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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: People who don't like cruises...
Just coming off of a 12 day one, here's my observations. Granted this is my 2nd cruise in about 10 years.
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The good -
I really enjoyed going to each port and exploring the different locales. This gave me a "taste" of the region/area to help me decide if I would want to come back and spend more time there. I was able to find that I would go back to Rome, but only to see the Vatican on my own time and not my crappy Ship Excursion time frame.
Not really having to worry about meals. You can eat at any point and time. Formal dining with three courses, buffet which was different all the time, or maybe pay a little extra for the Italian restaurant or steak house. (I did the italtan - was worth the extra $12) Or Pizza 24 hours a day. Eating off the ship could get expensive depending on where you are traveling.
Some nightlife - but that depends on the person. I am not a disco dancing momma. I prefer the piano bar where you can relax and sing along. I am not a show person either. My cruise from what I heard was not good with the nighttime shows. Might be because the cruise was so port intensive and not that many sea days, who knows.
The Bad -
The paying for the alcohol can get pricey. Especially with the automatic gratituty added. Thus why I really do prefer the All inclusive resorts over cruising. I didn't drink all that much just because of that... But then again, it was a 12 day one, so the bar tab could easily add up. (But LOVED the Tiramisu Martini's!).
Same for the cokes/sodas. Unless you the bottomless soda card. That will average out maybe $5 a day?? I got around that by buying my sodas while in port and putting them in my cabin. And drank a lot of water.
Cabins - can be small. If you are in an interior/inside stateroom, they you are dealing with the "recirculated" air. Sounds weird, but I swear I had more problems with breathing especially at night because people would smoke in their rooms and it would eventually end up back in our cabin. Now if you have a balcony, then you have that fresh air. And I wished we had one. My parents did and it was nice to have that ability to let the air in and out.
Shore excursions by the cruise lines are over rated and expensive. I did one out of the seven ports I was in. The other ports, I got into private tours with groups that I met on the cruise critic roll call board for my sailing. This was by far the best thing that I did. Not only did I get to see things at a much better pace and not be rushed and at a good price, but met some really great, experienced cruisers who do this all the time and have no worries about missing the ship. The private tours were sooo much better than the ship ones. And much cheaper. My Rome excursion was from the cruise line and not worth the money I paid.
Would I do it again? Maybe; but not for that long. But it did give me the opportunity to taste parts of Europe so that I can go back and explore again. I want to go to Croatia and spend more time, along with Venice and Positano/Sorrento.
This exactly. I spent most of the time sick in the awful bed.
All of this is me!!
But I would still go on another one with my family ot with friends. It's boring with just one person.
Have not been on one. Just afraid. I do know that I get seasick on larger boats from a large ferry I took from Liverpool to Dun Laoghaire once.