Making Your Next Cruise, All It Can Be

[Sthrngary]

Social Media of all kinds tends to focus on issue, rather then how to make your next cruise the best it can be.  My next cruise is on Explora Journey I.  It is departing in five (5) months.  It is special because I am taking my older sister on her first and possibly her last cruise.  For me, just the fact that my sister has never experience a cruise, allows me to enjoy her reactions to a new experience.  Like the first time each of us saw the ship, went onboard the first time, had our first sail-a-way.  That is a highlight that will make my new cruise special. 

 

There are so many other thing that can make a cruise the best it can be.  Not the least of which is what I call "Realistic Expectation".  My experience with cruise vacation has shown me how to make the event awful.  Just have an unrealistic bad attitude on day ONE. Then look for every issue you can find.  AWFUL will be your outcome. Add to this, believing the Hype. To think that a cruise brands marketing team says, is actually reality.  Marketing departments are designed to over promise and under deliver.  Want more, how about those unrealistic loyalist that never share the challenges only how great the brand is.  Those same folks get down right angry, when a guest says one thing that makes the brand not PERFECT.  

 

Some of us miss the boat, we are not processing the information available.  Allow me to explain. If you see a video or read a post where someone who paid real money to cruise shares something positive, make note of it.  If you see several people saying the same thing, it makes the information more valid. On the other hand, if someone is sharing an issue, it allows you to do your best to avoid this issue, so it does not effect you and your party in the same way.  Again, what is needed is many people saying the same thing to make it more credible. 

 

Being informed and realistic is the key to making any vacation better. When you do this a lot, you recognize those contributors that want to always have a negative angle.  You also notice those folks that never say anything but the brand is GREAT.  Neither is true and you must always read everything including this post with a grain of salt.  

 

Conclusion: We as guests, have more of a responsibility with a cruise vacation then booking and paying our fares on time.  Regardless of your brand, cabin or itinerary, you owe yourself true due diligence. We all have to take some responsibility of the outcome of our vacations and be honest with ourselves that we did everything we could, prior to stepping on a ship.  If you have complain, make if one that was truly and completely out of your control.  Just my two cents, but make true satisfaction have a possibility of happening. 

 

Cruise Well and Enjoy Every Moment. 

[Glitter Gal]

Well said! Thank you!

[Sololux]

Very good points raised, as always.  Due diligence cannot be overlooked but need to be matched with realistic expectations.  

[momofmab]

32 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

We all have to take some responsibility of the outcome of our vacations and be honest with ourselves that we did everything we could, prior to stepping on a ship

 

Yes - and also realize that there are an infinite number of scenarios that are completely out of anyone's control (e.g. weather on a trip causing cancelations/re-routing, delays, etc.) Arguably, how cruise lines handle those situations are up for examination but in many cases, they do the best they can (and all that they are legally bound to do, per their terms & conditions, which we all agree to when we purchase our trips).

 

Being informed is great, but I also think there is a fine line between that and becoming "over-informed" to the extent of having talked yourself out of any possibility of having a good time.

 

Everyone has their own list of expectations. 99.9% of the complaints I read about various cruise lines, don't tip the scales for me. For example, I couldn't care less about what champagne, wine or liquor brands a ship carries. I do love a glass of wine with dinner or cocktail (or several) but I just don't care enough about the brand of alcohol to not book a cruise with a particular line that refuses to carry my favorite brand.  I hope that the food will be good-great-excellent on a cruise, but I also recognize how complicated it is to always have amazing options when having to feed hundreds of people at the same time, who all have different tastes.  I have yet to cruise on a line where I was unable to find anything to eat (even if it was mainly pizza), so food complaints don't usually concern me - unless many people are getting sick from the food.

 

I would say that I set my expectations at an optimistic mid-level - usually that is met or exceeded. If not, I move on to another cruise line.

[Vallesan]

I must admit I’ve only once not enjoyed a cruise. I don’t think my expectations were unrealistic. We’d sailed Oceania several times and Seabourn then we tried Regent and it just fell short in so many areas, especially the service.

