I was in high school the first time I went on a cruise vacation, and it was an overwhelming yet indelible experience. The boat, from Carnival Cruise Lines, was the length of a football field – the largest sea vessel I ever saw or went on outside of the Staten Island Ferry. There was food everywhere. An arcade. A discotheque. A comedian. If I was hungry at midnight, there was a buffet to satiate me. I distinctly remember a staff member in the main dining room who made very colorful after-dinner drinks; he made them by pouring each ingredient from heaviest to lightest to create levels in a glass. All this on a boat! What’s not to love, right?
Nearly 30 years later, my wife Theresa, 11-year-old son Levi and I took our first cruise together, on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. The behemoth of a boat, which made its maiden voyage in 2009, left out of Bayonne, New Jersey, and stopped at three ports: Port Canaveral (Orlando), Coco Cay (Royal’s private island) and Nassau, Bahamas.
We had a blast over the seven days. But – and this is a big but – the cruise was one, maybe even two days too long.
A cruise vacation is very enigmatic. Talking about all the amenities and activities and ports of call, along with the shore excursions – and the fact that it’s a “set it and forget it” type of vacation – make it sound very enticing. Especially when these cruise lines throw around having the “biggest” and “longest” and “highest” whatever at sea. But do you really want to spend an entire week on a boat?
This article is to simply share with you our pros and cons of cruising and for you to make your own decision on whether taking a cruise vacation is the right holiday for you.
And if you do take one, bookmark this page…
PRO We didn’t have to take a plane.
We live only 20 minutes from Bayonne, so we simply took a car service. The driver just happened to be a longtime cruiser, so gave us some pointers. I’d call him a professional cruiser, part of the cruising subculture that resembles the frequent Disney World’ers. They decorate their stateroom doors with stickers and banners announcing why they’re aboard (wedding anniversary, birthday), and large groups wear matching T-shirts, whether to promote their family reunion or to let the world know: “Blame It on the Drink Package.
PRO Check-in was a breeze. We were assigned a designated check-in time. My fear was it wouldn’t matter and the port would resemble a gate at an Italian airport (sorry, Italians). Fortunately, everyone abided by the rules.
PRO Vacation starts the moment you step onto that boat!
CON Nobody told us what to do once we stepped onto the boat!
There’s certainly a learning curve to taking a cruise vacation versus a traditional vacation. Should we have gone to our room? Hit up guest services? Just walk around? We did the latter and got piña coladas.
PRO You’re on a boat that has every amenity; it’s self-sustained and self-sufficient.
CON You’re on a boat and can’t get off when you want. And the boat has all the comforts of home. I want to feel like I’m away from home and be in the ports of call.
PRO You can borrow unlimited towels for the pool and shore excursions, as long as you return them. Otherwise you will be charged $25 per towel.
CON Drink packages must be the root cause for rotten teeth and liver disease. To get your money’s worth, you need to drink excessively, whether you get the alcoholic or non-alcoholic package. Theresa and I are not big drinkers, and we try to refrain Levi from drinking anything with caffeine or a lot of sugar, so we did not sign up for a package. But these packages put so much behind a paywall.
By Day 2, we signed up for one non-alcoholic drink package – $36 a day.
PRO The three of us used this one package (each passenger is supposed to have their own) for the entire week – thank you John from Long Island for the tip.
CON Lots of the included food is subpar, mediocre and all hot food arrives warm. But it’s not logistically possible to maintain high quality cooking for over 5,000 (!) passengers, plus the over 2,000 staff.
CON Portside BBQ. How do you not call this Porkside BBQ? This is one of the restaurants that you need to pay for and it was a complete disappointment, some of the worst ‘cue I’ve ever had. Avoid at all costs.
THERESA’S MAJOR PRO Every staff member we engaged with, from our room attendant (Hannibal) to restaurant staff (Oka, Som, Natacha) and everyone in between, is uber nice and knowledgeable. They all have their schtick too. When leaving the boat for an excursion, Hannibal would always say, “Make sure you come back, Jason.” Yes, they know everyone’s name, too.
