What To Do When It Rains During Your Cruise

During our recent Disney Cruise, we got some rain. Every day. Sometimes torrential downpours. Sometimes little showers. Sometimes just light sprinkles. And yes, we did see a few peeks of sun every now and then, but we mostly had clouds. And some rain.

So what do you do when it rains during your cruise? You keep on going. After all, you can’t exactly get the captain to turn the ship around and go back home to wait for a less rainy time. Instead, you just go along and make the most of it, and look for the bright spots when you can find them. Raining at the beach? Be glad that you don’t have to worry as much about whether you are entirely covered in sunscreen. But still put some on in case the clouds thin, because you can still get a sunburn on a cloudy day.

Here we are enjoying our day at the beach at Castaway Cay, the private island of the Disney Cruise Line. We had two stops there on this cruise, and both of them turned out to be rainy days. But we still stayed out on the island for as long as we could. And we were still smiling, despite the rain and the dark clouds, because we were still having fun.

How do we do it? Here are a few tips for enjoying a cruise, even if it happens to be raining:

1. Keep going - Unless you live a completely different lifestyle than we live, you don’t get to cruise all that often. As was already said above, don’t let a little rain ruin your time.
2. Don’t complain - Instead of grumbling about how you would rather things be, accept the things that you can’t control. Like the weather.
3. Don’t over plan - We heard one mother saying, “Remind me for our next cruise not to pay for so much in advance.” They had paid for bicycle rentals on Castaway Cay and did not get to use them because of the rain. Her point was to wait and see what happens instead of trying to plan everything out in advance.
4. Be flexible - Don’t get so caught up in your plan that everything falls apart if one little thing is off, like the weather. Have a backup plan, or just don’t have a plan at all. The latter is working for us more and more as we go along in our lives. And yes, 3 and 4 are very much related, and may involve a whole different way of thinking for some people. Even before our cruise started, Laura had seen some people online asking for advice about whether they should cancel their excursions because of all the rain in the forecast. Excursions can be lots of fun, but before you book one you might want to consider what would happen if it were to rain during your excursion.
5. Be realistic - Yes, you want sunny days for your cruise. Who doesn’t? But a little rain is not the end of the world. If you are going to be at the beach, chances are you are going to get wet anyway. You might want to get a waterproof bag to put your stuff in, but some raindrops never hurt anyone.
6. Be safe - Keep a watch on the weather and take proper precautions if it turns out to be more than just a few sprinkles. Some places (such as Castaway Cay) close beaches and activities if there are big storms and lightning in the area, so heed those warnings.
7. Relax - One of the nice things about rain on a cruise is that it can cause you to slow down and relax a bit. Cruises are great because they have as much or as little as you might want to do. But sometimes the temptation to try to do everything is a strong one, and we might forget to slow down and just sit for a while.

Here, we were relaxing on those wonderful lounge chairs on the Deck 4 Promenade of the Disney Dream after rain had driven us off of Castaway Cay. Instead of complaining and sulking in our room, we grabbed some chairs and enjoyed the view while sitting under the cover of the lifeboats and the decks above. After all, we can’t get a view like that back at home.

During Disney Cruises, just about everywhere you go on the ship you can hear music playing. Most of it is classic Disney songs and such. On the morning that we were leaving the ship for the last time, I heard an interesting song. It was the song “Enjoy It” from the movie “In Search of the Castaways.” In that song, Maurice Chevalier begins by singing, “Don’t cry about bad weather - enjoy it!” Maybe they should have played that every morning on the ship instead of when we were leaving. It definitely sums up how we feel about cruises, and just about anything else for that matter. Make the most of whatever God gives you, because you can always find something to be happy about.

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” - Matthew 5:44-45

About the photos:

With all of the rain that was in the forecast, I probably should have left my main camera in our stateroom and just used the GoPro camera with its waterproof case for some of our outings. But instead I braved the rain and took along my Olympus camera. The bag that it was in was not waterproof, but I also had a jacket and a towel in the bag and could wrap the camera in those inside the bag if the need ever arose, which it did not. We were always already under cover when the heaviest rains came, so my camera was safe with us. But I was keeping an eye on the skies, just to be safe.

As you may have seen in a previous post, I took several photos on this cruise that fall in the category of “selfies.” We don’t have that many photos of the two of us from many of our trips, so I am trying to take more and more, even if it just involves holding the camera at arm’s length like this. The fisheye lens is able to capture the two of us as well as much of the surroundings behind us, so it works well.

Photos: Each photo is single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: June 10 (top) and June 8 (bottom), 2017
Location: Castaway Cay, Bahamas