. On the scale of how much a vacation home would cost, its as close to free as you can get. However, it’s not exactly free.

Also, home swapping is not for everyone. There will be randoms in your home for however long you agree on, which some people are not okay with.

There are three kinds of house swapping. One, is a “simultaneous exchange“. Which is pretty self explanatory, you both swap at the same time and return at the same times. The second is a “non-simultaneous exchange“, which would be they are at their personal home, and you stay in their second, or vacation home. The third is called a “hospitality exchange” which is more similar to couchsurfing, in that the owners are still home while you stay as their guest.

Be clear on specifics of the trade. You don’t want to expect things that haven’t been discussed, simply because it seems standard to you. Things such as cleaning services, fridge stocking, linens, how to exchange the keys. (TIP: HomeLink offers a beginners guide to help you get on your feet of you decide this is something for you.)

Renters can apply too. Don’t think just because you don’t own your home or have a house, that you can’t participate. A place to sleep is a place to sleep, no matter how you are paying for it.

Trade the whole kit and kaboodle! When discussing the infrastructure of the trade, why not set up trading cars. If you are flying to your destination, both parties would need a ride. Sure. that’s risky, and not for everyone. But if it suits your fancy, save that cash for a rental car for an awesome excursion or spa day!

Living Social

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Living Social

Living Social has fantastic deals on goods, activities, classes, and vacations. I’ve had the best luck with purchasing admission to 5k fun runs, and VIP admissions to festivals and events to include open bar and buffets.

As far as purchasing goods from this site. I’m not a fan. Groupon is great because you buy the item directly through them. However, Living Social essentially has you purchase a coupon code, thus, you have to go to the vendors site, select the item that was promoted, go through a checkout on a totally new site, then enter the provided code. Groupon will save all of your card and address info for future purchases, and it takes only 2-3 clicks to confirm your purchase (which can be a good or very bad things, especially in my experience after a few glasses of wine.)