It’s been 10 years since my last cruise and I thought “huh, I remember them being fun. I gotta do this!” Better yet, my girlfriend had never been on a cruise so I figured I’d drag her along and show her the ways. I chose a short 3 night trip just to get her warmed up to this new way of travel. She’s traveled the world herself and has seen many things so rather than this being a new “OMG, the world is so neat!” experience, this was instead a new way to take in the sights.
Now…before I go on describing the trip and how it’s relevant to this site, I must remind our readers to have some semblance of class while traveling. I was so miffed by what I saw on our shuttle ride to port that I almost titled this “Ignorance on the Seas” but chose against that because, you know, that’s too negative for my taste. What inspired such yuck? It was the woman that insisted that our shuttle driver stop at a drug store on the way from Fort Lauderdale airport to the Port of Miami for an “emergency” so she could get some sinus medicine. The driver was nice enough to do so (while the other dozen or so people in the shuttle went along for the ride) and then we were on our way. When we got to port, not one single person in this woman’s party tipped our driver…not even the one that insisted we make a special stop just for her. Come on people…have some class! The driver was super friendly though so I made it a point to double my tip to him and tell him not to be discouraged by some bad apples out there.
Back to the goodness! Rather than describing every aspect of the cruise, I’ll just remind people that a cruise is what you make of it. I tend to schedule as little as possible so I can do whatever I’d like based on my mood. Given it was such a short trip anyway with only two ports of call (Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean’s private island and Nassau, Bahamas) it was really just a matter of showing my honorary guest the goodness of all the food, of the shows (that we didn’t go to), the events (we played a couple rounds of trivia), and basically just relaxing. A few stops in the casino for a diversion here and there, and slowing our brains down as we saw fit. We paged through the daily schedules that Royal Caribbean provided us to decide if we wanted to sign up for special excursions in each port of call and took it all in for future reference. As stated before, my personal preference is to explore on my own while in more exotic locations (like a chance encounter with Anthony Bourdain and spending the day drinking with him) rather than following a group around. Plus, there wasn’t that much opportunity to do such on such a short trip anyway.
On the last day of our trip, the one we were supposed to be in Nassau, we awoke to a ship heaving back and forth and after peering out the window and spotting fairly severe wind and rough seas, we got an announcement from the captain stating that we couldn’t dock. Now I know this would have many people complaining about not being able to go to Nassau but this was perfectly fine for us as we were enjoying our company as it was. I’ll admit I might have had a different outlook if we were docking in St. Martin but for now, this was good.

So what’s my take on this cruise after having not been on one for a decade?
- Small Ships – This cruise was on a smaller, older ship and I’m looking forward to getting back on a newer, bigger ship.
- Small Ships, Part 2 – This cruise was short and from that, you have many first-time cruisers or party cruisers that tend to not be as polite to our hosts. Not trying to sound snotty…just an observation.
- Short Cruise – As a short cruise, the ports of call weren’t as exciting as it would be on a longer cruise making it further down into the Caribbean. I definitely want to hit a longer cruise sometime this year.
- Changes – Some things I loved 10 years ago are gone…like the endless amounts of salmon that I would down for breakfast or the free gifts we’d get in our stateroom.
- Incredible Value– Most importantly, I still think a cruise can be an incredible bang for the buck given you get lodging, food (both awesome dinners provided by quality chefs as well as buffets throughout the day), entertainment and of course new locations to explore on your own (or with a group).
There are many ways to explore this fine world of ours and take in new cultures and many people overlook the fact a cruise can be a very affordable and accessible way to do such. Go ahead, take a look and see what strikes your fancy for $100/day or less.