I just came off of a cruise on Friday, and had a blast. The strategy that my wife and I used (both of us are low-carbing) was that we were going to allow ourselves to splurge a little, but to not go crazy with the carbs.

What we ended up doing was avoiding starches (breads, pastas, gravies, etc), avoiding alcohol (my wife had an occasional glass of wine, I stayed away), but allowed ourselves one dessert per day. On some days we'd eat 1/2 of 2 different desserts instead. We always made certain to eat the sweets with the meal, rather than separate (to reduce some of the insulin spike).

We also carried along several maltitol sweetened chocolate bars, hard candies, and other low-carb sweets. This helped us to get through it for the most part.

We both gained 3 lbs during the cruise, and had already decided that we would re-enter the induction phase immediately following the cruise to burn off whatever we gained. I'm guessing that it will be a 2-3 week setback, which I feel was well worth it.

The bottom line for us was to make a plan prior to the cruise but not beat ourselves up if we slipped a little bit. We have plenty of time to recover after the cruise, but only a week to enjoy the cruise.

Other than a bit of advance planning, don't worry too much about it until AFTER the cruise, then just keep doing whatever has been working. Life's too short to ruin a good cruise by being TOO regimented.

Just my opinion!