Posted on 12/31/2020 11:29:23 AM PST by Capt. Tom
People have a hard time hating cruising.
They may think they’re going to hate it. They may want to hate it. But then they try it, and they’re hooked.
If you don’t believe me, just look at the numbers. When I first started writing about cruising, in the 1990s, barely 5 million people a year were doing it. These days, the number of people cruising each year is six times that level.
That’s not the growth trajectory of something that people don’t love.
Still, just because people love something doesn’t mean they love everything about it. That’s the case, for sure, with cruising. As much as people love to cruise, they love to gripe about all the things that are wrong with cruising, too. And that’s the raison d’etre for this story.
If you’re looking into taking a first cruise, you’ve probably read a lot about all the things you’re going to love about it. Below, you’ll find the things about cruising that you might not love so much.
Most of them are minor things. A few could be seen as major, depending on your point of view. But for most people, they’re not deal-breakers on the very idea of cruising.
You just might want to keep them in mind when getting ready for your first adventure at sea.
Muster drills If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know just how much of an annoyance muster drills can be. Before a ship can sail, every passenger on board must assemble at their assigned muster stations to learn about emergency procedures. This is important for safety, for sure. But that doesn’t make it pleasant. On many ships, the muster drill is an excruciatingly long and inefficient process that often can involve many minutes sitting (or, worse, standing) around waiting for your fellow passengers to show up.
For the record, Royal Caribbean and its sister lines will be implementing a new, more efficient muster drill system this year that promises to make things much more bearable. Here at The Points Guy, we’re so thrilled about what they plan that we just gave Royal Caribbean’s parent company a major award for it.
Smoky casinos Even smokers complain about the smoky smell in the casinos on some ships. It can be quite noticeable, and not just around designated smoking areas. The smoke that smokers generate in casino smoking areas has a way of wafting into non-smoking areas, too. On many vessels, the casino is the only indoor venue where smoking still is allowed, and ship casinos can be quite popular with smokers. Not that they always are. Some lines, such as Celebrity Cruises, have banned smoking in all indoor venues including casinos.
Getting seasick Some cruise industry promoters will tell you that nobody gets seasick anymore on cruise ships. Don’t believe them. Yes, a side effect of cruise ships getting bigger in recent years is that they’re also more stable. In general, bigger ships move less in the waves. Cruise ships also have become more stable due to design improvements and new stabilizer technology. That said, if the waves are big enough, you’re going to feel some movement when you cruise. And if you’re prone to seasickness, there will be times when you just can’t avoid a bout of queasiness.
The marauding kids Cruising is big with families — so big that on some of the bigger ships, you’ll often find many hundreds of children on board. We’d like to say that these children always are well behaved. But, as regular cruisers know, that isn’t always the case — particularly when the kids break free from their parents and begin roaming the vessels in packs (something that is not all that uncommon on bigger vessels).
If the idea of sharing your vacation with hundreds of shouting and screaming children doesn’t sound appealing, don’t miss our guide to 5 lines for people who just can’t stand being around kids.
The deck-chair hogs There is nothing more maddening than walking out to the pool deck of a cruise ship and finding every single lounge chair occupied by … a single flipflop. Or a towel. Or a cheap paperback. But this is exactly what you’ll find on many big, mass-market cruise ships on sea days. Passengers will wake up early, head up to the pool, drop something on a chair to “claim it,” and then head back to bed. Sometimes they won’t show back up to “their” chair for hours.
The result is that it’s sometimes hard to find a lounge chair around a cruise ship pool, even when the math says that there should be plenty of chairs available.
The hard sell On some ships — again, mostly the big, mass-market ships — you’ll find yourself living in a world of never-ending shipwide announcements touting various activities around the vessel. Listen carefully to these announcements the next time you’re on a ship, and you’ll notice something interesting: While they are couched as helpful advice about what’s happening onboard, these announcements almost always point you to activities where you will end up spending extra money — a wine tasting, for instance, or a poker tournament. In short, they are advertisements meant to goose onboard revenue.
