Two weeks a year.
That’s the average annual escape time from the office your average American citizen who is part of the full-time workforce gets. It’s not a lot of time, so it says a lot about a person based off of how they choose to spend these precious two weeks a year. Since my return from Europe, many people in my office have asked me about my experiences. Once I finish my stories, they inevitably launch into their own travel plans for the upcoming summer – and I feign interest as they rave about their upcoming all-you-can-eat cruise ship vacation.
It’s not just one story I’ve heard about an upcoming cruise, but a half dozen people within throwing distance of my desk are taking a cruise this summer. Truthfully, all I can really think of when I hear their excitement is, “THAT’S how you want to spend your vacation?”
Apparently though, they are not the only ones, as the cruise industry expects there to be over 20 million cruise-goers in 2014, with 60% of those hailing from North America:
| Cruise Industry Statistics | Data |
| Annual cruise industry revenue for the US economy | $37.85 billion |
| Number of cruise industry jobs in the US | 314,000 |
| Annual number of cruise ship passengers | 20,335,000 |
| Percent of cruise passengers that originated in North America | 60 % |
Before I continue further, I must make a disclaimer: I have been on a cruise. Two, in fact. The first one was when I was 14, and my grandparents dragged myself and 30 other family members (the horror) on a cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico and back for three nights. The second one was when I was 19, and my now ex-girlfriend invited me on a two week vacation – Disneyworld and the surrounding parks for a week, followed by a week long cruise through the Bahamas and Caribbean.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy parts of the second cruise with my ex. The first one with the large family?
Never again.
But really, sitting on a boat is not travelling – and here’s why…
A Cruise Ship Is Simply Consumerism
Now, especially after taking my little jaunt through Europe, I fail to see how people say they’re “travelling” when in fact they are doing little more than floating on a water-based hotel and shopping mall. There are food courts, swimming pools, poolside service, and of course, no shortage of places to buy overpriced alcohol.
In addition to that, there is no stepping out of the box as far as food goes. The people who don’t fill up on the unlimited microwave pizza and ice cream are treated to your typical American buffet full of processed garbage.
8 Hours Is Not Long Enough To Experience A Country
I spent three days in most of the places I visited on my trip and I now know I would need a minimum of three weeks or more in order to really get a cultural experience in a foreign country. Cruise lines though are always advertising how you can, “Experience Rome in just X HOURS!”
Their idea of “experiencing Rome” is placing you on a bus to the city center, shuttling you around the city in the most efficient way possible, piling you into a restaurant with Americanized food, and generally making it so all you have to do is show up and barely have to converse with the locals.
Oh, and did I mention the prices of these cultural experiences?
The Prices Of Excursions
When I went to the Bahamas with my girlfriend, we swam with dolphins in Nassau. Her parents footed the bill at $200 each. Yes, four hundred dollars so that we could splash around and throw a couple of fish to a dolphin named Hercules. Of course, we were one of ten people in the group, and the session was half an hour. Meaning that dolphin was billed out at $2,000/hour. Was it a cool experience? Of course. However, the prices of these excursions are simply out of hand for the experience you get. $200 was more than I paid to rent an apartment for four days in the Czech Republic.
Finally, You’re Around A Bunch Of Americans
This means fat people wearing bathing suits, girls with bitchy attitudes, and parents that can’t control their children. You’re stuck in the middle of the ocean with hundreds of them for at least three nights in most cases.
On top of that, most cruise ships have at least one hairy chest contest while at sea. If this isn’t enough for you to stay away from cruises, I don’t know what is.
Do Something Better
Jump around to a bunch of countries like I did. Go backpacking, hitchhiking, or hell, take an actual vacation where you sit around and do nothing. Just don’t do it while sitting on a boat surrounded by men with hairy chests and soccer moms who haven’t lost any weight since they popped out five kids.
If you do, you’re just like every other American – too lazy or afraid to embrace the risks of planning out your own adventure, instead of letting a cruise line do it all for you.
When my co-workers return from their respective cruises, I’ll have no need to ask them what they did. I already know they did the exact same thing twenty million other people are doing this year.
