I chose too many rigid rules. I am now booked for my second cruise and from my experience on the first one, I was right. I know that we were stupid on the first cruise. It was to Hawaii and had four days at sea in the beginning. I, too, got the patches. Those things were horrible. I felt like I was drugged all of the time. Please, please, some of you who love cruising, explain to me why you love it. Just a little of my experience on the first cruise. We flew from the midwest to San Diego. When we arrived, we had to claim our luggage and truck it out to the staging area. We were then handed a warm bottle of water and a granola bar and put on a bus to Mexico. Once there, we had to sit on the bus for an hour and then they dropped us off at some hotel where we signed in for the cruise. After some delay, we were herded back on the bus, sat in the parking lot for awhile and were then taken to the ship. We then sat on the bus in a parking lot until they let us off to go stand in line to get on the ship. So far - it's a wonderful vacation. We went to the cabin dropped the carry ons and went to get something to eat. The TV did not work there was no DVD player. We were up at 4:30 a.m. EDT to catch an early flight. The drill was at 9:00 PDT. After we returned from the drill, all we wanted to do was get some sleep. While we were brushing our teeth, the cabin attendant beat on the door and begged to come in and turn down the bed. We asked him to go away, but he seemed hurt, so we took a 10 minute walk to allow him to turn down the bed. When we returned, the bed was not turned down - which really didn't matter, since we do manage to get into bed every night on our own. We got into bed and, there came the cabin attendant beating on the door wanting to turn down the bed. We screamed back and forth through the door, until he finally seemed to understand that we were already in bed and were not going to allow him to come in. Finally he went away. I will not go into the food which we found substandard. When we disembarked, we were forced to set in a public area for hours waiting to be called. When we left the ship, we went out to find our luggage scattered here and there. Finally we got our bags - stupid me, I let them take the carry on bags, too - some of the tags were missing. Some seasoned cruiser took pity on us and explained that the only way to get our luggage and get on the transfer bus was to go bribe a porter and he would take care of it. We did that and got herded onto a bus. We were then dumped at the airport with about fifteen other buses and had to walk a mile to get a luggage cart. There were no porters that we could find in the airport. As a rule we did not find the other passengers friendly or outgoing. The best thing about that cruise was the bar and the two bartenders who regularly manned it. We were there so much that when we saw them on two separate occasions on shore, they asked if we would be back in the bar that night. They were the only people on the ship who ever bothered to learn that I do not go by the name on the "get out of Jail" card and called me by the name that I use. I did like being out at sea when it was calm. I loved that feeling. It was nice to stare out at the water, but how long can you do that before you want to jump in? However, what I alway hear is how great cruising is. How they pamper you. I am willing to admit that the first experience was a just a bad one, if that is really the case. So please, please tell me what you really love about cruising and what I can do to make this one coming up a better experience. We should have more senic cruising this time. Will that make it better? Thanks for any help you can provide.
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CATS ARE PEOPLE TOO!!!!
Flying to and from ports
Going solo adds an extra dimension of "Hmmm... doesn't look like a lot of fascinating activity options for a somewhat shy, non-sun worshipper on her own."
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