Photography:

Be prepaired to have your photo taken - a lot. The ships have a staff of photographers that are constantly taking photos of you, as well as formal night photos. While it can be expensive to buy all of the photographs they take of you, we usually do purchase a few of them.

If you decide to take your own camrea, there are a few things to think about. The biggest problem you will have is going between the inside and outdoor areas all day long. Remember the Caribbean is humid, and each time your camera goes through the transition of temperature and humidity, it can fog up. The best way to prevent this is to keep your camera in a bag or carry case, then allow the camera 15 minutes to stabliize to the new temperature before you use it. Otherwise, all of your photos might have a foggy look to them. If you have an older style video camera that uses tape, the mechanism can jamb if you don't wait long enough. On our first cruise, this is exactly what happened to our new 8MM video camera. Fortunately, today's all-digital cameras, especially the video cameras that use flash drives are much more immune to breakage due to humidity.

I also take more than one camera. If the camera breaks; why risk runing your vacation. In fact, on our last cruise, I took 4 of them; a DSLR, two compact digital point-and-shoot type cameras (one of which is in an underwater housing), and a video camera. All of them fit into a backpack-style photo bag, which I carried on board. However, the backpack is a bit much to take on an excursion, so I also pack a small photo sling-bag to take with me on shore. I pack the sling-bag empty into one of our check-in suitcases.

So how do I get all of that photo equipment into that small sling-bag? I don't. I simply take the equipment that I anticipate needing for the day, and pack it in the small sling-bag. When we are in port, one day, we might go snorkeling or relax at the beach - and on that day, I'll only pack the camera with the underwater housing. The day we went on the sailboat race, the bulky DSLR was too large to use as we were actively participating in a race, so I took the smaller camera as it fit easily into my pocket. If we are going sightseeing, I'll take the DSLR. And I may take the video camera as a second camera on occasion as well. I have developed this strategy from the experiences of the cruises I have been on, and it works well for me.