Read More: The Holidays: Amateur Nights on Steroids
I’ve never been but some family members did and they said it was full of morbilty obese people hitting the all you can eat buffet every 2-3 hours. Totally agree with the country visiting, nothing is worse than a “planned” or “country tours”. I went on a trip like this in highschool you have no freedom to do or see what you want.
Also, cruise ships these days tend to either be sinking or breaking down. Two of my coworkers were on the Carnival cruise ship that broke down in Feb. 2013. 5 days of their vacation wasted living in filth. Then I had to listen to them bitch about it for the next couple of months.
Cruise ships:
Large floating sickness generating factories filled with crap food, fat people and, more often than not nowadays, breaking down in the middle of the ocean. If I ever went on a cruise it would be because I’d developed an intense interest in seeing floating feces on the wall as I slogged through a neat new virus that was given to me by a fellow passenger, just before we hit a reef and capsized.
How the fuck these things are supposed to be attractive to any reasonably intelligent person is beyond me.
If you really want to tour on a boat, there’s a few smaller companies out there that do smaller, more scenic cruises. It’s gonna cost you an arm and a leg for one like that but from your ealrier posts it sounds like you’re in a position to afford that.
My mother in law and youngest sister went on something like that, up to Alaska, some kind of whale watching trip. Honestly it’s just not my style, the ocean never really did it for me, more of a mountain type of guy, and sitting around on a boat would have me bouncing off the deck in boredom.
I hear you on that…and my favorite traveling destination so far has been a train journey through the alps. The catch for me is that there are a couple of places in the Mediterranean I’d like to see(I’m mostly interested in getting a glimpse of nature there) and the best way to get to those places is by touring on a boat.
That makes things difficult for me because there’s no way in hell I’d ever go on a cruise with Carnival or any of it’s ilk, and those are the cheapest ways to get there.
singles cruises, good for hooking up? a friend of mine keeps telling me “we gotta go on a cruise”
go on a 4 day, fri-mon cruise from a south florida port of call and sneak plenty of alcohol on board. anytime but summer, doesn’t need to be a singles cruise. this should suffice for meeting your objective.
When you’re young and relatively healthy and energetic, you’d be a fool to go on a cruise. Most men need adventure and cruises don’t provide that. I’ve spent 10 days living in the western Amazon, with the monkeys and the panthers and the black scorpions. Killing my own food, making my own bed and finding my own way w/ a guide. By the eighth day I couldn’t wait to hike out of there. I was losing my mind! For instance, the insects you think are harmless could kill you and the most dangerous looking arachnid you ever saw was just a big ol’ teddy bear. You’d have to know what you were dealing with each and every time. But I was 30, had the strength and energy and realized that no way in hell I’d do this in 20 years. Now was the time!
Do not let your youth be wasted.
I’ll cruise when I’m dead, inside or out.
can’t get your dick wet alone in the jungle though
Depends on your standards and how attractive you find that howler monkey who wakes you up every morning.
Also, he said 10 days, I think a guy can survive without pussy for 10 days. If he can’t he should probably re-evaluate his life and priorities.
LOL
I visited 2 different villages, but no way I’d go near the natives. Some were beautiful, STD ridden.
Imagine visiting a remote village along the Amazon. Your buying lunch for the locals to make you something they don’t sell at 7-11. All of a sudden you hear sounds in the distance and they are getting closer. You make out a thumping sound and realize the sound is coming from the Amazon River itself. As the sound gets louder, you can make out drums being beaten. Suddenly an image appears down the river of a few filled canoes. In the lead canoe is an ornately dressed man beating the drums announcing another village’s arrival. With him in the paddled boats is the village soccer team arriving to challenge the other village’s soccer team. The challenge is accepted through a brief ceremony and I am asked to participate as defenseman. I still have the brown cut up sweater that I was required to wear. Two hours I’ll never forget.
But yeah, I coulda fucked some skank in a Celebrity bathroom.
Guess I’ll never learn……………….
That’s a fucking awesome experience brother, sounds like you found real value in your trip. Well done.
There is more to life than just getting your dick wet son. The life of a real man is something serious when he follows his heart.
If your heart says go on a cruise, who cares what anyone here says, go on a friggin cruise. But if your heart tells you to make a teddy bear tarantula your new friend in the middle of the jungle where you can actually die in so many ways, and then you go on a cruise; your garbage.
