Cruising Myths Debunked?

[Georgia_Peaches]

Whether a first-timer or seasoned cruiser, myths surrounding the industry abound!  Indeed there is a sort of magical mystery that looms over the wondrous feat of living on a floating city...even for just a little while.  Over the years I've been fortunate enough to cruise a fair amount of times and actually debunk a few cruising myths along the way.  Sure, there are more obvious myths out there, like cruising is for retired people or if I cruise I'll get sea sick.  These are easy to debunk after just one cruise!

 

My daughters are convinced that the food preparation in the cruise ship industry purposely uses additives in the food in order to make people constipated...thus, causing less strain on the ship's plumbing.  I'm happy to report that my dear husband debunks this myth every single time with his morning constitutional.  

 

What cruising myth have you debunked?

 

 

[SRF]

This WHOLE FORUM is mainly debunking myths.

[marco]

Here's a BIG myth:  There's no such thing as chair hogs, be it by the pool or the show lounge.   LOL!!!!!!

[ChairHogg]

6 hours ago, marco said:

Here's a BIG myth:  There's no such thing as chair hogs, be it by the pool or the show lounge.   LOL!!!!!!

 Ooooooh Yes --

 

We are very active

[dolittle]

Great thread ,the one that gets me is the crew never gets off the ship (had my server tell me this one night). They get off in many ports and shop have some fun and so forth . Fished in town in Alaska with a lot of the waiters good guys had a great time.I hope they get more time off the ship. 

[dolittle]

This one is a Cruise Critic classic ''my uncle ( it is always the uncle) use to go to the port the day of the cruise with some cash and get the empty cabin for really cheap'' 

[Essiesmom]

1 hour ago, dolittle said:

This one is a Cruise Critic classic ''my uncle ( it is always the uncle) use to go to the port the day of the cruise with some cash and get the empty cabin for really cheap'' 

I think this used to be possible, but the people who did it are now too old to remember... EM

[lenquixote66]

Another myth ,if you are on a ship with nearly 3000 passengers you will never see a person more than once.On our last cruise we saw 2 couples every day of a two week cruise.

[chengkp75]

14 hours ago, dolittle said:

Great thread ,the one that gets me is the crew never gets off the ship (had my server tell me this one night). They get off in many ports and shop have some fun and so forth . Fished in town in Alaska with a lot of the waiters good guys had a great time.I hope they get more time off the ship. 

Not everyone gets a chance to get off the ship.  Deck and engine crew, in particular, who work a straight day shift, 0600-1800, almost never get a chance to go ashore.  Front of house hotel department, and many back of house, have more opportunity because of the split shifts, and some ability to shift work to another crew.

 

Also, the members of the fire teams (typically hotel department) are restricted to ship every third day so that there will be at least two fire teams onboard at all times.

Edited November 15, 2019 by chengkp75

[Georgia_Peaches]

10 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

Another myth ,if you are on a ship with nearly 3000 passengers you will never see a person more than once.On our last cruise we saw 2 couples every day of a two week cruise.

This is SO true.  Same thing happened with us and another couple on our last cruise.  We saw them so much we finally sat and had a drink together!

[ontheweb]

10 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

Another myth ,if you are on a ship with nearly 3000 passengers you will never see a person more than once.On our last cruise we saw 2 couples every day of a two week cruise.

We once saw another couple who we had met at our roll call onshore at every port.

[Mike981]

This might not be a myth because it is so personal, but over the years I have had many people say they are afraid to cruise because they would get claustrophobic. I try to explain that this is very unlikely and that you just can't imagine how big even the smaller ships are. And these same people will sit in a cramped airplane to fly and survive.

I've also had people say that they don't want to dress up all day and it would be to stuffy. I believe they have watched Love Boat and think that is a true representation of how it is.

Lastly, some people feel that their trip will be absolutely perfect with no issues. Reminds me of a bride I heard complaining at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, she wanted a refund because it rained for 30 minutes most afternoons.

[wishIweretravelling]

Another myth: you do nothing but eat/you will gain lots of weight. 

 

Sure, you can get food at any time if you seek it out. But if you stick to mealtimes, and order mindfully, you eat no more than you would at home. I rarely gain weight on a cruise, and sometimes have lost a pound or two. And, believe me, I'm not one of those people who never gains weight.  

[Georgia_Peaches]

6 minutes ago, wishIweretravelling said:

Another myth: you do nothing but eat/you will gain lots of weight. 

 

Sure, you can get food at any time if you seek it out. But if you stick to mealtimes, and order mindfully, you eat no more than you would at home. I rarely gain weight on a cruise, and sometimes have lost a pound or two. And, believe me, I'm not one of those people who never gains weight.  