The hard sell also is in full force in the daily planners that you get in your cabins in the evenings. For cruising newbies, it can be a shock seeing how much paper and ink is devoted to touting spa services, laundry services, casino games, shore tours and other extra-charge offerings.
The waiting in lines This is generally only a problem on big, mass-market ships that carry thousands of people. And even there, it’s not an issue on every ship. But there are some vessels where it seems like you’re always in a line. The most-annoying cruise-related lines are those you’ll find when it’s time to get off a ship when it first arrives at a port and when it’s time to get back on a ship at the end of a day in port. Everybody on board, it seems, wants to get off and on at the same time.
The silly-short port calls The ability to visit a different destination every day is one of the great allures of cruising. But the constant movement of cruise ships from port to port also has its drawbacks. Specifically, you can end up with very little time in any given destination. A typical day-stop in a destination might last seven or eight hours. But every so often you’ll find port calls that are even shorter — sometimes as short as just four hours. To me, a port call that lasts just four hours is just plain silly. Worthless? You fill in the word. But itineraries jammed with lots of port calls sell well, so cruise lines keep packing in the short stops.
The lesson here is to look hard at the length of port calls before booking a particular voyage. The good news that there’s been a trend in recent years of lines adding longer port calls on some itineraries — including more stays late into nights and overnight stays.
That weight you’ll gain There’s an old joke that you gain a pound a day taking a cruise. For most people, that’s surely hyperbole. But it’s no exaggeration to say it’s easy to pack on the pounds while vacationing on a ship. Food really is available around the clock on most vessels and in abundance.
Our advice: Don’t overdo it too much when it comes to the multi-course meals, make a little time for the gym (nearly all cruise ships have them) and always take the stairs when you can (instead of the elevator). Every little bit helps!
Saying goodbye New to cruising? Once you get onboard your first ship, you may complain about all the above. In fact, we expect you will. But if you’re like many people who try cruising for the first time, you won’t complain about those things nearly as much as you will about what happens on the last day of a cruise. To wit, they’ll make you get off.
If you end up loving cruising as much as most people, there will be nothing to hate more than that.
And here I thought this was going to be about the Baja Ha Ha and or the Pacific Puddle Jump.
I love cruising , our may 2021 cruise to Italy and Greece will probably be canceled:(
But our christmas 2022 with the family will be awesome. We did it in 2018 and we had a great time.
We usually cruise with crystal, so not as many passengers or lines.
I’ve also never gotten sick on a cruise, tons of hand sanitizers even before covid
Our very first cruise was Disney Magic. Maiden voyage for the ship. We left Cape Canaveral and in my best George Costanze voice “we hit a mighty sea storm” and the shipped was hitting major waves.
3/4 of the people on board were heaving. The shipped smelled like puke.
Next day felt fine and had a great time from then.
My wife does not get sea sickness. The first night at dinner when everyone was sick the formal sit down dinner had maybe 30 people show up out of a few hundred.
Have been on 2 cruises since then.
Before Covid, there have been many cases of food poisoning and other diseases that spread through the confines of a cruise ship. It had a negative impact on the industry over the last years.
Best line and cruise for the Wife and I - Royal Caribbean. Worse was Carnival that is over-rated as the party ship and has more kids that you'd expect from a party ship.
I could never stand to get anybody else’s boat
I do use fairies to carry my kayaks around
The inflatable kayak is man’s greatest invention for the water
Here’s a sentence for you
My boat weighs 11 pounds can hold 600 lbs
and can be put in a duffel bag and shipped with all of the accordant equipment anywhere in the world for free
Ferries ⛴
Ironically the least crowded ship I was on was the largest we have cruised, Oasis of the Seas a Royal Caribbean ship. It had 6000 passengers on board and there were no lines anywhere because the ship had so many restaurants and places to eat. We even enjoyed champagne breakfast at Tiffany’s in the Tiffany store on board. There is a area called central park on that ship which has so many trees and bushes, birds live there permanently. I enjoyed visiting the central park in evenings and listen to a trio of young musicians playing Mozart and other tunes. We got our exercise daily walking from our cabin to our assigned dining room and back was 1/2 mile on my pedometer.
