How to Go on a Cruise

Or otherwise known as “How to Lose over 2 grand in 3.5 days“. Welcome home to me! I am so excited to be back and it appears that I didn’t even need to leave a will and testament after all.We just spent from 4pm on Thursday till 830am this morning on the Holiday out of Mobile, Alabama.

Our cruise was very interesting. I have to say that I learned a few things, the most important being that I am not really a ‘cruiser’. I wont say that the trip was a complete loss, because any time with my husband alone is special, but it didn’t end up being my ideal vacation destination if you know what I mean. I wanted to come back and share some of my cruise knowledge for future cruisers!

1) Decide what kind of vacation person you are. I think one of the biggest things is my DH and I didn’t do is evaluate what type of people we were before we booked this vacation. We are, surprise surprise, busy people. We like one foot in the store and another foot on the beach. Move, Move, Move. While relaxing is an important part of a vacation, being stuck isn’t “us”. One thing about a cruise you have to truly realize, is that you are stuck on a boat. If you are not keen on their activities, its not like you can go to a new boat. Or a new place. It’s that boat or swimming with the sharks. Take your pick.

2) Boats rock. No shocker there, but boats pretty much feel like being on a plane. No matter how steady it is, your still on a plane.

Or a boat.

You get my point.

The first real day at sea we spent finding our sea legs and even with Dramamine, it may take away the nausea, but the rocking doesn’t stop  just cause you popped a little pill. On the ship they call it “listing”.

You list…a LOT. In fact, you list so much that sometimes you list where your walking sideways. If you don’t like being on a plane, you may not like being on a boat.

3) Activities. Our boat was special. The little boat that could. It was the ittiest, bittiest, tiniest boat in the fleet for Carnival. So we had the ittiest, bittiest, tiniest options when it came to activities. We could “Bingo”, “Spa”, or go to the Casino…all which cost big money. You could dance or watch others dance, which was free, but also included all the second hand lung cancer you wanted and you had to pay for each$8 a drink. You could watch a few shows at select times, also free, but with the exception of one amazing fiddle player, was just a step up from High School Drama class. You could shop (again with your wallet). You could go to an art auction. We did this twice because there was free champagne. It was actually pretty fun, but we auctioned with our wallet. You could go learn how to fold towels into animals (not kidding).  I was bored.

My point is, being on a ship isn’t  necessarily free. In fact, its not free at all unless you want to sleep or lay in the sun. You can’t just buy some cruise tickets and expect your expense to stop. If you like doing anything other than taking a crap, sleeping, or eating, you are going to spend money.

4) Sunning and the pool. Again, special ship here folks. Smallest pool on the planet. I have seen hot tubs bigger. You know all those Carnival commercials with big twirly slides and pools that look like beaches? If you put more than 15 people in the boat pool we were on, it looked like canned sardines. I did get a kick out of watching the people in there trying not to touch the other people.

OOh, one thing that got on my everlasting nerve was people who went to the decks, threw their crap on the chairs, and then left. Every time we went out to find a chair, there were 200 empty chairs with peoples things on them. It was really hard to find something open and available and if you sat down, sure enough someone would lean over that it was their “friends” chair.

There is a special place in hell for chair savers.

5) Food. I promised myself I would eat, eat, eat and eat. At least $100 a day of food was hitting my stomach. I did probably eat that. The food was like a B minus. Cafeteria food at worst, family restaurant quality at best. You could eat all you wanted, but if you showed up during regular busy dinner hours, one thing you have to know is that you are sharing a table with a stranger. On your formal dinner nights, this means that its assigned and you share dinner with the same family or couple every night. This could be good or bad.

On your cafeteria lunches/dinners, its not assigned but then you have to mosey up to some half full table and join a family you don’t know. Its slightly weird. I’m not saying its bad, its not, it just can be awkward. Everyone we sat with were really interesting, but I heard some grumblings from people about dinner guests that were not as great.

6)

• Internet: $26 an hour
• Cable: 15 channels, half owned by Carnival and are infomercials for boats better than you are on
• Movies:  no pay per view

7) Weather: The deck is hot as hell in the sun if your just sitting. Remember, not so easy to dip in the pool as you think and there is no beach. There are also no umbrellas, so unless you like parking your butt in a chair in full on sun, cruising may not be for you. The night is chilly because of the wind. Bring a jacket, light sweater, and jeans. The boat is also cold in a lot of places.

