Anyone do BIG SHIP cruises ?

[KnittyNorah]

I can think of nothing worse as a 'holiday'. Those big cruise liners are IMO nothing more than an upmarket mobile Butlins-for-adults, sorry!

But I perhaps I have strange preferences in hols - the best one I've EVER been on was a 2-week unsupported camel trek in the Central Desert of South Australia, skirting Lake Eyre and crossing part of Anna Station. Talk about memorable! I rode Wabma and cared for Aloka. That was 2006.

When I was working in NZ I won a prize donated by a prominent travel agent and it was a cruise; I think I shocked everyone by asking if I could change it from a cruise to something else. I could and I did, I went to New Caledonia and French Polynesia instead and it was unforgettable; there was a lot of travel by ship (and small plane) involved but none of it was part of 'a cruise'.

 

[jowwy]

I can think of nothing worse as a 'holiday'. Those big cruise liners are IMO nothing more than an upmarket mobile Butlins-for-adults, sorry!

No they are not……..your talking nonsense.

 

[KnittyNorah]

No they are not……..your talking nonsense.

I said 'in my opinon'.
In my opinion, being on a cruise has a great many similarities to other sorts of mass holidaymaking of 1000s of people all together contained in one place, and can't get out.
Hmm maybe not very like Butlins as I believe you can leave Butlins if you want, at any time of the day or night, by easy means which would not work on a cruise.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Found the rant!! @roubaixtuesday sorry, it wasn't "giant petri dish" but "incarcerated in a viral incubator" which is miles better. I won't paste the full rant, but it was top drawer.

 

[Tenkaykev]

I used to cruise regularly, Sandbanks to Shell Bay. Spectacular views and only cost £1 for a foot passenger, with free return passage. Sadly no licensed bar on board but you could take your own refreshments 😎

 

[jowwy]

I said 'in my opinon'.
In my opinion, being on a cruise has a great many similarities to other sorts of mass holidaymaking of 1000s of people all together contained in one place, and can't get out.
Hmm maybe not very like Butlins as I believe you can leave Butlins if you want, at any time of the day or night, by easy means which would not work on a cruise.

Butlins is a 1star shoothole, compared to a multi thousand 6 star hotel floating on the sea, with multiple restaurants, shopping centres, pools, theatres, cinemas and much much more………

you obviously have never been aboard one.

 

[jowwy]

This is also the 2nd thread that @Dave7 has started on this very subject, he started the same thread in dec 2020, about the same programme

 

[numbnuts]

My father and his brother has done loads........but both were working on the ships main run Southampton to New York

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

We had our honeymoon travelling across the Canadian Rockies and then a 1 week cruise up Alaska
It was wonderful
But the cruise bit was a bit of a letddown - it was really nice - but not really for us
I felt I needed more places to go and the 'entertainment' wasn't of much interest to us
Everything seemed to be based on getting us to spend more money and tie us down - like booking tables for 'the other' restaurants a day ahead when our idea of a holiday is freedom from schedules

SO - probably not for us
Just remembered - we did do a cruise down the Nile - Luxor to Aswan and back
that was amazing - but then it was a specific type of person and a lot of inclusive trips to 'old stuff"
I suspect a 'proper cruise ship" would bore me rigid!

 

[KnittyNorah]

Butlins is a 1star shoothole, compared to a multi thousand 6 star hotel floating on the sea, with multiple restaurants, shopping centres, pools, theatres, cinemas and much much more………

you obviously have never been aboard one.

Oh I have - and IN MY OPINION it is just a luxury version of being imprisoned in Butlins. Never wanted to go there either even when I was a kid. I couldn't WAIT to get off, fortunately it was only a short cruise, 3 nights, 4 days. Good food, yes. Pleasant-enough entertainment.
But nothing to what can be obtained on land - and without the penalty of being imprisoned in a massive floating artificial environment. No birds, no beasts, no trees. Neither grass nor sand under your feet. Vanishingly-little of interest to me.

If someone likes them, fine - I am glad they have something they enjoy so much. In my opinion, and for me a cruise would be a total waste of time and money - just as a unsupported camel trek in the desert would be an experience of utter horror to many other people, but which was my best holiday ever.

 

[Dave7]

This is also the 2nd thread that @Dave7 has started on this very subject, he started the same thread in dec 2020, about the same programme

You know, as I posted this it seemed very familiar.
18 months of Long Covid is my excuse
But what the hell.....if people have enjoyed it why are you bringing that up?.

 

[jowwy]

Oh I have - and IN MY OPINION it is just a luxury version of being imprisoned in Butlins. Never wanted to go there either even when I was a kid. I couldn't WAIT to get off, fortunately it was only a short cruise, 3 nights, 4 days. Good food, yes. Pleasant-enough entertainment.
But nothing to what can be obtained on land - and without the penalty of being imprisoned in a massive floating artificial environment. No birds, no beasts, no trees. Neither grass nor sand under your feet. Vanishingly-little of interest to me.

If someone likes them, fine - I am glad they have something they enjoy so much. In my opinion, and for me a cruise would be a total waste of time and money - just as a unsupported camel trek in the desert would be an experience of utter horror to many other people, but which was my best holiday ever.

There was plants, flowers, trees and real grass on the cruise ship i was on…..as for being imprisoned, its hardly what its like, but hey, its your opinion, but you still went and paid for it.

and it must have been of interest for you to pay and get onboard, maybe it was buyers remorse.

 

[jowwy]

You know, as I posted this it seemed very familiar.
18 months of Long Covid is my excuse
But what the hell.....if people have enjoyed it why are you bringing that up?.

Just seems odd to start two posts on the same subject not more than 10mths apart……….

 

[vickster]

10 months is a long time when you’re as old as Dave

 

[stoatsngroats]

Yes, been on 7, but wouldn’t do this again, not for the floating incubator reasons mentioned Earl, but because I like to engage with places on a drop-in drop-out kind of way, sometimes.
They are no necessarily as bad as you might think, it is possible to be away from the crowd, and to do your own thing.

and see places I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.