Do you keep a record of your cruises (travel)

[dolittle]

Do many of you keep a record of your cruises (travel ) . We have not I sometimes wish we had, we have been very lucky and been to many places we never dreamed we would get to see but as far as a log or diary we have nothing. We have pictures old school and digtal but they are not dated or organized and are mostly a mess .I have a pretty good memory for most things but at some point when I try to think ''what trip was that''I am not always sure which it is and they start to run together into a jumble . If you have how do you keep these records and have they been helpfull to you in planing and enjoying your travels. I of course have many great memories of cruising with my D.W. (she is not much help not a good memory) but I do wish we had planed this part better. What is your experince I would like to know.

[gooch47]

I have a huge msword document of all our cruises. Details of each cruise, total cruises for each cruise line, totals cruises on each cruise ship.

 

I didn't start it until we had completed quite a few cruises. I went back to my work appointment books, photos and videos, and our collection of old cruisecards to get the data for the older ones.

[paul929207]

I have spreadsheets keeping track of our travels

[navybankerteacher]

I have used a pocket diary for many years - always entering flights, embarkations, ports, etc. along with all sorts of things like doctors appointments, children's (and now grandchildren s) birthdays, etc. So it helps to jog my memory - which still seems to work - but no specific travel journals.

[notentirelynormal]

I also keep a record. It includes the date, ship, cabin number, ports, number of days and immediate family members that were with us.

[mom says]

I have kept travel journals for the last 20 years. Have quite a few of them on one of my bookshelves now. I try to write in them every day when we travel. Sometimes only a brief page. Sometimes several, depending on what happened that day. Each entry has the date and location, which makes referring back to them easier.

 

All of my printed photos (the ones not in a scrapbook) are in photo envelopes with the date and location(s) written on the outside. My digital photos are grouped into folders also with the date and location.

 

I've never kept a running list of all our cruises or land vacations though.

[4x4bob]

For our cruises I take the photo's that I have taken and review them and reduce number down to useable size.

 

Then I develop a photo book. The first two pages is a log of the cruise listing who went with us, where we went, and what we did.

 

The photo's will cover from when the blue shuttle picks us up and then brings us back home. Our cabin number, activities, and tours are also covered.

 

I color code the books by Cruise Line and file them by date.

 

All I have to do later is to pull up a book and I have the information about the cruise from dates to cost.

 

Another big plus is the fact my Grand Kids like to look at the photo's that Grandpa took on his trip.:D

 

Bob

[karinad]

We haven't kept anything but pictures. To tell you the truth I never thought about it until now! We've been travelling since 1991. We mostly did land trips to the Caribbean, but the past 15 years, Tahiti and Europe. Tahiti is easy enough to remember, but Europe is a different story!

 

I'm not one to journal or keep a diary and probably won't start. It's a great idea to do it, especially if your journeys have just begun!

[vjblk]

My sister and I have learned to keep some notes about our trips. As we get older and take more trips, it gets harder to remember what we did when. I try to keep a record of what ships we've been on, cabin number and dates of cruise. I also have tried to jot down, at least month/year of our land trips. My sister has kept a travel journal of our trip too. It really helps when we want to remember where we stayed and when.

[Sue Do-Over]

Grin! Just scroll down... lots of CC members record every cruise (ever) in their signature, along with special notes about each. And several count down clocks for their next cruise(s)... because we all want to know everything ever about every cruise everyone has ever been on. It's terribly important to me to know which ship you took on your eleven-teenth cruise, which ports you visited, and it is absolutely critical to know that it was for your sons-wifes-sisters-mother-in-laws-retirement-birthday-party. And that it was a surprise!

<end sarcasm font>

 

We could, instead, just say '100 days cruised, 19 cruises, 7 cruise lines' and be able to read 20 comments on a page, instead of 4.

[Nebr.cruiser]

I've kept simple day journals on a couple of our 'Bucket List' trips, but not for most more ordinary trips or cruises.

 

I have tons of pictures, both trip and not, and they are pretty well-organized; I almost always write the names, dates and other pertinent info on the back and they are organized by year (family photos) or trip, like for cruises. They are all in albums or boxes and have their own closet. I take a lot of pictures!

 

With the advent of digital photography, I did print a most of them out in the early days, now they are organized in files on my computer and an online storage site.

 

Now, for most cruises/trips I make a photo book at one of the photo websites with the highlights and best pictures from the trip. I don't print out many pictures anymore, but I wish I did at least some.

 

We also have boxes and boxes of slides. Last year I got all of them (ok, I have about 30 slides to go) scanned and saved. Next up is photos, but I am seriously exhausted just thinking about trying to scan all our tens of thousands of photos, let alone all the old and older family photos that have somehow all ended up at our house.

[Hlitner]

One of my biggest regrets (when it comes to travel) is that we did not keep any records or our cruises or trips. So now, after more then 40 years of international travel, we must rely on memory and some computer files that only go back about 10 years. DW and I are not even sure of exactly how many cruises or ships we have taken other then the current mass market lines where we can pull up our history (at least for the past few years). So to you younger cruisers we do suggest keeping some kind of master cruise/travel diary.

 

Hank

[Erik101]

I don't see the point of using a journal. The photos are more than enough. I prefer to think/plan future travels than reminiscing of past ones.

