Tell us the cruises you have been on (the good, bad, and the ugly)

Sippican

Sippican

Member
Location
South Coast Massachusetts
What cruises have you been on?
Did they have senior discounts?
Was one cruises line better than the other for the 'sunset generation'?
Stay with domestic or international travel?
Lets hear your story...
 

I'll start...
We have done a Disney cruise. It was nice because 1) the cruise line kept the ship spotless, 2) you didn't have tons of crazy drunken collage kids, 3) They kept children sections separate from the adult sections, 4) overall a pleasant cruise

Don't think I would take one of the mainstream cruise lines. You hear too many horror stories. Viking Cruise or Oceania Cruise seem to be geared for older passangers, and a higher quality in rooms, food, experiences.
 

I've never been on a cruise, either, unless you count being on a troop ship with my mother and brother and other dependent families going to Hawaii. As I recall, I got to sit at the captain's table at dinner when my mother and brother were confined to our cabin because they were seasick. The captain was very entertaining, I thought. He could do the trick of making his thumb disappear:)

I have no interest in going on a cruise and have never had an interest in going on one. Judging by the commercials on TV, they sure do look like there are wall-to-wall people.
 
The Nile cruise in Egypt was wonderful...not been on any other cruises though. My husband is a bit antisocial and like he said - "yeh, just plunk me down in the middle of the ocean with 3,000 other people and my social butterfly wife who's a dirt magnet". LOL. He was kidding (almost).
 
Starting 62 years ago I've been on a number of ships, starting with British, then moving to Greek..........before the plague we favored Croisières de France, CDF (a French subsidiary of the Spanish Pullmantur, itself a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean), older smaller ships.......all of which ended up in Asian wrecking ports and could well be a part of the saucepan set you're currently using.

We met quite a number of people on the CDF/Pullmantur vessels, (different origins, different ethnicities, different nationalities.....but all of whom we found highly compatible).

Nowadays, we've been forced to raise our Gross Tonnage acceptance to ~90K.......but would never, ever, nohow, consider boarding one of those appalling floating malls.

We're not 'cruisers', we don't live for 'Gala Nights', dressing up, sitting at the captain's table, and associated BS.

We don't like flying, and we don't like airports, so ships are our preference......we often use the hop-on-hop-off term to sum up our attitude.......and Transatlantic Repositioning Cruises (either east or westbound) suit us.....an older crowd, (although again we have little in common with most of them, but they don't piss us off too much ;) )

Oh...and Caribbean Islands cruises...... "'Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’"
 
My first cruise was as a teenager on one of the last sailings of the old Queen Elizabeth. It was very proper, very British, showing some wear but, to me, very elegant. One of the highlights was seeing the Queen Mary pass by with much hooting of horns and skyrockets.

There wasn't really much for the younger set to do, so we drank.....a lot.

After that, as an adult, I've been on some different lines and enjoyed them all to varying degrees. My least favorite was a Disney cruise. Too many kids, most with runny noses. I came down with the worst flu of my life.
 
Sippican said:
What cruises have you been on?
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Spent a couple of nights on the Queen Mary, long docked in California. As a hotel, not a cruise ship.

I have been on many a small boat, sometimes for as long as 10 days, but always one I or one of the others in the group were driving. Can't see the attraction of being in a crowded space with so many other people for so long.

The main reason I like being on a boat is to swim and/or fish, to somehow play in the water. Looks to me like cruise ships are more like seeing it from a high-rise...
 
My only cruise was over 20 years ago, with my late husband. It was a good experience ... maybe 2000 people on the ship.

It was a Carnival Caribbean Cruise, from Galveston. ... Spent one day walking around the Mayan Ruins on the Belize stop.
Other days were spent island hopping, and then a couple days on the ship were on open waters between destinations.
... Seas never got rough. This was a springtime trip.
Lots of shops, and choices of entertainment on the ship.
Meals were good, and we were assigned a dining table with five other couples ... their company was interesting, as most were seasoned cruise people. Learned a lot.

