Before I took my very first cruise, my sister warned my wife that I probably wouldn’t like it.
My sister was generally pretty accurate when it came to me.
She was wrong about cruising.
Over the past 27 years, I have taken 15 cruises. I’ve sailed on several different cruise lines, visited a lot of interesting places, eaten a lot of mediocre food, taken some memorable excursions, spent too much money shopping on excursions and, on more than one occasion, wondered why I was doing this to myself.
But I think I’m finished.
I’m about 95% sure that my recent 12-night Celebrity cruise to New England and Canada was my last cruise. At 74, I’ve reached the point where I can look back on more than two decades of cruising and say that I’ve had some wonderful experiences—but I’m also beginning to understand why my sister thought I wouldn’t like it.
My First Cruise
My introduction to cruising wasn’t exactly reassuring.
Our first cruise was on the Disney Magic. We had spent three days at the Disney resort, and the final three days of the vacation were supposed to be aboard the ship.
There was a weak hurricane in the area, which naturally caused me some concern. I was assured that we would avoid it and that the seas would be fine.
No sooner had we left port and sat down for dinner than the ship started rocking.
The weather and the motion of the ship got progressively worse. I remember staring out the porthole at the huge waves breaking against the ship. I was frightened and didn’t sleep that night.
It turned out that there were winds of 70 to 80 mph and extremely rough seas. At one point, the ship tilted enough that water came down the elevator shafts, and a number of cabins got soaking wet.
The next day I saw the Captain and asked him the obvious question: “Why did we go through a hurricane?
His answer was essentially that they hadn’t expected the weather to be as bad as it was.
Of course, we made it to the Bahamas the next morning. Where there are casinos and shopping…
That experience left me with my first lesson about cruising: When money is involved, passenger comfort and business considerations don’t always seem to be traveling in the same direction.
And yet, somehow, I kept cruising
Cruising Used to Be More Fun
Maybe it’s because I’m 74 now, but I remember cruising being more fun—and certainly more relaxing—10 or 15 years ago.
Perhaps that’s partly because I was younger.
I remember routinely taking the stairs rather than waiting for an elevator. Today, I look at a flight of stairs and think, Where’s the elevator?
My wife and I also have different mobility considerations now. On this most recent cruise, I rented a Rollator so she could get around the ship and participate in excursions. That added another expense and another logistical consideration to a vacation that was already expensive.
There is something about cruising that changes when you get older. Things that once seemed like minor inconveniences—walking long distances, climbing stairs, getting on and off buses, standing in line, navigating a large ship—become part of the calculation.
The Excursion Problem
I’ve also become increasingly skeptical about cruise excursions.
Too many of them seem to involve spending two or three hours sitting on a bus so that you can spend a few minutes looking at something before getting back on the bus.
If I’m visiting a country or an island, I’d rather actually experience the place.
On this most recent cruise, one of our excursions was a bus tour of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Unfortunately, it was Labor Day, and virtually everything was closed.
So we spent a good portion of the excursion riding around on a bus looking at places we couldn’t visit.
That wasn’t exactly my idea of sightseeing.
I’ve come to believe that some excursions are little more than tourist traps. You’re paying good money to be transported somewhere, told what you’re looking at and then transported back to the ship.
Perhaps I’m becoming more selective—or simply more difficult.
Less Staff, More Work
One thing that struck me on this cruise was how hard the crew seemed to be working.
Our room steward worked from approximately 9 in the morning until 9 at night, 7 days a week. He mentioned that he once had an assistant, but that position had been eliminated.
I have no idea how representative that is across the cruise industry, but it certainly gave me the impression that cruise lines are trying to accomplish more with fewer people.
The irony is that the crew members themselves were almost universally friendly and hardworking.
It can’t be easy dealing with thousands of passengers, many of whom are older, demanding and occasionally grumpy.
I also sometimes had difficulty understanding what crew members were telling me because of language differences. That’s not a criticism of the workers; communicating with people from dozens of countries and cultures can’t be easy.
A big complaint was customer service.