Most here are making assumptions. Yes, there are some very jiggily tricks on a cruise ship. However, I love the ocean, and I don’t need to get my dick wet. I have already done that hundreds of times. Now, stupidly I think much of the time, I am married.
Getting my dick wet, at my age, with a new chick is great…for about 10 seconds, until I think of how she will most likely bring me to family court like the last one.
I would rather have adventure both before, and after my cruise. Like a Western Caribbean cruise where I plan on seeing all the Mayan ruins, or something. Trying to get near each one with a stationary motel, well, a cruise is cheaper. The hotel travels with you. And there is free water, and ways to bring your own booze.
For all the anti consumerism culture here, there is a lot of talk about buying useless shit.
Yeah so you stop at the termas in Rio or Sao Paulo before you head out and again on your return ya retard.
If you have to go on a cruise shop just to get wet then you do belong with ‘that’ group of people. Good luck. If your good you can get laid anywhere.
This pretty much sums up my own attitude about cruises and why I don’t take them . . .
. . . but there’s something a little off-putting about the tone. The superiority, the disdain for mere commerce and ordinary Americans, and the general smugness kind of make me want to round up the relatives and go spend a week on a big boat eating myself sick.
Yeah, there is a bit of that here, the smugness and American hate. Not just this article, but many of them. I see the same thing over at HuffPo when they sneer about “McMansions! Hummer driving idiots!” and such.
Hey, if life is good in a material sense, there’s nothing wrong with people enjoying it. There are plenty of things wrong with America, now more than ever, but to hold the good things in contempt as well as the bad is a bit myopic, in my view.
Here you go Jeff!
https://www.highseasrally.com/
Heh, um, no. A biker rally, on a ship, man oh man, that’s a new one. Being a fan of what we whistfully refer to as “riding”, I’ll stick to the rallies that involve, well, you know, actual riding. That is funny though, and the website is well done (what I’ve seen of it thus far), or better put, at least it’s purty.
For me, this is the only acceptable method of cruising:
http://www.charterworld.com/images/yachts/Moorings%2044.3.jpg
Cruising in this manner, you have to stand a watch, navigate the boat, cook your meals, clean up, and be aware of your surroundings. Anything else is consumerism as the author says.
Myeeees. Joy riding around of the US coastline on a near unsinkable $300,000 boat which is like a five star apartment inside, complete with GPS, EPIRB and the ever present US Coast Guard and Navy a satellite phone call away is the definition of rugged manly individualism.
LOL
Hahaha. Priceless.
Dude, take cruises for what they are.
You don’t go on them to “travel”, you go on them to get shitfaced and hook up with slutty people of the opposite sex on the dirt cheap.
In terms of getting laid with a nice looking girl, it’s INFINITELY easier and cheaper to do it on a cruise than going to Miami or Vegas and getting treated like shit because you are a male making less than 7 figures.
Travel in Europe is nice, I just got back from Scandanavia. But I would go for the exper
I may even argue the price/bang ratio is the best on a cruise than anywhere else.
*experience, not the women. No girl is worth a ticket over 1 grand and airline rates are jumping with recent mergers
He’s young. He’ll outgrow that, hopefully. I was an arrogant, smug ass at 25, as well.
If my family had dragged me on a 2 week cruise down to Mexico for an 8 hour visit while I was a kid, I would have made sure I got lost. MY ADVENTURE would have been finding my way back home. Sometimes you just have to throw a wrench in everyone’s plan to make things interesting.
Cruises are for the Newly Wed and the Nearly Dead….
or Over Fed…
Or the author who has been on two and a whole lot of the commenters who hysterically tell us how awful the type of people who go on cruises are. Speaking from experience they say.
They’re not wrong, most of them are utter, sneering shits. I’d avoid a cruise to avoid all of the people who apparently are “dragged” on then spend the whole time sneering and hating and being butthurt little beta-males while shaving their chests and preening in front of the mirror while dreaming about living in the jungle eating bugs and rats.
Exactly think of going to a any convenience store drink wall or Walmart multiply it by the thousands and you have a run-of-the-mill cruise experience. Think about it your stuffing the worst experience you’ve had in landlife into a smaller more populated boat you can’t escape from.