8 ) The spa was great. I have no complaints. Top notch. One suggestion would be don’t rush into making an appt. Every day the spa had a manager special where they entice you go to in and so they put things on sale or special. Our daily newsletter had it in there or you could call down. So while the spa prices were high, you could probably score them much lower.

9) Service was amazing. The boat was completely clean from bugs, trash, and the people that worked there were ALWAYS working. They were happy, smiling, helpful, our room got cleaned about 3 times a day, the wait staff was on top of it. You could not get better customer service at all. They really were there to make your stay easy.Most of them were Romanian/Russian and also quite a few British, Australian and South African. I did not see ONE American working on the cruise boat. This didn’t surprise me too much because over all Americans are way to lazy for this kind of job. What? Its true!

10) NO CLOCKS IN THE ROOM. I presume this has to do with the on vacation, “relax” thing, but its maddening. Especially if you have an appt or want to go to a show. There is something about not being able to look up and see a clock. If you go on a cruise, pack an alarm clock.

11 a.) Staterooms: We had an ocean view through a decent sized window. I thought the room was surprisingly comfortable, the beds and pillows were great, the room had enough room to sleep and change. The toilets were just like airplane toilets that suck out, the shower was a typical dorm room shower w/ the drain on the floor, no bath. The bathrooms were tiny, tiny.

11 b.) Yes, where your room is located on the ship matters. Chances are you wont be waiting for an elevator. There are 1000 other people on the ship and the elevators fit about 3.5 people (most people are not so skinny, if you know what I mean). If you completely cheap out and get the whatever room on the bottom in the hull in the back, you could be hiking. It sounds ok, but the ships can be big and its not as easy as going straight up to get somewhere. The stairs are also very steep and if your “listing” one direction, it can be a scary hike. Our ship, and I assume others, were broken into parts internally. So if you needed to get to dinner on the top left, you couldn’t just get there from ALL levels. In some cases, you had to go down or up to go across and then down and then across. If you are in the wrong part of the ship, its like a mousetrap to your dinner. Add a few kids or a long day of sun to that, and its a recipe for no fun. Splurge on the staterooms that are higher up since most activities are on the top few levels of the ship.

12) Cost. Your only cost on a cruise is NOT just your room cost. I had this view that my $800 ticket costs were going to be, other than souvenirs, my only main cost. I was wrong. While you can usually budget out a strict budget on a vacation, many of the cruise activities have fees with them to attend. While where you spend money on will change, please know that your money will go somewhere on this trip, so do not think its just a room and food.

Our realistic bill was:

• $800 tickets (room/food)
• $300 Casino Losses (we were seriously bored)
• $20 playing Bingo Game
• $25 drink card…yes, you have to have a drink card to get SODA. Soda is NOT free. Unless you can picture yourself drinking coffee and tea for 3-4 days, you will be forced to get a soda card
• $15 alcoholic drinks (about $8 a drink)
• $130 excursion in Key West (this is once you are docked if you want to do something, we went parasailing and to a butterfly house). Your gonna want to do something cause your gonna be so excited to be off the ship.
• $30 dinner/lunch at your port dock off the ship
• $ 290 – what we spent at the art auction
• $140 Massage/facial at the spa
• $140 Salon (i got my hair done)
• $400 in souvenirs, duty free alcohol, stuff for Charlotte, blah blah.
• $60 in pictures. The ship takes formal pictures all day long and they are really well done. Unfortunately they cost on average $19.99 per photo. So we bought three, easy $60. I saw many people buy much, much more.
• $60 to park your car for the cruise in the parking garage
• $80 for tips..they automatically charge $10 a day per person in your stateroom, so 4 day cruise is an $80 charge for 2

Total: $2500 for 4 day cruise

13) 4 day cruise is actually a 2 day cruise and a 5 day cruise is really a 3 day cruise. They count the first day when they take off at 4pm, the first day. That day isn’t really relaxing. Your spending the whole day parking, in customs, checking in, you cant get to your room right away, learning the ship, etc. The 1st real day at sea, we were sick as dogs, getting our bearings, etc.. The 2nd day (according to the ship, 3rd day of vacation) we got off the ship at port, and the last day was day at sea home. Our true vacation was only 2 full days of the trip. I recommend a 5 day cruise so you get a full 3 days of vacation.

That’s it for now! I am sure I will share some experiences and pictures in the next week so if you have any questions, ask away and Ill get to them in a blog.

~Trisha

PS I had over 200 emails, so please be patient with me on the return.