Hotels You Can't Leave

donkeh · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 30

So far, with the exception of the very first cruise I've been on, my experience on cruise ships has not been at all positive. I should preface this with the fact that I'm not fond of drinking a lot and I don't like gambling that much either. Once those options are used up, there's not much else to do on a ship.

The ads with endless tables of lobsters show a scenario that just doesn't exist. Times to eat are regimented and the activities are lame. I have heard that if you go on the real premiere ships, the experience is different though.

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

The experience really does vary greatly between cruise lines. I've sailed on Princess, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Celebrity. I like Celebrity a lot -- I take one or two cruises a year with my mom to hang out and relax together. We go to the gym every day, we get spa treatments, and we sit on deck and read and do the crossword puzzles and drink cocktails that involve fruit, rum, a little umbrellas. We really enjoy having "girl time" together, and with out having to do any housework or cooking for a week. Our next cruise will be to Bermuda this May.

Even within the same cruise line, the experience will differ from ship to ship and sailing to sailing. For instance, the best food I've had on a cruise ship was on Celebrity's Horizon, a ship that no longer exists under that name (it was transferred to Island Cruises and is now called something like Island Fantasy). Food on Celebrity's Mercury on a short 4-night cruise was disappointing in comparison.

I really don't like many of the ports in the Caribbean that the big cruise ships go to, although St. Thomas can be fun (a friend of mine used to live there, so that helped) and St. Maarten is pretty too. But really, most of them all seem the same in the amount of time you have to spend there on a cruise. On one cruise my mom & I went on, we didn't even bother to get off the boat in Nassau. Which was nice, because we had the hot tubs to ourselves that afternoon :-)