There were several occasions when I received incorrect information from customer service personnel on the ship. In my experience, the problem wasn’t a lack of friendliness. It was a lack of accurate answers.
Food: Another Casualty of Time
The food has also changed—or perhaps my expectations have.
I remember being much more impressed by the food on cruises years ago. On my last several cruises, I’ve found the presentation, variety and preparation noticeably less impressive.
The dining-room staff works extremely hard and generally tries to accommodate special requests.
But they aren’t cooking the food.
If the menu isn’t very good or the kitchen isn’t turning out particularly good meals, there isn’t much the waiter can do about it.
I’m not expecting five-star restaurant food on a cruise ship. But when you are paying what cruises cost today, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect better.
The Stateroom Gets Smaller as You Get Older
Our stateroom on this cruise also seemed particularly small.
Maybe the stateroom hadn’t changed.
Maybe I had.
I felt claustrophobic at times. There wasn’t much room to move around, and the bathroom was so small that taking a shower required a certain amount of caution and balance.
We also had a problem with the toilet flushing. It took three or four calls before the problem was finally resolved.
None of this ruined the cruise. But when you’re paying thousands of dollars for a vacation, these little irritations add up.
And Then There Is the Cost
Cruising isn’t cheap…
The cruise fare is just the beginning.
There’s travel to and from the port, insurance, excursions, gratuities, drinks, internet, casino money and all the other extras that somehow find their way onto your account.
On this cruise, I paid about $250 for internet access.
I don’t remember paying anything close to that on some of my earlier cruises. Perhaps I did and simply blocked it from my memory.
A can of soda was $5.99, and there was an additional dollar gratuity each time I ordered one.
Fortunately, I discovered that iced tea was free.
There is something satisfying about defeating a cruise line’s beverage pricing strategy with a glass of iced tea.
Maybe I Should Have Stayed in the Casino
Interestingly, on my last two cruises, we actually won some money playing the slot machines.
Looking back, I probably would have been better off skipping one or two of the excursions and spending the money in the casino.
At least the slot machines were honest about taking my money.
And occasionally they gave some of it back
Twelve Nights Was Too Long
The final indication that my cruising days may be over was the length of this cruise.
It was 12 nights.
I was ready to go home after eight.
That never would have happened to me years ago.
There are only so many activities on a cruise ship. You can play trivia a few times. You can see the shows. You can sit by the pool. You can eat. You can gamble. You can walk around the ship.
Then you start doing the same things again.
Perhaps some people can cruise for a month and never get bored.
I’m apparently no longer one of them.
So Why Stop Now?
At 74, stopping seems prudent for a variety of reasons.
The logistics are more difficult. The walking is more difficult. The cost is higher. The cabins seem smaller. The excursions seem less appealing. And after eight or nine days, I’m ready to sleep in my own bed.
Most importantly, I don’t feel that I’m missing something by staying home.
That’s probably the biggest difference between now and 20 years ago.
When you’re younger, you often look forward to the next trip.
When you’re older, you sometimes look forward to getting home.
The Good Memories Remain
Despite everything I’ve written here, I don’t regret the 15 cruises I’ve taken.
Far from it.
I’ve seen places I probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise. I’ve met interesting people, experienced some beautiful scenery and had plenty of laughs. There were cruises that I thoroughly enjoyed and would happily repeat—if I could somehow go back 15 years in time.
And that’s really the point.
My best memories of cruising are mostly from the earlier voyages, when I was younger and when, at least in my perception, the cruise lines seemed more interested in making passengers happy.
Maybe the cruise lines changed.
Maybe I changed.
Probably both.
Either way, 27 years and 15 cruises is a pretty good run.
So if this really was my last cruise, I’m not going to complain.
I’ll remember the good meals, the interesting ports, the casinos that occasionally paid me back, the beautiful views and the many miles we’ve traveled at sea.
I’ll also remember the rough seas, the crowded buses, the tiny bathrooms, the expensive soda and the $250 internet bill.
And somewhere in the back of my mind I’ll remember my sister, who predicted all of this before I ever stepped aboard that first Disney ship.
Maybe she wasn’t wrong after all.
She was just 15 cruises early.
