So what’s it like to go on a 7-day cruise? I’ll admit that I’m not keen on all-inclusive resorts, or packaged holidays because I feel trapped. I do not like being herded around like cattle for meal time and activities. I know a lot of people who have gone on cruises and thoroughly took pleasure in themselves, so we made a decision to give it a try.
We went on the ship Vision of the Sea, which is part of the “Vision” class of ships from royal Caribbean. We chose the cruise line based on a lot of discussions with pals and the top 3 recommended cruise lines were celebrity Cruises, Norwegian and royal Caribbean. celebrity Cruises was our top choice but it did not have any remaining sail dates for 2016 to the destinations we wanted.
I had jokingly said that I would name this post “Cruise Life for type A Personalities” – I wouldn’t call myself a true “Type A” personality, but I do have some traits. It takes me a while to kick back whenever we go on vacation. On a 7-day vacation, it probably takes me 2 days to stop pacing the hotel room, and then another 2 days to stop waking up at 6am. So how did I find cruise life?
Taken in Santorini, where cruise ships can’t dock at port due to shallow waters.
Our ship had a capacity of 2,050 passengers and had over 700 crew members. It’s on the mid to small range compared to other ships but we were thankful – I just couldn’t think of taking care of the hoards of people constantly. Note: this post focuses on life on the ship itself, not my holiday experience overall. We lived the “cruise life” mostly in the mornings and evenings, and the 2 full days we were at sea with no port stops.
What we liked:
• being able to check out so lots of places in a relatively short period of time and at a affordable cost (Venice, Dubrovnik, Ephesus, Santorini, Olympia). We estimate that if we were to travel by land or air to all these places, add in cost for food and hotels, it would have cost at least 25% more.
Our room was the “King stateroom with balcony”. We weren’t expecting a sitting area too.
• being able to sleep in the same bed / room for the whole trip. The bed and pillows were really comfortable as well!
Eating breakfast on our balcony as we arrive at port in Santorini, Greece.
• having a private balcony – out of the 7 days, we bought room service 4 times so we could take advantage of eating breakfast on the balcony. The sound of the ocean was also a wonderful white noise for sleeping! If we go on another cruise, we will book a room with a balcony, no question.
A big hunk of salmon.
Pasta shells stuffed with spinach and cheese.
Shrimp and rice.
Quiche, one of my much-loved foods.
• variety and quality of food on board – they had themes for each night (Chinese, British, Mexican, Spanish, Indian) and the overall quality of the food was very good. absolutely better than resort food. Side note: I heard an American cruiser ask, “What’s the difference between Mexican and Spanish food?” *smacks head*
Our table was ideal in a corner which was fine by us!
• option to sit by ourselves in the dinning room – I know, I know, that’s so antisocial. but we’ve heard horror stories of people being stuck at tables with people they didn’t like (tables are assigned and they’re the same for the duration of the trip). We experienced one uneasy instance of this when we went to the dinning room for breakfast (rather than room service or the buffet) and were randomly seated at a table with 10 other people – for that whole meal, no one spoke with any individual not in their own party. *pinlig*
• Automatic flat rate daily gratuity ($13.50 per guest per day) made for worry-free tipping to restaurant and house cleaning staff.
Each passenger is assigned a “Sea Pass” which acts as your “everything card”. It’s your ID, room key, and payment method for anything on board.
• Check-in and check-out process was smooth and hassle-free. This is absolutely not their first rodeo – they’ve fine-honed the process, supplied guests with clear instructions, and were well staffed to manage the volume of people.
I have a lot more pictures of the sky than I care to admit.
• stunning views of the ocean and sky especially at dawn and sundown. I do really take pleasure in being near water – I mean that’s because I’m a cancer in the zodiac?
View of a sunrise from our room.
What we didn’t like:
This was the scene in the center of the ship when we arrived on the ship – all the tables were set up with stuff to sell us.
• constant upselling! We felt hassled as soon as we stepped on board: drink packages, specialty restaurants, excursions, Internet packages! We are not low-cost people but we like getting value for money – we already paid thousands of dollars for the cruise, why are we seeking to book $75 per person at an “upgraded” restaurant? Our waiter in the formal dinning room regularly tried to upsell us – so much so that we ended up opting out of eating in the formal dinning room in favour of the a lot more kicked back environment in the buffet dinning room instead (they offer the same food, just not served to you or presented as nicely).
• Rip-off prices for internet. $13 USD per day for 1990’s dial up technology or $18 per day for high speed. Did I mention those prices are per day? We had already vowed to be “off the grid” for the trip but it just goaded me whenever I saw the signs advertising the Internet packages. On the last night, the SO insisted that we check-in for our flight while at sea but of course that cost money. guess how much? $10 USD for 1 hour. We nearly needed the entire hour for the basic act of checking in because of how slow the Internet was.
• activities and enjoyment were not enticing to us. Cruising is really geared toward a a lot more mature demographic, no matter how they try to market it as. We had no interest in the games, live shows or contests. We don’t gamble either.
We liked hanging out in this central area to people watch… on one of the formal evenings, there was the opportunity to meet the Captain of the ship. You must have seen all the ladies hanging onto his arms, it was very entertaining.
• formal evenings. On our 7-day cruise there were 2 formal evenings. We knew this in development and I did pack a couple of dressier outfits and I was able to convince the SO to at least bring a sports jacket. but these cruise people took formal evenings seriously! They wore tuxedos and evening gowns and got professional photography done. That is so not our scene. We could have gone into the formal dinning rooms with the clothes we had but we didn’t want to feel uncomfortable, so we opted out of both formal evenings. We went to enjoy the Avengers motion picture on the big screen instead.
