Cruise passengers warned to clean 7 areas of cabin before settling in

As tempting as it is to arrive at your cabin and immediately out to explore, cruise experts have advised taking the time to settle in properly and clean seven key spots before departure. That includes doing a quick sweep of the "high traffic areas" which previous passengers may have been touching, which may not fall into the crew's list of deep cleaning priorities. Even unpacking your bags should wait until you've looked at the items that you may want to sanitise before you can truly relax.

When sharing their advice on the first things to do when you board a cruise, the team at Cruise Critic said: "We're not suggesting that your cabin steward isn't doing a proper job at cleaning your room. But a little extra precaution never hurt anyone, and it will just take a few minutes to sanitise (or re-sanitise) certain areas of your cabin."

The seven "high-traffic areas" in your cabin which you may want to check are the "doorknob, deadbolt, TV remote, light switches, bathroom faucets, thermostat, safe keypad", as well as other items you think might have been picked up a lot by previous passengers.

The experts added: "If you want to go the extra mile, rewash the bar glasses if your cabin has them."

Before the ship sails off, you may also want to check your phone settings, or you may end up facing some hefty bills when you get home.

In fact, there's a costly mistake which quite a lot of passengers make with their phones onboard the ship. You may not be getting any signal at sea, but that doesn't mean that data roaming charges won't apply.

Most people assume that because they are unable to connect to the internet unless they opt for a cruise line's Wi-Fi package, then their phone won't be incurring data charges.

However, even at sea your phone may intermittently connect to maritime networks and satellites - and you'll be hit with the fees that come alongside this.

Opting for a Wi-Fi package can be an easy way to avoid these types of hidden costs, but of course these can be quite expensive, especially if you're on a long trip.

If you're sticking to a budget or you're quite happy to ditch your social media feeds and emails for a few days, then one of the easiest ways to avoid the potentially high costs is to switch off data roaming, or at least put your phone on airplane mode.