Any experiences with craft-themed cruises?

[oddsshop]

I am so excited to be planning a jewelry-making themed cruise (5 nights, western Caribbean) next year with Land of Odds, Be Well Travel and Celebrity cruise line.    I want the whole cruise experience to be wonderful for all the participants.    I could use your help and insights.  

 

If you have ever been on a craft-themed cruise, could you share the highlights (and low-lights).     Also, are there things you would have liked to have done or seen that were not on the schedule.  

 

How did you originally find out about the craft-themed cruise?    Are there places you might recommend that might be good places to promote my jewelry-making themed cruise?

 

Thanks for sharing.        

 

Warren Feld
warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com

[Emhk13]

Warren, 

A friend and I took a 5 day western Caribbean cruise 3 or 5 years ago with a group of 3 knitting designers.  We had seen the cruise on one of the designer's  Facebook page.

What was right about it:

1. The ship was nice, good meals, nice entertainment. 

2. We got $100 the cost off the cruise as we were part of the group

3. We had to pay the organizers $100. The swag bag and door prizes were worth over $100 if purchased retail.

What was wrong about it:

1. They had 150 of us stuffed into a conference room which was probably intended for 100.We were in rows of chairs facing the front of the room with almost no room to move between the rows.  There was no place to put a drink if you had carried one with you.  Most crafters like to sit in groups around tables and talk to each other

2. Every night  we were to meet from 7:30 to 9:30 but there was only a program planned for one night. It was mostly the 3 designers and their groupies having mutual admiration society meetings and handing out door prizes. And i never got a sensible reason for why we had to be out of the room by 9:30, though that may have been all the time they were willing to rent.

3. Classes were offered during the day even when we were in port. My friend did not realize this and only had about an hour in port on one of our port days.

4. We were locked  into early dinner seating and if we stayed for the whole 2 hours, we missed the evening show. 

5. The 2nd evening  at dinner our waiters seemed agitated and rushed with the service. We were all looking at each other and chatted about it when they were away from the table. When we asked what was going on we were told that the organizers had complained that we were late to our meeting the night before because the dining room service was too slow. We were nice to the waiters and told them to slow down, we were more interested in a relaxed dinner than getting to the meeting on time. We weren't quite as nice to the maitre'd when he came to apologize about it.  Poor man 7 women telling him that we were paying the organizers, they were not paying us and we preferred a relaxed dinner more than being on time for the meeting. 

6. The designers did not socialize with anyone but each other and their groupies. I realize they were there to make money and the biggest source of their income was the classes they held at $70 for 3 hours. But they didn't  even acknowledge us when we were sitting on the Lido deck knitting. 

7. They brought donated yarn with them to use for charity knitting a scarf or a hat to be donated to homeless in one of the designer's  home city. It wasn't great quality yarn or knitting needles that were donated. Nothing had been said about doing charity knitting in the literature. If I had known about it , I would have brought my own yarn and needles and probably would have done it on the plane. I really wanted to knit the shawl I had brought as my cruise project. There was one upside, the yarn company had donated a lot of yarn and needles, my friend lived local to the port so she was her charity knitting group's  hero when she walked in with 60 some skeins of yarn and a bag of knitting needles. Of course, we had to find space in our baggage to get it off the ship. We both carried our carry ons,  our purses and 3 or 4 shopping bags thru customs with our ship purchases, dirty clothes, as we put all the yarn in our checked bags.

 

No more themed cruises for either of us. I can go to a lot of other fiber festivals for classes. If I cruise, I want to enjoy the cruise experience.

 

Ellen

 

[oddsshop]

Ellen,

Thank you for your comments.    These are very helpful!

 

Warren

[M.Travels]

On 8/28/2019 at 6:10 PM, Emhk13 said:

No more themed cruises for either of us. I can go to a lot of other fiber festivals for classes. If I cruise, I want to enjoy the cruise experience.

 

Ellen

 

Ellen thank you for this post!! I love cruises and I love crafts, but I often don’t even bring out my stitching on board because I am having too much fun. Not everyone feels this way which is why crafting cruises are popular … but I think I will stick with land-based craft trips for now.

[Shalandara]

On 8/28/2019 at 6:10 PM, Emhk13 said:

No more themed cruises for either of us. I can go to a lot of other fiber festivals for classes. If I cruise, I want to enjoy the cruise experience.

 

Ellen

Thoughtful review.

I guess it goes that research into the presenters/group offering the cruise is needed to see how the experiences are.  That is why these forums can be helpful. Knowing the group, what the extra fees are going towards, the schedule of activities -- these are all added on top of researching to see if the cruise line/ship  and itinerary are also a good fit.

I have done a genealogy cruise.  It was ok -- but mostly because it was a way for me to be able to convince husband to go on a trip (he got to relax and do nothing while I went to social activities which suited him just fine).  Now that I have gotten him interested in the occasional cruise I can leave the theme cruises for if it fits exactly right.  Of course my major craft projects do not travel well so they are usually out.  Although its amazing how many quilting cruises there are!

 

Elizabeth

Edited May 7, 2023 by Shalandara