The main pool area was the mecca for loud drunk people. It only looks deserted here because it was the first day, before a lot of people had boarded.
• Noisy common areas. We were challenged to find places to park our butts on the ship that weren’t full of drunk obnoxious people. We wanted to find places where we could read or just chill. (And not to hide away in our room!) We spent a terrific deal of time at the indoor pool area – the outdoor (main) pool was incredibly noisy.
Random Notes:
• no one got left behind at any of the ports due to tardiness that we heard about. However, on the first day at port, there was a passenger who opted not to continue with the cruise due to health issues. and on the last day which was a sea day, we were encouraged that the ship had to make a minor detour back to Dubrovnik because one of the stewards suffered a heart attack. The captain kept us updated on his condition and encouraged us on the morning of deboarding that he was in stable condition, and that the the medical team on the ship generally saved his life!
The shampoo and shower gel were essentially the same thing. I checked the ingredient list and only 1 ingredient differed between them. The shampoo contained Glycol Distearate as its 2nd last ingredient while the shower gel did not.
• Toiletries are not supplied automatically. I observed on the first night that we had no shampoos or shower gels – these are not items I usually pack for trips considering that I assume they would be provided. So I rang up the guest services and they encouraged that these items were supplied “by request”. Within 2 minutes, 2 young men came by with handfuls of various toiletries including shampoo, hair conditioner and shower gel. They do not supply body moisturizer though.
• I did over-packed clothes (but not makeup!) because I was really anxious about the weather being hot and needing frequent change of clothes, but that didn’t materialize. I wished I had brought one warmer outfit – it got quite windy on the ship in the evenings when it’s full steam ahead. I had 3 outfits that I didn’t end up wearing.
• Neither of us experienced motion sickness – we had packed Gravol but didn’t need them at all.
This is our muster station – we were #7.
• I learned a bunch of new terms: muster station & drill (emergency exercise), stateroom (another word for cabin / room), tender (small boat that ferries people from cruise ship to port if the ship isn’t able to dock at port due to shallow waters), gangway (the ramp where you get on and off the ship)
Kilde. They were hawking the Lava flow one day – people were grabbing them up like they were bottles of water.
• The drink package was not worth it to us. only coffee, tea, water and juices are included in the ticket of the cruise. Anything else: alcoholic (beer, wine, cocktails) or canned drinks (Coke, Sprite etc) cost additional. There is an option to get unrestricted drink package which is $55 USD per person per day. This would only be worth it if we drank a minimum of 7 drinks a day – no thanks. We were quite delighted with the regular using – our much-loved was the lemonade! (which we now referred toSom “cruise limonade”) fikk So litt øl og glass hvitvin a la carte. Jeg drakk ikke en slikk alkohol på hele turen. Forrige gang jeg hadde alkohol, før turen, blusset utslettet på beina opp (sannsynligvis på grunn av blodkarene), så jeg ville ikke risikere det.
• Vi ble varslet om overflod av mat og risikoen for å få 3-5 kg på cruise. Ikke meg! Jeg satte inn “salatprotokollen” der lunsj og middag måtte starte med en skål med salat. Så spiste jeg hva jeg ville. Tatt i betraktning at jeg er en karbohydrater og dessert -junkie, så platene mine vanligvis slik:
4 avgjørende matvaregrupper: pasta, mais, kringle, poteter
Som kameraten min vil si, det er en tallerken full av beige mat.
Noe mousse ting.
Mye mer mousse ting.
På den siste havdagen hadde vi 6 måltider:
1) Frokost på rommet vårt klokka 08.00
2) Andre frokost / snacks ved bassengkafeen klokka 10
3) Første lunsj klokka tolv på Windjammer Cafe
4) Andre lunsj kl. 14.00 på bassengkafeen
5) Tidlig middag i Windjammer Cafe kl. 18.00
6) Offisiell spisestue kveldsmat klokka 21.00
Dessertseksjonen i Windjammer Cafe.
Vi var et måltid sjenert for å være hobbyer!
• Jeg leste 3½ bøker under cruise! Dette er en bragd i seg selv med tanke på at jeg nesten aldri har lest fullblåste bøker. Kjernebøkene jeg leste var alle av kvinnelige komikere – jeg vil snart gjøre en kombinert bokanmeldelse.
Jeg strikket sokker ved å bruke metoden 2 sirkulær aka “Magic Loop”. Mønsteret er en gratis fra Knitty, kalt Reverso.
• Jeg strikket også. Jøss, jeg tok strikking med meg på turen – jeg lager sokker. Det er et lite prosjekt, så det er veldig bærbart.
• Generelt mens vi var på skipet når vi ikke spiste eller sov, leste jeg enten eller strikket og hørte på musikk på hodetelefonene mine. So var fornøyd med å la seg rundt på dekkstolene (han leste 4 eller 5 bøker, jeg kan ikke holde oversikt. Tykke bøker også!) Men jeg vandret på skipet på egen hånd ganske mye bare for å gå rundt. Jeg prøvde forgjeves å finne ting å få i den tollfrie butikken-ingen av sminken eller smykkene appellerte til meg nok til at jeg kunne gaffle over havovergangen min!
Bunnlinjen:
Cruise var en indikerer til slutt. Det fikk oss fra havn til port, men å være på skipet holdt ikke en sterk appell for meg. Les mye mer om min overordnede tur hit (bilder) og her (mitt kollapsinnlegg med Joyce der jeg dyptgående vår utsjekking til Efesos Tyrkia).
Så ville vi dra på et annet cruise? Ja. Vi ble enige om at 7 dager var vår grense for cruising. Og ideelt sett vil vi se flere land som ligner på hvordan denne reiseplanen ble satt opp.
Har du vært et cruise? hvordan fant du det?
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