Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Cruising at the end of the world

So. We just returned from our first and last cruise. Ha! It wasn’t terrible. We all went in with positive attitudes and all enjoyed it to some extent. But I just wouldn’t do it again, not unless it was something special and unique in a foreign country or something (like the Mediterranean cruise I did years ago, or the one on the Yangtze River, or the Mekong River). The first day in the H and I looked at each other and said, “nope”. So, glad we were on the same page.

The good:

I did enjoy being on the water and getting to spend long hours reading and watching the waves. The weather was mostly good except one very cold and windy day.

People were very polite and friendly. I mostly avoided people because I didn’t want to hear a bunch of right wing bullshit. The H went off on his own quite a bit and met lots of people and had lots of conversations and heard a bunch of right wing bullshit. I prefer my method.

Food was decent and, of course, plentiful. We went to the fancy seated dinner a couple of times before we discovered the buffet had more variety and was generally more enjoyable. 





Pools were nice and warm and not annoyingly overcrowded, although getting a lounge chair was near impossible nearly all of the time.

We did all the silly things - ping pong, archery, rock climbing wall (kids), wave pool surfing (kids), flying practice (kids), various table games, bumper cars, trivia, name that tune, family bingo (I won twice but only called it once so some kids could win, which one did). Even with all of that it often felt like there were too many hours to fill, if you can believe that. Still, if these vacations are about family bonding, we did plenty of that, which is good.







We got off the boat only once, in Cabo San Lucas, and did a slightly scary tour of Lovers Beach and Divorce Beach, scary because the water was very rough and getting on and off the sketchy boat was a recipe for disaster. Thankfully none of us got sucked under the boat with the extreme undertow. Way too rough to swim. But I was delighted by the remote feeling of the place and the manta rays popping out of the water every few minutes. So cool!





The bad:

There was such an intense learning curve with this cruise that I get the feeling it’s a lot like the Marvel universe - you really can’t enjoy it unless you immerse yourself in it entirely and make it a whole way of life. We were the obvious newbies in the group - everyone else (it seemed) knew all the unspoken tricks and had all their shit together with their matching family cruise t shirts and personalized magnets for their room doors. I can see how people see cruising as a fun secret club and that people really get a lot of fun and bonding out of it. But, it’s just not us. So I have zero interest in doing the work of getting in the club.

I had bought a (very expensive) internet package for two devices so at least the H and I could find each other on the boat - it took hours and multiple calls to customer service to figure out how to log on and then switch devices; huge pain in the ass. 

None of us had any water the whole time - it wasn’t easy finding refill stations for our water bottles, or they were several decks away and not worth the trip. So all of us drank expensive sugary drinks all week which I hated. I could have pre-paid for bottled water to be delivered to our room, and probably should have. But again, $$$. The nickel and diming was out of control, which I expected. Even the games in the arcade all cost several dollars per play. Alcoholic drinks (for the H) averaged about $18 each. Tiny, sugary lemonades by the pool were $8. Sheesh. 

The entertainment in our room was piss poor - just a handful of pay-per-view movies and the same ten or so channels playing the same crappy shows over and over. There were many times we just wanted to relax in the room and watch something, but the options were so limited. Didn’t like that at all. 

No waterslide!!! I don’t know how I managed to book a cruise that didn’t have a waterslide, when that was the one thing I was looking forward to, but I did. 

Other than that, I was pleased none of us got violently ill (although I did feel vaguely nauseated for a couple of days - it passed); we went to a couple of (I thought) boring and crappy shows, but the kids liked them, so I kept my snotty opinion to myself. I would have liked to have checked out the disco at night - how often do I get to dance to modern (or, not 1940’s) music? - but every night we were all just completely trashed by 10 pm. Oh well. We’re just too damned old to rage all night, I guess! 

I think for me I would say cruising is a) too complicated with inside tricks and information and b) at least along this west coast, not enough about exploring cool new places, especially wild places, for me. I’d rather see Mexico from a resort involving tours to interesting places, like how my friends and I went to Cancun. 

We definitely could have - should have - done a shorter cruise by a day or two and saved some money. I wanted something where decisions were made for me…but as it turns out, there are just as many decisions to be made on a cruise as there are on a road trip. And most of them involve things I have no interest in - alcohol, getting a nice steak (puke), tacky expensive watches and jewelry and endless pitches for spa treatments and bullshit therapies. It was, indeed, Vegas on a boat. And I hate Vegas. So there you go. 

With all that said, I’m glad we tried it, and everyone had a good time. It sure was nice to zip home in a half hour after getting off the boat (I felt for people who had to head to LAX to get on a flight across the country). But I think we’ll stick with Hawaii (I know, I know, I swore off Hawaii, too, but I sure can’t beat free lodging and mostly free flights), road trips, Death Valley, etc etc. 

Now we return to endless sadistic ICE raids in our neighborhood and the passing of the Big Ugly Bill that’s literally going to cause the deaths of thousand of people. Sigh. Back to Trump’s America. Sure was nice to be somewhere else for a few days. 

1 comment:

  1. I’m sorry cruising wasn’t for you. It’s my favorite way to travel. When I think about it, it is sort of an insiders club. I’ve been cruising since the early 2000’s so I guess I’m just used to it.

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