11 Ways to Stay Healthy on Your Cruise

Cruise vacations are meant to be a fun-infused escape from reality, but just because you’re on a floating paradise doesn’t mean you should disregard common sense. Here are 11 ways to stay healthy while on your next cruise. A couple days before you board the ship you should consider prepping your body for the voyage.

How To Stay Healthy On Your Cruise

1. Stack up on Vitamin C

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a vitamin your body needs to form blood vessels, cartilage, muscle, and collagen in bones. Vitamin C is also vital to your body’s healing process.” The keyword being healing process. You’ll want to have a strong immune system while you’re pushing yourself. This can be through Airborne or taking vitamin C supplements leading up to and during your cruise.

2. Stay hydrated

The hot sun mixed with all the alcohol on the cruise will dry you out. Make sure you stay ahead of the game by loading up on water. A lot of cruise lines offer pre-paid water packages that are waiting in your cabin when you board the ship. Carnival Cruise Line charges $4.50 for a 12-pack of bottled water.

3. Stay aware at the buffet

The buffet is where most of the ship’s passengers go on embarkation day. If not then, at least sometime during the cruise. Make sure the people around you aren’t grabbing food with their hands and are wearing clothes that cover them. Nothing is worse than seeing a grown adult reach his hand into the cookie bowl or someone who just completed the hairy chest contest reaching over the salad bar. If you see that, tell someone so they can change out the food and utensils.

4. Watch the railings

The railings are touched by hundreds of people per day which makes it the perfect host for all kinds of bacteria. Obviously you want to be safe when transiting the stairs but if you can take your time and avoid touching the hand rails, even better. You don’t know what’s lurking on there, and we guarantee you don’t want to know, either.

READ MORE: The Truth and Lies About Noro Virus

5. And bathroom door handles

If you’re using the public bathroom, make sure you use a paper towel to open the door. A lot like the stair railing, these door handles can host fecal matter and other grossness that comes out of the bathroom from people who don’t think it’s important to wash their hands.

6. Wipe down your cabin

When you’re packing for your cruise, throw in a package of disinfectant wipes so you can clean all the surfaces in your cabin before you start touching them. Make sure to cover all the bases like the door handles, flat surfaces, remote control, the bathroom counters, the safe, drawers – anything you will often come in contact with.

7. Don’t overdo it

No need to go balls to the wall on day one, pace yourself! You’re most likely on the cruise for three days or more; there’s plenty of time on the schedule for fun. Going full throttle on embarkation day could wear you down for the rest of your cruise, or at least the first couple days which could put a damper on your first few port stops.

8. Get plenty of rest

Your cabin has a bed in it for a reason – don’t be afraid to use it. Yes, you’re on the vacation of a lifetime but you need to be fully recharged, especially if you’re doing a port intensive itinerary. On the flip side, don’t spend too much time sleeping. You can sleep (a lot) when you’re dead!

9. Bring hand sanitizer

Chances are there is hand sanitizer around every turn aboard the ship, or even hand-washing stations near the entrances to restaurants. But for port days when you’re not on the ship, consider bringing a small bottle of hand sanitizer for those sticky situations when you may not be near a bathroom to wash up. You want to avoid picking up germs no matter where you are on vacation – land or sea.

1o. Wash your hands often

Cruise lines go out of their way to make sure you’re washing your hands often or sanitizing with hand stations around the cruise ship, as we just mentioned. Some cruise lines like Royal Caribbean and Carnival have put hand washing stations outside of their lido deck buffet stations, and make you use them. And of course who can forget Norwegian Cruise Line’s famous “washy washy” song.

11. Fist bump, don’t shake hands

I’ve noticed a lot of captains starting to do this at the formal night receptions where instead of doing a hand shake they will give you a fist bump. At first this threw me off because I thought the captain was just trying to act cool, but nope, there was a reason for this. To not touch a thousand people’s hands. Sounds like a good idea.

How do you stay healthy during your cruise?

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