Yeh, I'm going to try this next week.  I'm one of those who usually puts on a few pounds when I cruise but it's not really from the food as much as from the fruity frozen drinks that make me feel like I'm on vacation.  I've made a pact to limit them to only 1 per day (if that).  

[Sif]

14 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

 Reminds me of a bride I heard complaining at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, she wanted a refund because it rained for 30 minutes most afternoons.

 

On my recent cruise I heard a woman say "they'd better be handling out refunds" because the aft elevators were out of service for an hour.

[Aquahound]

These myths have more to do with what people say on these boards than the actual cruises, but I feel these are easily debunked:

 

1. Cruise lines are more alike than different.

 

2. A bad day at sea is better than a good day at work.  

[shipgeeks]

2 hours ago, Aquahound said:

These myths have more to do with what people say on these boards than the actual cruises, but I feel these are easily debunked:

 

1. Cruise lines are more alike than different.

 

2. A bad day at sea is better than a good day at work.  

Huh?  IMO, any day at sea is great, and we particularly love the rough weather days.

[lenquixote66]

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

We once saw another couple who we had met at our roll call onshore at every port.

 

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

We once saw another couple who we had met at our roll call onshore at every port.

Now if you met them in Monticello that would really be something.😀

[pacruise804]

5 hours ago, Aquahound said:

These myths have more to do with what people say on these boards than the actual cruises, but I feel these are easily debunked:

 

1. Cruise lines are more alike than different.

 

2. A bad day at sea is better than a good day at work.  

I think I agree with you.

 

1. Within the same category lines may be more alike than different, but I suspect Carnival is very different than Crystal, which would also be different than Viking River.

 

2. It is sad if you don't find your work good at least on a good day.  I have had some pretty bad sea days (still survived and overall enjoyed my cruise), and it wasn't better than the rewarding feeling of a good day of work.

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

 

Now if you met them in Monticello that would really be something.😀

They were from Vancouver, Canada, so that would be odd.

 

If they were from anywhere in the NY metropolitan area, it would not be so odd.

[sanger727]

50 minutes ago, pacruise804 said:

I think I agree with you.

 

1. Within the same category lines may be more alike than different, but I suspect Carnival is very different than Crystal, which would also be different than Viking River.

 

2. It is sad if you don't find your work good at least on a good day.  I have had some pretty bad sea days (still survived and overall enjoyed my cruise), and it wasn't better than the rewarding feeling of a good day of work.

 

Eh. I've found my work good at times. But it's still not comparable to being on vacation without a care in the world. I vote for a bad vacation day is still better than a good work day. But I also can't say I've ever experienced a truly bad vacation day. I always try to find the good in things, so even if things seem to not be going right on vacation, there's still fun to be had. I might feel differently if I had been on that one cruise that got stuck at sea with no power for days while they got tug boated back in.

 

Edit: I take that back. I had one. It took us 36 hours to travel from the Serengeti in Tanzania back to Cincincinnati, OH (though with the time changes it all occurred in 1 day). That day was horrendous. I would rather have been at work getting yelled at or in bed with the flu. Though, for the purposes of the quote, that wasn't a "day at sea". I haven't had a "day at sea" that was terrible

Edited November 15, 2019 by sanger727

[pacruise804]

We had very rough seas this September on a Sunrise cruise intended for Bermuda.  Watching my husband (who usually has good sea legs) suffer with motion sickness for a full sea day definitely wasn't better than a good work day. 

 

We still tried to find the bright spots: got a lot of bed rest, I got some reading done, we finally tried room service, watched a few movies.  I think we both would have rather had a good day on land accomplishing something 🙂 

 

We've also sailed through gale force winds with high wave swells and Nor'Easters that were cool to observe from a ship and those "bad" days on ship were pretty good days for us.

[ger_77]

Myth:  Cruising is for the newly wed or nearly dead

 

You will see cruisers of all ages on most cruise lines; we've cruised with one couple and their darling 2 year old daughter, and on another we had the most delightful 94 year old man at our table.  In between we've sailed with people of all ages and enjoyed most of them immensely.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

[clo]

6 hours ago, pacruise804 said:

the rewarding feeling of a good day of work.

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^.  I'm glad to be retired but have some good memories.

[clo]

5 hours ago, pacruise804 said:

We've also sailed through gale force winds with high wave swells and Nor'Easters that were cool to observe from a ship and those "bad" days on ship were pretty good days for us.

We were on the 100 pax Hurtigruten ship in March when that Viking ship lost power in Norwegian seas.  That ship is small and old and doesn't have stabilizers. When waves would come rolling through I'd slide down the bed.  LOL.

Here's a pic out of our porthole before they locked it.