When I leased the apartment in which I currently live, more than a year ago now, I won a free cruise for two. Since my mom helped me with the apartment hunting, it seemed only right to take her, and since my dad is married to my mom, it seemed logical to throw him into the mix as well. Plus, I like traveling with my parents.
To be honest, though, I didn't think this cruise would ever come around. Like I said, this was all over a year ago, and when something has been booked forever, you tend to forget about it. Also, it was sort of a hard thing to anticipate, since I had never been on a cruise before. My parents had been on one cruise before, twenty years ago. So they figured some things had probably changed.
But then finally it was cruise time! We were gone for 4 days to Key West and Cozumel before we returned to the Port of Miami. And while I don't want all of my future vacations to be cruises, I can definitely support the cruising lifestyle. And let me tell you why. Cruising is exactly like summer camp. Fancy summer camp, floating summer camp, but summer camp all the same.
Exhibit A: There were bunk beds in our room.
Other exhibits:
--There are dining rooms that you go to at very specific times to eat
--Sometimes there are field trips to various ports of call
--There are staff members that basically serve a counselor role in terms of planning activities and making sure you are okay. Sometimes they sing to you.
--There are arts and crafts.
--There are games
--There are athletic events
--There are talent shows
--You can go swimming
--Sometimes you have to wear a life jacket:
And there's an actual camp that kids go to so their parents can drink. So the whole premise kind of holds up.
Of course, there are many things that cruise ships have that summer camps do not have, unless summer camp has changed dramatically since my day. Those include: alcohol, casinos, drunk old people, piano bars, regular bars, places that really aren't bars but that serve alcohol anyways, art auctions, drunken bachelorettes, duty-free shops and lobster tail for dinner.
And of course, there are some things that are universal, be you at summer camp, on a cruise ship, or just going through your life, and those include skanks in the hot tub and old people who shouldn't be wearing bikinis attempting to do so anyway.
Now, I will get into all the details of our ports of call and ship activities in later posts, but let me just say that cruising definitely suits my vacation style because it's the best of both worlds: You get to plan all sorts of fun activities for yourself, but if you don't want to do anything, that's okay too. You can sip fruity drinks with your mom (picture 1) while looking at pretty scenery (picture 2).
Picture 1:
Picture 2: (leaving Miami on Day 1)
The only real drawback to cruising is that now I weigh 497 pounds. Oh well!
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