 

I do agree that many complaints and discord are caused by unrealistic expectations. Often ‘stepping up’ to a new line goes hand in hand with unrealistic expectations. I think that the best way to approach any trip is with the knowledge that not everything in life is ‘perfect’. That way there’s less chance of disappointment!

[Harters]

21 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

I’ve only once not enjoyed a cruise.

Me too. That was back in the early 90s on our third and last cruise with P & O. We'd become disenchanted with the formality of its dress code and then finding ourselves on "first sitting", at 6.30 for dinner was the final straw. Apart from a couple of short, very casual cruises (Island Escape & Norwegian) which were OK, we didnt really cruise "properly" again until we discovered O in  2017

[Vallesan]

46 minutes ago, Harters said:

Me too. That was back in the early 90s on our third and last cruise with P & O. We'd become disenchanted with the formality of its dress code and then finding ourselves on "first sitting", at 6.30 for dinner was the final straw. Apart from a couple of short, very casual cruises (Island Escape & Norwegian) which were OK, we didnt really cruise "properly" again until we discovered O in  2017

Our very first cruise was Fred Olsen in 1969, our honeymoon! I really can’t remember it but i know it was quite formal and the Norwegian smorgasbords were amazing! We travelled with them again in 1971 mainly because my husband wouldn’t fly at that time.

 

Our  next cruise was Tui around the Canaries in maybe 2013/14. We were just ‘testing the waters’ to see if cruising with mobility issues was possible. It was! But we knew that only small ships would be suitable. We found Oceania!

 

So we sailed Oceania in 2015. On one cruise we met people who raved about Regent, a bargain came up so we thought “why not”. The only good thing was that we met a couple from Manchester who we still keep in touch with. Funnily enough they had sailed once on Oceania and hated it! Horses for courses springs to mind!

 

I must admit I like Oceania, mid range prices (although that may not be for much longer), good service, good food, no formality, pleasant fellow travellers (in general!). Oceania suits us.

 

Our first cruise was on the Riviera and then we tried the R class ships which we loved. The problem now is that on the smaller ships we had a PH and they are now becoming so expensive that we look at Seabourn or Silversea which for similar prices offer more space. For the moment we are happy with balcony cabins on the Riviera etc. 

 

Time and price will tell!

[basenji56]

The more expensive the cruise, the higher the expectations.  

[Harters]

13 minutes ago, Vallesan said:

Funnily enough they had sailed once on Oceania and hated it! Horses for courses springs to mind!

Mrs H has a friend locally who cruises with Regent and keeps recommending them. They have also sailed once with O and didnt like it. I reckon we'll have to try it. As you know, we have a 5* resort in Cyprus coming up  shortly and, next year, a return to Vista. After that, we'll have a review of things. Maybe O is no longer good value for us then, with the SM changes. Maybe places like the resort, at 50% of the cost of the Vista cruise, may see us pass on future cruises completely. We'll see. 

 

By the by, when Mrs H was a young girl, she lived in Aden. P & O's Canberra used to stop there on its regular journeys to/from Australia, before it became a cruise ship. From that young age, she always wanted to sail on her. Ambition achieved in 1988.

[Vallesan]

33 minutes ago, Harters said:

Mrs H has a friend locally who cruises with Regent and keeps recommending them. They have also sailed once with O and didnt like it. I reckon we'll have to try it. As you know, we have a 5* resort in Cyprus coming up  shortly and, next year, a return to Vista. After that, we'll have a review of things. Maybe O is no longer good value for us then, with the SM changes. Maybe places like the resort, at 50% of the cost of the Vista cruise, may see us pass on future cruises completely. We'll see. 

 

By the by, when Mrs H was a young girl, she lived in Aden. P & O's Canberra used to stop there on its regular journeys to/from Australia, before it became a cruise ship. From that young age, she always wanted to sail on her. Ambition achieved in 1988.

Glad her ambition was achieved!

 

For us cruising works better than ‘resorts’ purely because of the ‘distances’. Resorts, as wonderful as they are, tend to to be ‘spread out’ which I can’t do!