My Thoughts on Cruises

By Lee | September 3rd, 2008 | 11 Comments »

Cruises are quite possibly the worst things ever invented. The only redeeming quality is that they serve as a fairly comfortable mode of transport in which you have to think and plan nothing and you generally wake up in a new place. However, there are so many awful and annoying things about cruises that I can’t possibly enumerate them all. However, here a few of the worst things about cruises.

I want to say first that I have only been on one cruise and it was on the Carnival Destiny. The monstrosity of a boat was something out of a bad 1970’s movie and the people aboard the bargain boat were nothing short of…to be polite-low class.

The food was bad and excessively unhealthy, the staff I thought wasn’t very friendly and they were unable to fulfill several of my requests including changing my assigned dinner time to 8pm from 6pm-who eats dinner at 6pm? Especially after having spent all day touring an island or whatever you choose to do. Back to the food.

I have never seen so many fat people stuffing their faces with unending piles of fried and processed food. It was truly an experiment in gluttony. For example, I saw a large women pile 6 hamburgers onto her plate at the buffet lunch line-6! Just out of curiosity I kind of watched her to see if she was getting them for the table or for others. The answer was no. So again out of curiousty, I decided to sit near her to watch her and see if she could actually eat all six burgers on top of the the mound of fries and garnishes she had on her trough.

Needless to say, she finished the whole thing and I was unable to finish my one burger and fries out of pure disgust for what I witnessed. I was also shocked that nobody else at her table thought it was weird that she had six burgers for herself. Amazing!

Another major problem for me about this Carnival cruise were the amount of children on board. I can understand why families would take a cruise. It’s cheap and easy. Kids must love the free food and ice cream and the parents can let the kids run around the ship and not really worry while they fill up on booze. However, for someone like me, it was a nightmare with how many children were constantly harassing everybody.

Next, the entertainment was attrocious. Keep in mind that when on a cruise you are a captive audience and there are few options. You can only play in the casino for so long and the bars are lame and I hate to shop so the entertainment has to occupy your time. Now if you like BINGO, lame audience participation games and skits, bad comedians and old school vegas style lounge acts then you are in luck. However, if that makes you want to vomit then you can join me at the bar hoping to talk to anybody interesting before mercifully arriving at the next port.

To be fair, I knew ahead of time that Carnival was known to be a low class, cheaper cruiseline with a questionable group of people on board. The price was certainly right and I figured how bad could it be. The answer is awful. I enjoyed most of the islands we stopped at but once the boat sailed each day I was just counting down the seconds until I could go to sleep and get to the next island.

Aside from that, my only other advice is to always get a room with a window and/or balcony because if you make the mistake I did-you won’t know if it’s night or day as you are living in a batcave with no light.

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11 Responses to “My Thoughts on Cruises”

1. kara Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am

   Carnival is terrible and that’s so funny about all the fatties bc that’s exactly what I’ve seen as well. They don’t even leave the boat!

2. Joseph Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am

   I weigh 220 and could only eat 3 or 4 if I starved myself all day-nasty!

3. WIlliam Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm

   I hate cruises and frankly I’m shocked you went on one

4. Pina Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm

   I also dislike cruises because I seem to feel trapped. Plus the other problem with the overweight people eating all of the food, LOL! and Kara was right because it does seem they never leave the boat.

5. Baumer Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am

   Who needs to leave the boat? Food, gambling, lounge acts….sounds like a full day to me. HAHAHA.

6. Lee Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

   Just wanted to clarify a few things about this story because I have gotten some emails from people who are clearly misunderstanding what I am trying to illustrate here.

   First, the bottom line is I didn’t enjoy my time on the cruise ship and thats the gyst of the post. I would not go on another cruise.

   My illustrations of the gluttonous activity I witnessed was based on what I saw and experienced which is the purpose of this blog.

   It is certainly not meant to be an elitist view of anything and is not meant to make fun of anyone or be mean. Simply, I am reporting what I saw.

   I apologize to anyone who took offense to anything I wrote but please relax…it’s all in good fun, not aimed at anyone in particular and not meant to be rude or offend.

7. jim Says:
   September 6th, 2008 at 5:39 am

   Cruises really appear to me as a relaxing way of forgetting problems. It really sounds fun to me. But I am just wondering if how would it really feels to be in a cruise ship. I know for sure that it will be awesome.

   Jim

   - - - - - - -
   http://www.1explore.com
   Your life deserves a place like this.

8. Armando Says:
   September 6th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   Its true that cruises can be relaxing and they are certainly mindless and easy but I also do agree with what Lee is saying about feeling trapped and that you are a captive audience. The entertainment varies from crise to cruise. I have been on several but I do not recommend Carnival as it is definitely more of a family budget style cruise.

   Try Princess which is much nicer.

   By the way, I hear you on the food situation-it can be comical.

9. devin thomas Says:
   November 7th, 2008 at 10:59 am

   please forgive some of my countrymen for living simple and uneventful lives, and for being spawn of small towns or oppressed big city hoods that think that the highest paying job in the U.S. is the Pres (200kpy) have never bought a share of stock and the finest school they know is around the corner. They are BIG’O and how do ya think they got there, or maintained it when they got there

10. Kelly Says:
    November 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    What does Big’O mean?

11. The Burnses Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Not all cruise lines are bad. I have not traveled on anything but Princess and to expensive locales. When you cruise with people who are spending 10k on a vacation they are not usually low-class people. We found many Europeans rude, they push their way into elevators, and talk very loudly, oblivious to everyone around them, especially the French and Spaniards. I saw a few people “pigging out” but not many - just one family, and sadly, they were American. If you choose a trip during school time there is not likely to be many children on board. Traveling on a smaller ship like 600-800 passengers is very pleasant. Friendships are easy to make and make the cruise more enjoyable. It is a great way to see many places at one time without unpacking at each place.

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