There were no crowds anywhere onboard the ship, not even on the top deck, where we sat and enjoyed watching the ocean waters.
 
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We want to do a 4 day, 3 night cruise this late summer during hurricane season. Thinking about Royal Caribbean. Definitely not Carnival.
 
Sippican said:
What cruises have you been on?
Did they have senior discounts?
Was one cruises line better than the other for the 'sunset generation'?
Stay with domestic or international travel?
Lets hear your story...
Click to expand...
-Hawaiian, Norwegian's "Pride of America,"; Norwegian's spring west coast repositioning; Yangtze Fall River Cruise. 2015-2018.
-Discounts may be in the form of airfare, beverages, salon, excursions, overnight hotel. IMO, as seniors, we are basically there to fill rooms and tippers.
-No idea which Cruise line is better.
.The Hawaiian Cruise was interesting in the 7 days. Lot to see if you have never been to Hawaii.
.The spring repositioning West Coaster, our 1st experience, was an excuse to get familiar with cruising ,to visit cousins in LA and Bay Area, to see Victoria and Vancouver BC, and visit son in Seattle. We lived in Oregon at that time. The Spring, Repositioning Cruise, is the shakedown Cruise for new crew members, who will do the Alaska cruises for the next 5 months. The ship was just 60% capacity. The ship was repositioning from the Caribbean cruises so there were good number of people who transited the Canal and Ports of Call in the region. Cost was reasonable and probably not much more than driving, the distances--certainly a lot easier than driving, hotels, food.
 
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We’ve been on two cruises out of Port Canaveral in Florida. They were both Royal Caribbean ships. The last cruise was on a huge ship called Freedom of the Seas. Never ran into drunks or to many children on both cruises. Swimming pools were crowded, but we only sat by the pool, had drinks and people watched. Food was excellent and seas were smooth.
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One of my favorite cruises: Somewhere about 1990, my daughter (then about 20) and I went on a cruise out of Port Canaveral on a now-defunct cruise line (it might have been Premier Lines). It was one of the "smaller" ships and was nothing fancy, but we had a wonderful time.

We were seated with a couple who were the life of the party (we started out with six people at the table but the other couple appeared to be horrified by the "exuberance" of us other four and disappeared after one meal). We had the best waiter in the world; he did magic tricks, told jokes, and altogether made mealtime a blast.

When we went to the first magic show, the magician picked my daughter to be his assistant and proceeded to cut her head off a couple of times over the next couple of days. To this day, she won't tell me what he did.....she says she made a solemn promise to keep quiet. The acts were televised on the ship and everywhere we'd go, someone would yell "________, how's your head?"

We had a stop scheduled, at Port Lucaya, but the seas were so high (and I'm talking HIGH) the ship could neither dock nor moor. It just steamed around in a big circle all day and if you were brave enough (it was not recommended, but allowed...), you could take the shuttle boat to port. Of course, we did. The shuttle boat would pull up to the lee side of the ship and a gangplank would be extended. When the shuttle boat got as even as possible to the hatch in the side of the ship, a crew member would literally fling you onto the gangplank and you'd scurry onto the shuttle as fast as possible before it got too high or too low.

We successfully got on the shuttle and opted to sit in the open area atop. Big mistake. The shuttle bobbed around like a cork in a shaken bottle and we were holding on for dear life. We were afraid to let go and try to get below. The trip into shore was scary. Of course, after a few hours ashore we had no choice but to make the trip in reverse. It's not like we could walk back to the ship. So back we went, inside this time, and did the reverse scuttle up the gangway.

I was due to have gallbladder surgery the week after we got back, so I was really watching my diet (reluctantly, as the food was very good) but I had a lapse in good judgement and indulged in the midnight chocolate buffet that night. That brought on an attack and all I could do was walk around the ship for hours. The ship was pitching like a drunken sailor and so was I. The pool hadn't been drained and it was sloshing huge quantities of water every time the ship heeled. The best part of going down the main staircase when the ship was sinking (not sinking as in "sinking", just going down with the waves. I felt like I was floating down the stairs. It was such a great feeling that I had to do it several times.