It’s great they have a routine, but they need to get some new material.
PRO There are tons of activities for kids.
MAJOR CON Royal Caribbean drops the ball on activities for tweens. They have the nerve to have a youth group that ranges in age from 6 to 12! Are you serious? Just create a tween group (9-12) and have them do the same activities as the teen group, but earlier. Boom! Done.
PRO The boat has specialty restaurants – steakhouse, sushi, Italian, a chefs table, and a wine bar. They charge less for kids but give them the regular menu.
PRO The Italian restaurant. Giovanni’s Table may have been the best meal we had all week: meaty calamari, tender osso bucco, homemade pasta, a respectable meat and cheese plate. Madonna mia!
PRO The FlowRider was the most fun we had on the boat and the instructors want you to learn to do all the tricks. It’s so much fun that when you wipe out, you get up with a smile on your face. Every country should have FlowRiders installed. It will create harmony and world peace.
MAJOR PRO If you really like the FlowRider, the instructors put on a show on the final day — they don’t want passengers getting any ideas and killing themselves trying out the moves — and this was the second best piece of entertainment on board.
PRO The best entertainment was illusionist Jason Bishop. The show was on par, if not better than the Mat Franco show we saw in Las Vegas. Bishop combines illusion and magic; he solves a Rubik’s Cube with the flick of the wrist. He put his assistant in a box, folded the box, stuck swords through it, then unfolded the box, opened it, and there she was! If there’s one show to see, it’s this one.
PRO They have daily trivia throughout the lounges, including one about Star Wars, which was attended by a very, um, “spirited” group. Vuvu is an awesome host!
PRO If you’re into planning ahead of time, book as many specialty restaurants, shows, excusions as you can before the trip. Prices are cheaper.
PRO We booked a specialty restaurant while on board, which wound up being free! It was a gift from our travel agent… We don’t have a travel agent.
PRO We got the chance to hug a dolphin at the Blue Lagoon dolphin encounter (shore excursion at Nassau). This was such a surreal experience. And the photos cost only $18 each. Still an abomination!
CON Blue Lagoon Island, which is owned by a Bahamian family, is a bit janky. There’s too much algae and a lot of the beach chairs are tattered. Plus, the beach isn’t much to write about, so I won’t. You mainly go there for the excursions.
I also got hosed on lunch.
PRO “Perfect Day at CocoCay” really was perfect! It’s free to explore Royal Caribbean’s private island. If you’re into waterslides, splurge for tickets to the Thrill Waterpark.
CON The slides are so good at the waterpark (one’s the tallest in North America) they made the ones on the boat become inferior and Levi no longer wanted to go on them.
PRO Your stateroom key card is all you need to carry on you as it acts as your form of payment everywhere.
PRO Our stateroom was always as clean as possible and our attendant always left us with a lovely towel animal during turndown service.
CON However, the stateroom bathroom always smelled like you didn’t flush.
LEVI’S BIGGEST CON “The pool is disgusting, smelly and salty. At least eight kids are always peeing in it at the same time.” Also, there were only two pools on the entire boat and one of them was closed half the time.
PRO The boat offers an all-access tour to learn the inner workings of a cruise ship.
CON It’s $199 per person! And only available on the last two days at sea. WTF, Royal Caribbean! It’s absurd that this isn’t a daily activity – and free!
PRO There’s a bionic bar on board. It’s very kitschy, nobody is putting on a show like Brian Flanagan, but it takes less time to get a drink from a robot than a bartender with a heartbeat.
CON Don’t expect a stiff drink.
JASON & THERESA’S MAJOR PRO The ravishing Cruise Director Katy. #IYKYK. She’s, among many things, the host of the very adult Love & Marriage game show.
ULTRA MAJOR PRO Smoked salmon included in free breakfast.
CON It’s like Thunderdome finding a table at the Windjammer to eat said smoked salmon.
PRO So much is included, you can spend an entire week without spending any money, outside of daily gratuities, which were $16 per person per day.
CON That is, if you do not care what you eat, only want to drink water and don’t want to get off the boat.
On balance… bon voyage!