I wanted to take a trip with my parents and cruises are an easy way to go. You don’t think about accommodations, luggage, food, or even entertainment. You just consume.
Family Cruise Bucket List
1. See the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal was the main point of the cruise. My mom wanted to do an Alaskan cruise or see the Panama Canal. I’ve already been to Alaska, so I pushed hard for Panama. They didn’t need much pushing though.
Seeing the canal by boat is definitely the way to go. I felt oddly proud watching the canals operate. This is what humans are capable of!
2. Fill in red for a few new countries.
We visited The Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao, Panama, and Costa Rica. Five new countries! My country count is at 62! Actually, it’s at 61 because the map I use doesn’t list Curacao as a country I can visit. I emailed the creator about that, but he’s too busy to care. Understandable.
visited 61 states (27.1%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Triposo world travel guide for Android
3. Go snorkeling.
We tried snorkeling in the Bahamas, but the water was too choppy and the captain advised against it. We eventually made it into our goggles in Curacao. Or am I lying because that country doesn’t exist?
4. Use the gym on the ship every day.
In ten days on the ship, I visited the gym eight times and skipped it twice, opting to plank in my room for a couple of minutes instead. I should have gone more. The gym was great. Heavy weight workouts are the best workouts.
5. Eat healthy salads.
The salads were good and I consumed a lot of them.
I also ate a lot of other crap. There are never-ending amounts of food. So much food available all the time.
That’s the main characterization of a cruise: all the calories screaming at you, enticing you, and just generally being a pain.
It’s a grotesque exercise in abundance and waste.
6. Book club.
We read Oprah’s book club selection, An American Marriage. The book was okay, the book club was terrible.
7. Bond with family
My parents and sister and I walked around the various ports. We spied on fish in a submarine in Aruba. We played copious amounts of Parcheesi and Rummikub and ate nearly every meal together. Collectively, we did middling to terrible in trivia. We giggled a lot.
I think it was a successful trip.
8. See some animals.
We saw a lot of fish while snorkeling and in the submarine. On a river tour in Costa Rica, we saw sloths and lizards and birds and monkeys.
9. Rock a bikini.
I think the fish were impressed with what they saw.
10. Hammock
I saw not a single hammock. That seems so wrong.
Unexpected cruise benefit: feel young
Unbeknownst to us, the cruise’s passengers were mostly people in their sixties and beyond. I think cruises are filled with older people because there is a boatload of staff to assist you with anything you can think of. I just wanted to use the word boatload.
That generation can be funny. Here are several exchanges I wrote down that amused me.
Upon seeing my Chicago Law shirt: “you want to go to law school?”
“Uh, Yeah. I mean, I went to law school. I graduated already.“
“Already? Then how come you look like a child?“
I accepted a free sample of an alcoholic beverage (a few sips) and the woman next to me eyed me suspiciously “How old are you? Are you old enough to drink?”
Are you girls college students?
No, I’m 36.
Can I take your picture? I want to show my kids. Also, I think you’re lying.
Who knew that hanging out with people much older than you is the fountain of youth we all crave? Walking past all the wheelchairs and walkers makes you feel thankful for your legs. Seeing the older women in their swimsuits makes you feel thankful for your skin. Thinking about time and calculating numbers when talking to nonagenarians makes you feel thankful for your future potential.
Why do people pay for extras? Or what would Thriftygal do?
Cruises can be pricey if you want them to be, but there are some obvious common sense things you can do to make them more thrifty. Common sense isn’t common, so I imagine cruises make a lot of money.
Don’t pay for internet. Disconnect and enjoy floating.
You can buy internet access for $14/day on the ship.
Personally, I think the forced disconnection from the internet may be the best thing about cruises. It’s easier to give in to the lull and stare out at the ocean for your entertainment. Maybe it’s not ocean. The gulf.
You’re present in the moment. Whatever moment that may be. My laptop tells me it’s 11:44 am and my phone says it’s 6:44pm. I’m not sure the real time.
Stick to what you’ve already paid for
To keep costs down, we never ordered outside the menu. The free food was ample and varied and tasty, so I honestly don’t understand those who did. Why pay an extra $75 for a steak? Or $5 for bottled water? Or $300 for an hour in the extra special Jacuzzi/whirlpool that is definitely worth $300 more than the regular free sauna or pool or hot tub? Is it the towel swans that make it worth $300?