[notentirelynormal]

I don't see the point of using a journal. The photos are more than enough. I prefer to think/plan future travels than reminiscing of past ones.

 

I don't use a journal but I do keep track. I have photos of each and every cruise - that's how I got my kids their proper status. That does not, however, tell me where and when we did the cruise. I've been on 28 cruises. While each was different and memorable at the time my first cruise was back in 1984. That was 30 years ago. Maybe YOU can remember but me, not so much without "cheater" notes.

 

Someone asked me the other day about the ports we did in the Med. Umm, total mind freeze. I hardly remembered any off the top of my head. That's why I have a spreadsheet.

[t60]

We did quite a few cruises before I got a netbook and I didn´t keep a journal, just non digital pix which I did keep in some sort of order. These were editied over time. Since having a netbook, I h ave kept a daily dairy of our cruises, each cruise with pix and precruise research kept in it´s own folder on my laptop, complete with back up, now considering uploading to the cloud. Althogh I have kept all these records, we rarely reread them, so also toying with keeping a paper copy of the dairies which include some pix, just so it´s easier to look through occasionally....but need a lot of space and files to keep them.

 

Sandy in SPain

[boogs]

I don't make a formal journal or record, but do keep all the photos electronically on various media, from the hard drive on my PC, to my backup hard drive, to two sets of memory cards. If one source gets corrupted, I have the others available to reload them. Each cruise is under it's own folder, and in some cases, they have even been separated by the day of the cruise.

 

I also keep all documents I create, receive, or download when researching and booking a cruise. These are itineraries, documents from the cruise line, research on places to visit, etc. Each of these are also maintained in separate folders by cruise.

 

Then, I keep all emails related to each cruise, again in a separate email folder.

 

This may sound extreme, but these are memories that I want to keep forever, so I keep everything, and organize them for easy retrieval. I can easily cross reference between the various documents and folders to remind be when and where we were on each cruise.

 

An added benefit is that I have resorted to many of these saved files to answer questions posted by CC members.

Edited March 5, 2014 by boogs

[sparks1093]

We do the photos and I have started keeping a daily journal on my Kindle in order to help me write up my review. We keep all of the paper which eventually will be made into a scrapbook. One thing that I have inadverently done is kept a financial record for each cruise. I have a little 5x3 spiral notebook that I've used to track our budget for each cruise. Before each trip on the top of each page I will put a budget item such as "souveniers $300". Then at the end of the day I will enter everything we've spent money on onto it's appropriate page. Helps me keep track of spending and filling out the Customs form at the end of the trip, too. It also helps us plan spending for future trips because I can look back and say "in 2009 we budgeted $150 for photos but only spent $110".

[Krazy Kruizers]

I have records of nearly all of our cruises. I decided to try and get it all put together in 2010 when we were hit with a massive snow storm that destroyed part of out house. Several boxes of cruise related material in the attic were ruined. So I don't have a record of all of our cruises.

[Emmasoma]

I keep a Moleskin journal for every trip I take. I write in it daily and tape in postcards, ticket stubs, etc. It includes hotels, food eaten prices and then totals for the trip as well as thoughts on sights and cultures. Its fun to go back and read about the trip and see the little mementos. Also they have come in handy more than once when I return to a place and know what hotel I stayed in and liked. Also have been able to make recommendations to others. Its fun to compare prices for things; then to now. I have 25 years worth of these little books and wouldn't trade them for anything.

[biker@sea]

I have Cruise Critic .:D

[sparky-elpaso]

I take along little spiral notebooks - keep track of budget, schedule, what we did, etc. Only takes a few minutes but it helps with some of the details when I put together our photo book(s) at the end of the trip. I save my photos on my netbook - different file for each day.

 

The info also helps when I start planning our next cruise - gives me some benchmarks on what we spent, etc.

[Warm Breezes]

I have Cruise Critic .:D

 

Ditto :)

[HeatherC430]

I scrapbook all of my cruises with photos, dates & journaling (with the exception of my first one back in '98 - was scrapbooking even around then? lol)

[deladypilot]

I keep a travel journal with all of our travels even the short weekend trips. I started doing this after I got into genealogy and wished I had some writings from my grandparents travels. I thought it would be nice one day to pass it to my grandchildren so they can learn something about us.

 

I usually put in 1 picture for each day, sometimes 2.

[lamchops]

I only keep track of my major cruises/holidays. I use the info at a later date to help friends or reference when doing a CC post.

 

1) I have a spreadsheet to track costs and help with planning before the trip.

2) I journal for a couple of minutes nightly when reviewing the days port photos. I comment on anything memorable on and off the ship while on the trip. I also track actual costs for incidentals, transportation & admissions.

3) My DW or I complete a photo album with excerpts from my journal as well as internet site facts after the trip. DW scrapbooked the 1st cruise but now she just selects and orders the photo and leaves the rest to me.

4) I do a "shutterbug" 20 page photobook as a "Coles Notes" version of our trip.

 

 

Sometimes the ports on longer cruises tend to blend together for my DW and this method is helpful for her reminiscing.

 

The planning gets me excited and the albums prolong my cruise enjoyment for weeks after.

Edited March 5, 2014 by lamchops