[Attention Surplus Disorder]

A cruise is no more expensive than going to a fairly high-class hotel, roughly $200 a day. It isn’t a big leap off a cliff or anything.

I would say 75% of all cruise line activity is in the Caribbean.

The short ones (3 days) tend to be drunk festivals, just avoid that activity (unless you are one!)

The long cruises tend to be long jaunts thru the Panama Canal or to Alaska, much older crowd doing THEIR bucket list. Most younger people don’t have the 12-days to take off.

I worked on a RCL boat for about ten months total, as a musician. I am glad I did it, I would never do it again. It is a gig for a much younger person. I quite enjoyed my European tours, Scandinavia & Russia & Estonia & Britain as our port.

The Caribbean, I can take or leave only because I’ve been there a hundred times, but that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable for most folks. All sun & Beach. No museums like Europe.

The absolute top tip I can give you, surpassing all others, cutting your risks of getting sick by 95%:

Wash your hands every hour or so. There are bathrooms everywhere. Be compulsive, obsessive about washing your hands. Just do it. In ten months, I never got sick. Virtually EVERY other person (in the crew) got sick sometime.

The immensely disgusting thought about cruise ships is that whenever you touch something that someone else touched, you become partially intimate with their hygeine habits. THAT is the source of almost all illness. I’ll leave it at that.

[WENDLE]

I think I am about to throw up just reading these posts!! I am gagging now!! How would you like the job of emptying the sewer bilge tanks on one of those floating rabbit hutches? OMG!!!

[Yaelle]

Wash your hands every hour or so. There are bathrooms everywhere. Be compulsive, obsessive about washing your hands. Just do it. In ten months, I never got sick. Virtually EVERY other person (in the crew) got sick sometime.

---

Have you had your genes tested? It might not have been your habit, though they are good. I say this because my (adopted as embryo) daughter is now tested and she has the gene to not get norovirus. Cool for her! Her chances are like 100x less than other people.

[SJackson]

A cruise is no more expensive than going to a fairly high-class hotel, roughly $200 a day.

I'd suggest that in a great many, probably most, $200 a day per person is considerably less expensive that a high class hotel. Even $400, inclusive of food and depending on what one drinks, relatively inexpensive.

[octex]

Wash your hands every hour or so. There are bathrooms everywhere. Be compulsive, obsessive about washing your hands. Just do it. In ten months, I never got sick. Virtually EVERY other person (in the crew) got sick sometime.
************************************
Good advice anytime a person is among loads of other people.

I served on a carrier (FDR) for two years. When aircraft and squadron personnel were aboard, there were about 5,000 of us on a ship originally built for 4,000.

We never had an outbreak of lower tract disorders, other than some isolated cases after liberty in the Med countries due to excessive drinking and bad food. That was a nine month “cruise”, not just a week or two.