Revisionist history, or whatever. You kind of have to respect the "my job was to make announcements and make everyone have fun, and also I was having fun screwing the 3rd officer at night" then having to shift into Russian "you cannot just open the bar mode" and losing, and also "we don't have enough alcohol on this boat to last an open bar that many days".

She and poop lasagna guy could probably absolutely run sht better than most I've seen in Corporate America.

Wife and I took a cruise for our honeymoon 19 years ago. Other than newlywed activities, the novelty of being on a boat for a week wore out after about a day. Now wife and 3 kids want to do a cruise next year….im not on board with it, but I guess I'll be outvoted. I'd rather just go spend a week at a resort in the Bahamas or something. I did enjoy Grand Cayman though, thought that was a nice place to stop.
* As a caveat I could be persuaded to do an Alaskan Cruise. I have friends who are regular cruise goers and they swear Alaskan cruises are far better.

In the world of travel, there's nothing more polarizing than cruises

I'm somewhere in the middle and like them a normal amount - maybe once every 5 years ish at most…but some people who love travel will wear them out in the way some people wear out Vegas or Mexico all-inclusives, and some literally can't comprehend how anyone could possibly enjoy it, and seem to think it's as bad as being on a 3-5 day long airplane ride.

To each their own I guess

Trainwreck: Balloon Boy get's 5*.

Not as good as Poop Cruise but you will lol.

Ghost of Bisbee said:

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The only ones who were profiled that I felt badly for were the 12 yo girl and her dad. The others were classic Carnival fare

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The Bachelorette, Ashley, is an A&M graduate and was a really smart girl who graduated from the Mays business school. careful judging a book by its cover

Was on that boat two weeks before this happened. So glad we missed it. It was a craphole.

Blonde on the right was a sports blogger back in the day. I remember her writing about this. Even made the good Deadspin back in the day.
I knew her through an old HS classmate.
https://theblondeside.com/media/carnivals-****-cruise/

TresPuertas said:

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Ghost of Bisbee said:

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The only ones who were profiled that I felt badly for were the 12 yo girl and her dad. The others were classic Carnival fare

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The Bachelorette, Ashley, is an A&M graduate and was a really smart girl who graduated from the Mays business school. careful judging a book by its cover

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I personally found her annoying as **** and would hate to be married to her.

A lot of people on here talking about how they would never volunteer to be on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, with thousands of people for long periods of time... Yeah, what psychopath would ever do that?

NukeAg10 said:

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A lot of people on here talking about how they would never volunteer to be on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, with thousands of people for long periods of time... Yeah, what psychopath would ever do that?

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A friend of mine keeps trying to get me to sign on as a musician for one of the cruise lines. The contract is 9 months at a time. No sir.

I reiterate, as someone who has been on 4 7 months deployments and 1 9 months, on a ship in the middle of the ocean with thousands of people... What psychopath would ever do that?

With that said, I refuse to go on a cruise ever again, that isn't Navy mandated. My wife might be able to get me to do an Alaskan or euro Disney cruise, but absolutely nothing else.

I Am A Critic said:

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TresPuertas said:

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Ghost of Bisbee said:

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The only ones who were profiled that I felt badly for were the 12 yo girl and her dad. The others were classic Carnival fare

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The Bachelorette, Ashley, is an A&M graduate and was a really smart girl who graduated from the Mays business school. careful judging a book by its cover

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I personally found her annoying as **** and would hate to be married to her.

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Hey, cool.

Thisguy1 said:

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We did the cruise thing when I was younger. Now that I'm older I get asked if I'd ever want to go on one and I get anxiety just thinking about it. I have no desire to get on something I'd basically be trapped on if things go wrong.

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So all of you who have this fear of being trapped on something if **** hits the fan, do yall also never fly? I've watched plenty of air disaster documentaries to spook me a little bit but I still fly knowing the statistics of how safe it is. But at least with cruises, the worst that could happen is I guess what you see in TW:PC.... but at least nobody died. While the worse that could happen with flying is dropping out of the sky as you contemplate your literal last moments on Earth.

Flying is safer than driving.

Plenty of us have been trapped on a tarmac for a couple of hours.

Not for multiple days.

BadMoonRisin said:

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I get that you get to "party", "be treated", "do and see a lot of things" and "travel" all in a compact 4-day itinerary, but...I can do all of those things with time between, likely cheaper than I can on a cruise, with zero fear of being stranded at sea, ankle deep in poo poo.

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I've looked quite a bit into the economics of planning a vacation by cruising or regular air/car travel and can I guarantee you that you literally cannot do "all the things" for cheaper on your own than you would with a cruise. And a huge reason why this is the case is because Cruises are just floating all-inclusive hotel rooms that can travel to your next destination while you sleep. The closest you can get to getting the most bang-for-your-buck is to travel by overnight train or overnight bus which I have done throughout southeast Asia.

To use a real world example, just take the 7-night RC cruise that visits Honduras, Costa Maya, and Cozumel that leaves from Galveston. It cost me and my wife around $1200 total for this cruise which again includes food and all the on-board entertainment and shows. Now try to take the same exact trip by air and car and you'll easily see that JUST the logistics of air travel alone is already more expensive than $1200. The cheapest flight you can get from just Houston to Coxen Hole, Honduras is already $500+ per person. Then you have to pay for a place to stay like a hotel or AirBnB which is at least another $100 to $300 a day. Now multiply that by at least 3 since you also have to travel to and stay at Costa Maya and Cozumel, and also add the flight back to Houston and your budget is now easily over $3000 on travel and lodging alone. For actual leisure and entertainment, you now have less time to do those things since you've spent a full day or two (or three) just traveling during the day.