There was an entertainer who held funny meetings where he'd have us do strange things. At the Bahamas stop, everyone had to buy something that cost less than $2 and he judged what the worst thing was and you got a prize. Another time, he handed out ship's postcards and told us to address the cards to someone but not to write anything in the message part. Then he collected them, handed them out to other people and told them to write messages. He collected them and had them mailed. Heaven knows what people wrote.

Another comedian picked out a few guys from the audience and sent them off with teams of women who were instructed to dress them up. It was hilarious the rigs they came back in.

It was a fun cruise.
 
I have taken 6 cruises all but one on royal caribbean. RC cruises are excellent. The only crappy one was Princess. The ship was literally falling apart inside and staff was rude. Most ships have one pool that’s adults only. I love the shows and food. The piano bar lounge usually has a great singer/piano player.
 
We've cruised a lot, mostly Caribbean, but we did Alaska once too. The Mrs. likes it because "you get on the hotel and it takes you places". We mostly use Royal Caribbean because it feels like just the right mix for us. Did some Carnival in the beginning and didn't like the "party boat" vibe, at least that's what it was at the time. We did Holland America to Alaska and one Caribbean (long ago). I would describe HA as more sedate and refined than Royal or Carnival. There were kids, but it didn't seem like as many as other lines. We did a Princess once because she found a great deal.

Early on we did the typical things, tried to fit as much into a day as possible with port excursions, shopping etc. Now that we've pretty much been to all the Caribbean ports, we are much more relaxed. Last cruise we didn't get off the ship in any of the ports except for the cruise line's "private island". We enjoy not having to worry about any kind of cooking or cleaning. We enjoy going to the shows and the various music venues, strolling along the decks in the sunshine. She likes the many trivia games. I like to chill with a drink and listen to any of the musical groups that are playing almost all the time. There's nothing like sitting on our balcony or a quiet spot on deck somewhere and listening to an audiobook while gazing out over the ocean flowing by. And then there's people watching! Plenty of fashion dos and don'ts.
 
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Dr. Jekyll said:
We've cruised a lot, mostly Caribbean, but we did Alaska once too. The Mrs. likes it because "you get on the hotel and it takes you places". We mostly use Royal Caribbean because it feels like just the right mix for us. Did some Carnival in the beginning and didn't like the "party boat" vibe, at least that's what it was at the time. We did Holland America to Alaska and one Caribbean (long ago). I would describe HA as more sedate and refined than Royal or Carnival. There were kids, but it didn't seem like as many as other lines. We did a Princess once because she found a great deal.

Early on we did the typical things, tried to fit as much into a day as possible with port excursions, shopping etc. Now that we've pretty much been to all the Caribbean ports, we are much more relaxed. Last cruise we didn't get of the ship in any of the ports except for the cruise line's "private island". We enjoy not having to worry about any kind of cooking or cleaning. We enjoy going to the shows and the various music venues, strolling along the decks in the sunshine. She likes the many trivia games. I like to chill with a drink and listen to any of the musical groups that are playing almost all the time. There's nothing like sitting on our balcony or a quiet spot on deck somewhere and listening to an audiobook while gazing out over the ocean flowing by. And then there's people watching! Plenty of fashion dos and don'ts.
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I agree with the Mrs. I love to get up at 4 a.m. and watch us come into a port. I don't have to drive, I don't have to dock, I don't have to get yelled at for tying up wrong.
 
Nemo2 said:
Here's a book you might enjoy: A Voyage For Madmen by Peter Nichols

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6055.A_Voyage_for_Madmen
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Looked at the summary, solo sailing round the world in the southern ocean!! Wow, in my 20s I might have at least considered it. Those days are now far behind me.

Sailing slowly in the Sir Francis Drake channel with friends is about as adventurous as I would get these days... https://www.bviwelcome.com/articles/The_Exploits_of_Sir-Francis-Drake/
 


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