My parents have never had a drink in their lives, my sister doesn’t like alcohol, and I’m flirting with teetotalism, so we never ordered any booze, and never suffered the $18 corkage fee for opening one of the limited number of bottles you can bring aboard yourself. $18 to open wine!
We didn’t do any shopping on board and the four of us bet $40 in the casino. We walked away with $43.
Except where it’s worth it
If you’re a boozy soul and need alcohol, go for it. I drank a lot on my first cruise ten years ago.
And, on this cruise, I paid extra for excursions when we landed at the various ports. Snorkeling and submarining and river boat tours and such were all more money.
If you’re thriftier than me and don’t care about excursions, here are the free options on the ship that we definitely participated in during sea days.
Other activities on the ship
- Ping pong
- Pool time
- Hot tub
- Sauna
- Shuffleboard
- Board games
- Basketball
- Walks around the deck
- Trivia
- Book club
- Staring out into the ocean and watching a bird dive into the water, procure a fish, eat it, and dive back into the ocean to procure another fish.
- Watching various live shows, comedies, singers, dancers, etc.
- Cooking demonstrations
- Meet the captain! Or the chefs! Or the singes and dancers!
- This list is way longer.
Total cost of 12 days of travel
Cruise base: $1072
Mandatory tips: $145
Excursions: $249
Misc (flight, Ubers, food on travel days): $152.25
Total: $1,618.93
Other observations
Every. Single. Employee greets you as you pass.
The sleep you get on a cruise is delicious. I think it’s the rocking of the boat that sparks pleasant memories of being rocked as a babe.
The steward would make my bed twice a day. I’d nap in the afternoon (thanks to the rocking) and when I came back, my bed was neatly made for the second time.
Towel animals! Every night, we would get a progressively more impressive towel animal.
I say that I’m not a fan of cruises because of the waste and excess, but it was honestly a really fun trip. Both cruises that I’ve been on have been a blast.
But maybe that’s more because of me and less because of the cruise. Nearly every trip I go on is a crazy fun time. Life is fun.
What kind of cruise ship did you go on
Holland America. I think the cruise ship makes a difference, but my sister did most of the planning for that when we picked a boat. I cared more about destination.
Holland America has an older crowd than, for example, Carnival. Fewer children and less of a party crowd. Longer cruises tend to attract older clients.
But if you want to see old try a river cruise or one of the upscale ocean cruise lines.
My aunt calls Carnival the “Kmart of the seas.” I haven’t been to a Kmart in years, so not sure if it’s an insult or not.
Great post. I’ve never been on a cruise, and you’ve convinced me it could be fun!
More importantly, I love that you’re posting so much these days! Your writing is really fun to read. I hope you’ll keep it up. Or, dare we hope, would you consider writing another book?
I’m working on book #2! I’ve started four different book number twos and I think this last one has some potential. 🙂
‘I’m working on book #2!’
… Day made
😛
Ha! I just went on a cruise vacation with family, and have similar sentiments. By the way, Curaçao IS a place! It’s a great island in the Caribbeans!
I’m not crazy!
I would love to hear more about what made the book club terrible. My imagination is going wild over here.
It was 30 minutes long and 20 minutes was the cruise employee talking. He hadn’t read the book, but liked to hear himself talk. Nothing egregious, but yes, it’s egregious. First rule of book club is to read the book!
I recently gave up social media.
Cold turkey.
This is the nearest thing to a cruise I’ve been on (without the boat or water)
LMAO!
After giving up social media my average daily screen time has plummeted… it’s almost as if there’s a link
I still struggle occasionally, but no social media gives me the upper hand.
May I suggest the definitive writer’s piece on cruises, by the late David Foster Wallace:
https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf
If you don’t pee yourself laughing, we can’t be friends any more.
Well, we can’t not be friends!
I love cruises, and have been three times, always on Holland America. They have smaller ships and this is good – there’s a calmer vibe and not millions of hooligan teens running wild (gosh I sound like I’m elderly!) and I think the food and especially the staff is top-notch.
It’s the perfect vacation to take with parents/family because there’s plenty to do and nothing to do (staring at the sea) and you can do it separately or together and then meet up for dinner every night. It’s also worth getting a balcony.
I also accidentally ended up on the Oprah book club cruise last March. I avoided it though. 🙂
You’ve articulated my feelings perfectly. It’s really good for families with different ages having different activities they can do.