Ok, maybe I shouldn’t say never… but definitely not for a loooong long time, or if every single possible alternative way of traveling has been exhausted. Until then, no cruises.
I’m slightly disappointed that this is how I feel, purely because every person that I told I was going on a cruise was like “wahaayyy you’re going to have THE BEST TIME” “CRUISES ARE AMAZING” “omg you’re going to LOVE it”.
I did have my (small) doubts going into this vacation, I originally didn’t want to go on a cruise, especially around Greece. I’d always pictured my Greek vacation to be a little bit more of an island hop, waking up to each island glittering in the sun, and going to bed every night to a fabulous sunset. Not stuck in a cabin floating in the middle of the sea.
Alas, my now fiance’s parents were offering to pay for our flights, and the cruise itself was a great deal (that’s what they said anyway… it was still ~$1200 each), so I agreed. Plus, my fiance had been banging on about how amazing cruises were pretty much since I met him. Fun fact: he first started chatting me up when he was on a Euro cruise in November 2015.
We started out in Venice, Italy – that’s where the ship left off, then we traveled to Kotor, Montenegro, then Corfu, Athens, Mykonos, and Kefalonia, all of which are Greek destinations, then ended up back in Venice.
I don’t think there’s one thing specifically that put me off wanting to cruise again, I think there were a number of small things that collectively made up my mind about them.
- Not being able to spend more than about 6 hours in each place you visit. Don’t get me wrong, for someone who just wants to see a city/place at face value, a cruise is fantastic, but for someone like me 6 hours wasn’t enough. You can’t properly get stuck into the culture and vibe of a city in 6 hours – especially in European cities where there’s more history in a brick wall than Canada has in it’s whole country.
- We went to Greece in November. Now, this was partially our fault and partially the fault of the cruise line for offering a cruise to Greece at this time of year. Greece is out of business in November. Done. Closed for the season. Especially the islands. Mykonos was a ghost town. Literally the only people on the island were people from the boat we were on. There was one pastry shop open for business. One sketchy place open to rent scooters from. One single bus that ran at 7am and 2pm. Although the islands aren’t huge, they aren’t easy to get around on foot, and with the lack of public transportation, it made the islands hard to see.
- We got violently ill. Day 2 of our cruise we both woke in the early hours of the morning with stomach pain – that stomach pain turned into violent diarrhea with a side of vomiting. The fluid excretion thankfully stopped after a couple of hours, but the after affects lasted for at least 2 full days after. Not only that, but my fiance ended up also contracting hand food and mouth somewhere along the way which he suffered with for a whole week after we got home from the trip. Cruises are a cesspool of germs and disease because you’re all stuck in a confined space for 7 days.
- The entertainment. Now don’t get my wrong, the performers were extremely talented, but it was a lot of the same stuff every single night. Singers performing with dancers on stage.
- Without sounding like the kinda girl that can’t survive without her phone… cruise ships do not have free wifi. Can someone please explain this? Wifi costs SO MUCH MONEY on cruise ships holy moly. So not only are you stuck on a boat for 18-20 hours a day, with subpar entertainment, you also cannot casually surf the net or update your friends and family on your whereabouts/safety/holiday snaps.
I do think that many of the above reasons for my lack of “omg cruises are amazing” was down to the ship/cruise line we were on, and not actually cruises themselves. We sailed with Royal Caribbean on Rhapsody of the Seas. It was a small, older boat (so I’ve been told… I personally don’t have anything to compare it too). My fiance and his family said they had been on much bigger ships with a lot more food options and insanely better entertainment.
I think if you’re young, able, and have the money to spend on a cruise… you’re much better off using that money to hop around cities via train and stay in Airbnb’s than you are to use it on a cruise. Last year we glam-backpacked for 3 weeks and it didn’t cost us more than about $5,000-$6,000 for the both of us and we visited the same amount of places as the cruise did.
All I’m saying is do your research on what options are available to you before you pick a cruise!
Until next time
xxx