Thisguy1 said:

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cav14 said:

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Thisguy1 said:

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We did the cruise thing when I was younger. Now that I'm older I get asked if I'd ever want to go on one and I get anxiety just thinking about it. I have no desire to get on something I'd basically be trapped on if things go wrong.

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So all of you who have this fear of being trapped on something if **** hits the fan, do yall also never fly? I've watched plenty of air disaster documentaries to spook me a little bit but I still fly knowing the statistics of how safe it is. But at least with cruises, the worst that could happen is I guess what you see in TW:PC.... but at least nobody died. While the worse that could happen with flying is dropping out of the sky as you contemplate your literal last moments on Earth.

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I hate flying for the same reason. The difference is the flight isn't my vacation.

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No, whether you like it or not, your flight IS a part of your vacation that admittedly none of us like. Flying takes up your vacation time and your vacation money that instead could be better used towards a cruise. I've already responded in another post with an example of what I mean.

20ag07 said:

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Flying is safer than driving.

Plenty of us have been trapped on a tarmac for a couple of hours.

Not for multiple days.

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Don't understand your point. Of course flying is safer than driving. I still fly just fine especially if its the fastest travel option for me as opposed to taking a much slower boat. But for a week or muli-week vacation to visit multiple cities, a cruise is still the way to go even with the very small less than 0.01% chances of literal **** hitting the fan.

We found the one person that thinks cruises are a superior form of vacation.

You must think buffets beat nicer restaurants because you get more food.

20ag07 said:

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Nobody needs to see "Honduras, Costa Maya, and Cozumel" in one trip. Once you've been to one tourist trap cruise drop off, you've been to them all.

Those places all have good vacation spots. You don't get to fully see that in your 8 hour drop off. That's worth being trapped in the middle of the ocean for multiple days.

Nope.

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I and the majority that actual do cruise will disagree with you on that. But that's fine. You vacation how you want to vacation if that means spending longer in one city to "fully" see that city. I personally don't care for a lot of the central America countries outside what they can offer on their coastline. So just 8 hours at a spot is good enough for me most of the time. Cozumel so far has been the only exception so we plan on simply flying and staying in a hotel for multiple days later on.

My only point are people like so who think that they can do just about "everything" that a cruise offers for cheaper without actually taking a cruise. And the fact is that's simply not true. But if all you want to do is just visit one city and make the most of that one city, then yes it's cheaper and easier to just fly and stay in a hotel. Cruising is never meant for a person like you even if a cruise was offered to you for free and a guarantee for no poop.

MattAg06 said:

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We found the one person that thinks cruises are a superior form of vacation.

You must think buffets beat nicer restaurants because you get more food.

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They are a superior form of a type of vacation that involves doing and seeing as much as you can for the money you have. So yes, they are like the buffet of vacation. If buffets aren't your thing in general can more power to you. But you have a simple mind if you think I'm saying cruising is the only form of vacation that beats everything which is obviously not the case.

I go to actual restaurants most of the time especially if I'm visiting Vegas, but every once in a while I'm feeling I want a little bit of everything so I'll visit the Bacchanal at Caeser's Palace.

I hope the "Train Wreck" series has an episode called "Coldplayed" in a couple of years.

cav14 said:

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Thisguy1 said:

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cav14 said:

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Thisguy1 said:

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We did the cruise thing when I was younger. Now that I'm older I get asked if I'd ever want to go on one and I get anxiety just thinking about it. I have no desire to get on something I'd basically be trapped on if things go wrong.

---

So all of you who have this fear of being trapped on something if **** hits the fan, do yall also never fly? I've watched plenty of air disaster documentaries to spook me a little bit but I still fly knowing the statistics of how safe it is. But at least with cruises, the worst that could happen is I guess what you see in TW:PC.... but at least nobody died. While the worse that could happen with flying is dropping out of the sky as you contemplate your literal last moments on Earth.

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I hate flying for the same reason. The difference is the flight isn't my vacation.

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No, whether you like it or not, your flight IS a part of your vacation that admittedly none of us like. Flying takes up your vacation time and your vacation money that instead could be better used towards a cruise. I've already responded in another post with an example of what I mean.

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The difference and what you're trying to convince me of that ain't gonna happen, is I don't want to spend money on a cruise. If I HAVE to fly I will. Hell I tried to drive to Augusta from BCS for The Masters this year.

I don't know why you're trying to convince people spending less than 25% of the vacation trapped on a plane is the same as 75% of your time trapped on a boat.

I get it if people aren't your thing, but lots of soft in this thread.

It's not my favorite either but it's like most products - you get what you pay for. We have done Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, and Oceania. There's a direct correlation to where we started income wise and what type of cruises we've been able to do.

If you can only afford Carnival, you will get overcrowded, low income, trash, with a sub par product.

Royal Caribbean is a step up and is doable but in my experience is not significantly different than Carnival.

Disney is 2-3 steps up from Carnival - but a lot of what you're paying for is the branding/characters. Too expensive for what you get.

Oceania is easily the best we have tried and was a really great experience. Part of their brand is built on having one of the best staff to customer ratios (at worst 2 staff per 3 customers and some ships being as low as nearly 1.2 to 1). The food was incredible and service was great. Also - VERY clean. It was also cool that we didn't pay a dime for it as it was paid for by work.

Over 140 passengers and crew members aboard a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship were sickened by a gastrointestinal illness that led to vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC. https://t.co/U2Y49sbDBv

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 18, 2025