How many cruises were you on before you discovered these boards?

Haoie · July 9, 2019

None! Joined up before my first in 2010.

Underwatr · July 9, 2019

I found it as we were considering our first cruise. I still frequent the First Time Cruisers forum.

CPT Trips · July 9, 2019

Hmmm. Maybe 5 or 6. We took our first cruise about 20 years before finding CC. We didn't cruise a lot in those days.

bonsai3s · July 9, 2019

40 years of cruising before we discovered Cruise Critic and joined. I've said it many times and I'll say it again....we are truly grateful to the many members here that have provided us with invaluable tips, suggestions, and advice.

We are also thankful to the nicest British gentleman I have ever met...Gordon B., who we met on a cruise and asked me "Have you ever heard of Cruise Critic?"....I said "No, I haven't". Gordon suggested I give it a look...so glad I did.

(Regrettably, Gordon passed away...may he rest in peace...thank you.)

lenquixote66 · July 9, 2019

6 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I discovered cruisecritic between our second and third cruises. (I don't remember how I discovered it.)

I joined the roll call for our third cruise, and there was only one other poster. She invited us to dinner and to see her cabin which was an owner's suite.

My first cruise was in 1973 and CC did not exist.My second in 1994 and it still did not exist.My third was in 2008 and somebody told me about CC and I joined in May 2008.

John&LaLa · July 10, 2019

15, our first TA

geoherb · July 10, 2019

I'm not sure when I joined Cruise Critic. Somewhere along the way, they started over post counts for people. It says I've been on 17 years, but I know it has been longer because I remember meeting some Cruise Critic people on our first Celebrity cruise in 2000. I had taken five cruises before that one.

capriccio · July 10, 2019

I signed up in 2008 after our 3rd cruise ( #1 was in 1998, #2 was in 2001, and #3 was in 2007) when we decided we had the interest, time and money to start taking at least 1 cruise a year. For the life of me I can't remember how I found out about cruise critic though. It has served us well and since we retired in 2013 we average about 2 cruises a year.

Cruise Junky · July 10, 2019

I think I discovered it right before our first cruise. I had a different user account back in the late 90’s

Edited July 10, 2019 by Cruise Junky

Sancho_proudfoot · July 10, 2019

None. We were looking at jumping in on this cruising malarkey, and in doing my research found CC.

ontheweb · July 10, 2019

While reading some of the answers to the question I posed in the first post, I remembered that I often mentioned cruisecritic and these boards to others while on a cruise. I wonder if I helped anyone else actually find this site. Do others also try to let fellow cruisers who might not be aware of this site know about it while on board?

Velvetwater · July 10, 2019

I landed here a day after booking my first cruise.

It was because of this board I changed to a fab secret cabin...hurrah!

travelnap · July 10, 2019

I had probably had done 8 or 9 cruises before a friend told me about cruise critic. I was not even aware that it existed prior to her telling me about it. I appreciated her advice as I have found CC to be a great resource and a good forum.

RSLeesburg · July 10, 2019

We were also fortunate to find this forum before booking our first cruise. In fact, I had spoken to a local TA about our first family vacation when our son turned 3 - she made three recommendations: Disney, Beaches, or a cruise on Oasis. I started to do research on all three, and opted for Disney as I did not have time to learn enough about cruising - and to be honest, the cruise pricing was confusing - between fares, gratuities, port fees, excursions, insurance, etc. I could not figure out how much it was really going to cost. Disney turned out to be a complete disaster, so when I returned I dived in CC to learn about a different option. After 5 months, we booked our first cruise on Grandeur. The advice and information I learned here was invaluable. However, a very weird thing happened - a week after I booked our cruise, Grandeur suffered that devastating fire. My wife immediately thought that we should cancel and go back to the drawing board, find another vacation option. But I was kind of hooked to this forum, and followed the many stories and threads on the fire, how the crew handled the emergency, and the many praises from the passengers. It was kind of inspiring and we opted not to cancel and went on the cruise, and had the most amazing vacation ever. We have taken one every year ever since.

For those that have never cruised before, it is a different experience - maybe not for everyone, but we would have never booked, or continued on with our first cruise if it hadn't been for CC. And even though every year my wife tells me - this is it, enough cruises, we need to try something new - as soon as we get on a ship, and start meeting other people and enjoying ourselves, she is the first to say - let's book another one.

SmoothFlying · July 10, 2019

Unfortunately, wayyyyy too many !!!😞 At least six cruises. The one cruise I REALLY hated not knowing about CC was our inland Alaska cruise in June out of Seattle in 2010. I had absolutely NO idea about what to pack and none of my family or friends had a clue either so I had no one to ask. So we didn't pack the first long sleeve shirt or even wear a jacket. Soooo first day at sea (Tracy's Arm) down to the ship's stores for some heavier clothing we went!

We came home a week later and I was on a travel site and saw something about 'if you have ANY cruise questions, odds are you can the answers on Cruise Critic where people in the know have it begore'. Wow !! Opened my eyes when I saw the Alaska boards with tons of info. Wish I had known this six months before, I thought to myself. From that minute on whenever I heard someone mention they ever even thinking BOUT A CRUISE I'd give 'em aheads up about CC. I hope some did do their homework but at least they were warned. Some people think they're 'experts' on EVERYTHING and won't, at a costly mistake, I might add take any advise.

momofmeg · July 10, 2019

21 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I discovered cruisecritic between our second and third cruises. (I don't remember how I discovered it.)

I joined the roll call for our third cruise, and there was only one other poster. She invited us to dinner and to see her cabin which was an owner's suite.

4

chipmaster · July 10, 2019

For me, aftertwo.

1st cruise was celebration of wedding, wanted to go to Alaska, not much to research there, focus was destination and event, gotta cruise there, it was simple eenie meenie miney mo

2nd Disney: Two young kids, let's not just go to Disney world, let's do something else too while we are there .... hey they got a land/cruise package, what could be more fun than that.

Then after that we kinda learned what a cruise day was like, what a port day was like and a cruise vacation was like. Cruising become one of many family vacation options; skiiing, Hawaii, US roadtrip, Land/flying based vacations. Cruising became part of the regular mix. And when we looked to add it in, what are different lines like, what are the big decisions about ports/tours etc... that requires research. You ain't going to decide just based on the sappy commercials on TV, and printed, can't be that stupid with the internet.

Sorry the google to Tripadvisor takes you to a site selling hits and advertisement, the obvious third leg to consider the boards, here you got passionate people with nuggets of information and opinions, got to like most blogs/board read/filter and learn, but it is nice as it's not advertising or hits/links driven.

Took a long absence due to a long gap in cruise focused vacation and life / career changes, now looking forward to more cruising in this stage of life 😁