Strangely the most crowded ship I have been on was also a RCCL ship on a short 4 day cruise from Los Angeles. It was the smallest ship we ever sailed on during our 36 cruises so far. And smaller ships also rock more.
[[Smoky casinos Even smokers complain about the smoky smell in the casinos on some ships.]]
I take it they don’t invest in Febreze plugins?
[[Some cruise industry promoters will tell you that nobody gets seasick anymore on cruise ships. Don’t believe them]]
Senior class trip cruise on a huge ship- stormed out, was way too drunk, spent 3/4 time in bathroom retching- Gee that was fun
[[particularly when the kids break free from their parents and begin roaming the vessels in packs]]
in today’s day, they are probably more like organized gangs
[[The deck-chair hogs]]
Easily solved with a small vial of essence of skunk- a drop or two will do ya
[[The hard sell On some ships]]
“Lemme talk it over with the other voices in my head, and I’ll get back to you- If of course i don’t forget my meds”
[[The waiting in lines This is generally only a problem on big, mass-market ships that carry thousands of people.]]
Again- the ever versatile essence of skunk comes to the rescue
[[The silly-short port calls]]
Fake a heart attack on shore? Better yet- self identify as a gay, lesbian black antifa minority, and scream about racism when they call you back to the ship
More great tips to come :)
I love cruising also. Our March Southern Caribbean on Holland America has been cancelled. Left the money with them as the future cruise credit was quite good. And yes I am aware I could lose that in case of bankruptcy. I am a smoker but the last 2 cruises I have not smoked in the casino (unless 6:30 AM and I’m the only one there) as I have noticed that the ventilation is not great for smoking. Wife can’t stand the deckchair hogs. I spend enough time (ok money) in the casino that I get some cruises comped.
[[I did get a pretty bad case of food poisoning on a Royal Carribean cruise to Bermuda back in 1987. ]]
Possible TIP: Carry Activated Charcoal with you- At the FIRST sign of upset stomach, regardless of what may have caused it- take several capsules- IF it is food poisoning, when you go to hospital, they use activated charcoal, but of course they siphon it out too depending on what is causing the issue- - but still, the charcoal absorbs the toxins and keeps it trapped in it’s many tiny crags and crannies- it supposedly attracts poisons and bacterias too- or it will at least trap it
Activated charcoal is said to be very safe- check out soem articles on it and food poisoning
I second “worst was Carnival”. I had to chaperone my daughters on a modeling cruise on Carnival. My daughters and about 750 other teenage divas auditioned for modeling and acting in front of a mob of talent agents and scouts. My plan was to stay drunk for the whole cruise. That plan failed on the first day when I spent almost the entire trip in workshops, learning about the business side of modeling and acting. The food was horrible. The drinks, other than opening a can of beer, were terrible. The entertainment was just dumb. And we all got bitten by bed bugs.
[[There is a area called central park on that ship which has so many trees and bushes, birds live there permanently.]]
wow that sounds cool! Bet being there in evening was very peaceful and very relaxing- soudnsl iek a cool trip-
I love cruising big time!!!!! I agree with the emergency muster. Annoying and not sure it’s effective at all.
Second thing for me is the LONG evening meals. Be prepared for two hours of time.
Other then that, the others mentioned were never a problem for me or my family.
Stfu
I would return to that ship or it’s sister ships in a NY minute, but my wife’s legs can’t handle the long walking anymore. The ice skating shows on that ship are to die for.
I encountered the “dibs” phenomena at a concert. I moved empty soda containers from a couple of seats ( a huge block of chairs had them). About 30 minutes later someone came up to me and declared, “Hey, you’re in our seats!”
“I don’t think so” I replied.
“We were here first and reserved them” he responded.
“How did you do that?”
“By putting something on the chairs”
“Oh, that. Here all this time I was thinking that you were just careless when all along you were being rude. Have a nice day!”
do they allow things like a hovaround? (sp?) I know they have to somewhat be disabled compliant, probably impaired compliant too i would imagine? I was thinking about doing a cruise, but was put off by the long walks they have to get to places- but then thought they might offer some kind of assistance? Or allow a motorized help aid of some kind? I haven’t looked into that though so i don’t know
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