Luggage accessories
First of all, I highly recommend compression packing cubes! I've been a fan of packing cubes ever since I once had a zipper break on my bag and my clothes went everywhere. Packing cubes keeps everything nice and tidy. And a bonus is that if you have to do the dreaded weight re-distribution at baggage drop because one suitcase is overweight, this makes it very easy to quickly grab a cube or two and move it between bags. But not all packing cubes are the same. Your basic packing cubes just keep everything organized, which is nice, but I always say to make sure your cubes can compress. You know how a lot of suitcases have an extra zipper so you can expand them if you need to? Compression packing cubes are the exact same, but in reverse. You put your clothes in them and seal it with the first zipper in one direction, then the second zipper goes in the other direction to compress out any air and make the cube much smaller. You can get so much more items in your suitcase this way!
But head my warning from before. Just because it fits doesn't mean it's under 50 pounds, so always weigh your bags with a luggage scale if you can.
Not necessary, but something new cruisers aren't often aware of are cruise luggage tag holders. Make sure you get the size for your specific cruise line, because some print out short and fat, while others print out long and skinny, and you'll want to make sure your luggage tag will fit. About a month before your cruise, you'll be able to go online to your cruise line's website and print out your luggage tags. Your luggage tag will indicate which side of the ship you're on and your room number. Even if you aren't flying to your cruise, you'll need luggage tags. When you check in for your cruise, they will take all of your luggage from you and board them onto the ship for you and deliver them to your room for you. If you don't get a holder for them, you can just staple them, but then you run the risk of the tag getting ripped off, which will delay your luggage being delivered to your room.
Travel hamper
One thing that is easily overlooked, but a major game changer is a pop-up hamper for dirty clothes. There is little floor space in a cruise stateroom to kick dirty clothes into a pile, and after a few days it's easy for your room to be overwhelmed with clothes everywhere. A pop-up hamper is small enough to take up little room in your suitcase, and little room in your stateroom, but will keep your room so much more manageable.
Reusable straws
You're going to want to bring your own straws for your cruise. Many cruises now only use paper or candy straws, which won't last long in your sweating drink. I personally love retractable metal straws that come on a keychain. They are so tiny since they are retractable, and the keychain makes it easy to clip them onto your beach bag or lanyard so you always have one nearby.
Lightweight travel towels
This is a hot take: but I actually suggest you do bring your own towel for a cruise! Yes, you don't need to bring your own bath towels because your stateroom will have towels in the bathroom; and, yes, you don't need to bring your own beach towels because the pools on the cruise will have towels. And technically, yes, you can take these towels off the ship to have on shore to dry off when you get out of the ocean. But, a camping towel is so much better at port! Even the largest camping towel is only about a third of the weight and size of a cruise-issued towel. This is important to me because we usually end up having to haul two beach bags down- one for beach essentials and one just for towels! And don't even get me started on how heavy it is to haul back a sopping wet cruise-issued towel on your way back to the ship. Camping towels are microfiber so they dry much faster. An extra perk is that since literally everyone from your ship has the same cruise-issued towels, you can find your chairs on the beach so much easier with the colorful camping towels.
Packable backpack
While you're at the port, there's always so many shopping options right where you get off the ship. Because of this, I love to pack an extra foldable backpack into my beach bag. This doesn't take up a lot of room in my beach bag when we don't need it, but can hold so many items on the way back (hi, oversized souvenir cups!). This one is mesh so that if anything is wet, it can air dry on the walk back to the ship and avoid a musty smell following you back to your stateroom.
Cruise phone case
If you're planning on doing any excursions or even being in the water all day at port, then I would recommend you get a waterproof phone case. Its' great to have your phone in an accessible place so you can take all the photos you want, especially if you're only wearing a swimsuit and don't have pockets. It also will keep your phone with you at all times so that you don't have to worry about it being stolen if you leave it behind on your beach chair.
For my phone, I switch out my normal phone case for a phone case with a strap and card storage. This makes it easy to hold on to my phone if I'm only wearing a swimsuit and coverup and have no pockets. It also keeps my keycard with me so that I don't walk all the way back to my room just to realize that I forgot my keycard at my lounge chair.
Waterproof wallet
It's a rite of passage for first-time cruisers (men particularly) to go into the ocean with their wallet in their pocket and then completely ruin the leather wallet and have all of their money soaked and the cards sticky from salt water. How you can avoid that is with a waterproof travel wallet. These zip up to keep money/cards from falling out and to keep it waterproof. It's perfect because all you need at port is your ID, your ship card, a credit card, and some cash for tipping/bartering/buying things from merchants on the beach, so you can leave everything else in a regular wallet in your stateroom safe that way if your wallet gets lost/stolen, you didn't just lose all the cash you brought for the trip and all of your credit cards.
Extra plugs
I love this little cruise-approved power strip (note, they won't let you take the big surge-protector strips onboard). This one has a small extension cord, 2 regular plugs, and 2 USB-A plugs and 1 USB-C plug. It is designed for travel so the cord wraps up really small and the prongs of the plug don't extend.
Foldable hangers
There's not a lot of hangers in a cruise closet, and the ones that they have are a pain to take on and off the rack. That's why I always bring my own foldable travel hangers for a cruise. They can easily double the amount of clothes that I can fit in the stateroom closet, which is great because there's usually not a whole lot of drawers so you need to hang as many shirts/dresses/jackets as you can so that you can save the drawers for underwear and swim.
Toothbrush holder
A small and maybe unnecessary, but helpful item is a silicone wall-mount toothbrush holder. The silicone sticks to the mirror in the bathroom as a place to hold your toothbrushes, so that you can save the cups in the bathroom for rinsing after you brush your teeth. Yes, the cups can hold your toothbrushes just fine, but the first time we used these while traveling my husband said he liked this so much better.
Door décor
We always pack stateroom door decorations for our rooms. Cruise ships can be big so after passing hundreds of rooms that look the same, it's actually very easy to walk right past your room without even realizing it (especially if you've been drinking, or it's just been a long day under the sun). You'll see a lot of other cruisers decorating their doors too, because the whole point of a cruise is just to have fun.
Magnetic accessories
The walls on cruises are metal, so I put a Bagnet on all of my bags. It is a really strong magnet keychain that is strong enough to hold your bag up to 8 pounds. This works both on the walls in your room and around the ship such as the bathrooms and metal tables.
Of course, there's the classic hanging shoe organizer. Although these are designed to go over-the-door, I've found that the seal on the bathroom and closet doors are such that you can't easily hang this on the door. Instead, it's much easier to get metal hooks to stick to the magnetic walls and hang this on the wall. There's so much empty space on the walls in your room anyways, that there's lots of places to stick magnets to get some storage in.
Insulated drink tumbler
Lastly, just because I use this often enough that it doesn't even make it into my cruise bag, is a drink tumbler. A travel tumbler can be filled up with water before you leave the ship on shore days to save you from paying for overpriced water bottles at the port, and then can be filled with your favorite drink and will stay cold even when you're out in the sun all day. You definitely want a drink with a lid and straw that won't spill so that you can just toss it in your bag while you're walking around, but then will keep sand and water out of your drink. Back on the ship, since these hold so much more than your standard 8-ounce glass, you can save yourself from having to make multiple trips just to get a refill.
