Travelers’ Night In — Cruises!
On this week’s round of Travelers’ Night In, the interactive Twitter discussion for avid travelers and travel lovers, the theme was cruises and cruising! As always, ten questions were asked, people responded while tagging their tweets #TNI, and learned quite a bit about cruising all over the world!
Here are this week’s questions:
Q1. Best cruise you’ve ever been on?
gtrot Cruise to Antarctica because it was like going to another planet- no people for miles, beautiful wildlife + good food!
Travelanswerman Cruising on the Ayeyarwaddy River in Myanmar!
travelmedia River cruise Amsterdam ->Germany-> Austria past castles & vineyards! What an impressive lock system!
Kirfara Cruising through Italian vineyards in a ’65 convertible beetle.
Image: ecstaticist
Q2. Port excursions — really fun or a real rip-off?
KellyJamesJAXDD We did copter ride to glacier & dog sledding in Juneau — worth it!
theexplorateur I prefer to plan my own port excursions- enjoy the freedom more of doing it on my own.
noizangel Depends on excursion. If concerned about getting back to port in time, go w/ship. Most activities can be booked privately for less!
savvytravelblog if I want an excursion to a city I’ll fly and spend more than 6 hours there. I’m on the boat for… the boat. and the booze.
Q3. Tips for first time cruisers?
ieatmypigeon Bring the Dramamine; leave the Hawaiian shirt at home.
BeehiveBlog make sure you go with FUN people – it could be close quarters with no escape LOL
glutenfreewife Tip your crew and talk to them, they’re on that boat for 6+ months at a time, usually working 16-18 hour days.
TravelDesigned if you insist on making your flight arrangements the day of embarkation…. KNOW you could MISS THE BOAT
Image: Grufnik
Q4. Do you prefer a big ship or small? Why?
earthxplorer Does size matter? yep! Smaller ships get into more & cooler ports
GJGBTL231 Always a big ship ! Many possibility’s and entertainment ! Also more restaurants to eat different food !
MeetOnCruise Big for Caribbean and Western Med (places I’ve already cruised). Small for Greek Islands, Baltic (want to really see the dest)
lisajanPA I like my ships like I like my men. Strong. Sturdy. Serving me. I can work w/ the size.
Q5. Cruise cuisine –- good, bad, ugly?
marenhogan I have to lose 10 lbs just to go on a cruise. I have zero willpower so I would say food=good
llgable Good Food-lobster & baked Alaska Princess better than expected; the bad in BVI when waiter apologized for delay b/c cook was drunk
ACYPL perfect cruise food is a fish that I catch off of my balcony in the room. And charm the kitchen into cooking it
GetPackedTravel I like my champagne & caviar served off a surfboard in the turquoise waters…
Image: GetPackedTravel
Q6. What is your best cruise story?
MelissaWitbeck Dancing all night till the sun came out on the Princess deck last night of the cruise
ConciergeQ Pulling out of Portofino on the Windstar, champagne in hand, sun setting, Vangelis playing…
jessiecaa Was on the same ship as a Orthodox Jewish family reunion with 150+ people who had sections of the ship closed specifically for them
shipsandtrips Best or worst? Greek waitstaff/performers/pursers hitting on me and friends for the WHOLE cruise.
Q7. When it comes to cruising, what turns you on/off about a ship?
Walkandtravel Size would turn me on (ahem) They are just wonders of engineering, having seen the Oriana in Auckland, it blew me away.
CruiseMuse I can do with out the belly-flop, bingo, and buffet crowd.
MyTWavelagent I love all ships with a martini or champagne bar
IntoxAbroad its all about a high single girl to guy ratio
Image: katiew
Q8. What’s your favorite part of a cruise?
chicagoelevated CHOCOLATE BUFFET! Is there anything else?
FlyingPhotog Waking up in a different place every morning.
Activated favorite part of cruise is being away from it all and meeting new people. I like the random seating assignments.
Jaguardman As a marine biologist, I love seeing sea based wildlife, especially Sea Turtles!
Q9. Coolest amenity or feature you’ve ever seen on a cruise ship?
StayAdventurous Loved Skeet Shooting off the deck.
totallytypea Surfing (while still on the cruise boat!)
ZipSetAndrea Luxury lines will contact u before cruise, ask what type of liquor you want stocked in your cabin
amandaelsewhere The @MV_Explorer usually sails with world diplomats: I sailed with Desmond Tutu, does that count as an “amenity?
Image: Christopher Chan
Q10. What is your dream cruise itinerary?
travelpology A huge private yacht off Greece or Italy or France. Private chef included.
TravelsceneUSA Want to do this @crystalcruises one: South Pacific Serenade: Tahiti, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, Fiji, Bora Bora, Tonga, Auckland.
TripStyler rapping anywhere with andy samberg about being “on a boat” lol
suzyqzar The one I’m going on in Dec 2010 – 3 week Mediterranean in a balcony room!
And that’s the week!
Did you enjoy this recap? Become a fan of Adventurous Kate on Facebook or subscribe to my RSS feed!
Travelers’ Night In, founded and organized by the lovely ladies at ZipSetGo, takes place on Thursdays from 3:30-5:00 ET. All are welcome! Follow the #TNI tag to see the questions and conversation!
Related posts:
At age 26, I quit my job to travel the world alone. I spent six fantastic months in Southeast Asia and turned my travel blog into a full-time business. Today, I travel full-time, going anywhere that sounds wacky or beautiful or interesting. My goal is to show YOU how you can travel the world on your own -- easily, safely, and adventurously. 
Love the recaps Kate – keep ‘em comin’ !!
Apparently I need to be more clever with my answers on TNI to make the cut
Aww, PLEASE don’t say that!
I try so hard to include 40 unique people each week, to find people from different time periods, and to always feature new participants! That’s why it takes so long for me to do this every week!
Great round up! I can appreciate all of the tedious work linking each of those twitter accounts… yikes!
Thanks! For some reason, I haven’t been able to copy and paste from Twitter to the normal WordPress interface lately, so I’ve been pasting to the HTML interface, bolding them and setting them to open in new windows, and then just copying and pasting the HTML around the screennames. It’s been oddly easier than doing it step by step before!
ohhh I love the #tni recaps! and I love love your site! Added you to Beehive blogalicious roll and I will be checking back frequently! See you on twitter!
Thank you for adding me to your blog @MelissaWitbeck. I really enjoy Travelers’ Night In, especially this week with an awesome topic like cruises!
I loved our cruise, and would so do it again. I found the experience practically flawless. I think it depends a lot on what cruise line. The Carnival passengers that we encountered in Grand Cayman were absolutely miserable. We – Celebrity passengers – had nothing but good things to say!
After your glowing reviews, I know that if I ever go on a cruise, I have to go Celebrity!
Sounds like another great #tni. I’m sorry I missed it. Thanks again for your great recaps… it makes me less sad that I didn’t make it when I get to read about it later anyway
I hate that I missed this TNI! Thanks for posting. It was good reading this to plan next months Cruise Radio shows. Thanks Kate!