Agreed, same for most All Inclusive Resorts.
And here I was thinking I was weird for skipping every cruise opportunity I’ve had (except for once to the Bahamas when I was 10 and couldn’t stay home alone). Hell is a boat full of bloated dopes pigging out and making 2-hour stops for “fun” excursions to tourist traps. I can have a much better time and get way more done on vacation by just staying home. It sure beats getting seasick on a floating Wal-Mart with feed troughs.
What was it the chief engineer of the Titanic said? “God himself cannot sink this ship.”
Nope he never said that.
The Titanic wasnt a cruies ship dumbass.
Yes x infinity. This needed to be said. Cruises are a fucking obscenity.
Pre-packaged corporate “$fun$”, about as interesting as going to your local Chilis. I guess the non-thinking neanderthal sheep who subject themselves to this are getting what they deserve, but it is still yet another sad commentary on the average American. What garbage.
Notably, thesecruise ships are environmental disasters, to boot. Spewing half-eaten food and shit and oil into the sea wherever they waddle about.
No they don’t. That’s illegal. They unload their black water and rubbish at port or if out in the open ocean treated sewage may be released into the water, you know, like every city on earth does. Discharge of oil or oily water from the bilge is severely regulated.
But a worldly intellectual giant like you wouldn’t be so “ignorant” to not have known that before spouting off now would you?
Educate yourself yourself a bit – it won’t hurt, I promise.
http://oceana.org/en/our-work/stop-ocean-pollution/cruise-ship-pollution/overview
Lots of things are illegal but they DO occur then are reported later on news or documentary.
Truth.
I always wanted to go on a Windjammer cruise or even a cargo/freighter cruise.
Something a little more adventurous than a f’king floating Las Vegas.
windjammercruises dot com
freightercruises dot com
Back in 2008 I did the Miami trip around the Caribbean with my ex. Never again. The drinks bill at the end was horrendous. Excursions? Half of them weren’t available, the rest was overpriced. The stop in Haiti was hideous, cruise line owned part of the island and used to let in the locals to play some music to earn some magic beans. Jamaica was like driving through a bomb zone to get to a beach resort with overpriced everything. Mexico was an absolute dump. I would compare it to a gilded cage where the cruise line get to shake you down for a week.
So…you’re one of those Awful Americans the goes on cruise ships with the awful, ignorant, vulgar attitude towards other countries that the author warned us about. Right?
You should do it like the 21-23 year old girls and put vodka in your listerine bottle.
Nailed it, might I add most of the cruisers don’t even get off the boat it’s too much work for them. The scene in Wall-E of the cruise ship in space where the obese passengers are being robot fed while watching TV is an excellent comment on this. Either the passengers don’t care or don’t understand what’s really going on its one or both.
They are a floating resort. Nothing more. If I want that I’ll go get a 5 star local and sit by the pool and drink. Without flights, TSA and everything else.
When I was 21 I worked on one. It was good for capturing flags from all the employees. That’s the only positive I have to say.
You would have to pay me for me to go on one as a passenger.
I’m traveling by ferries, it’s good way to meet chicks…
Crusies are aimed toward that segment of the US population that eats at Chili’s once a week and watches 2 and a Half Men. These people have no desire to really explore the world. They just want to relax, blow of some steam and look at pretty stuff.
Are they even looking at pretty stuff though?
I agree. That’s my parents in a nutshell. I love them but boring through and through. That being said, they’ve dragged me on a few. Easy women goldmine.
Weird. I went to sleep and woke up and ROK had suddenly become The Huffington Post. All mindless, sheep like beta-males sneeringly, sneery comments from Internet Warriors about “vulgar”, “suburbanites”, rank disdain for middle America, losers talking about how they holidayed in some thrid world shithole and ate bugs which makes them just So Authentic – because pop culture told them so. With the added bonus of now apparently being a place where there’s a litmus test to being a “King” who is allegedly “returning” from days old olde…which to shave their chests to look like metrosexual little pre-pubescent boys in order to conform to the current effeminate cultural lefts carefully crafted predefined place for “men”.
Oh and all of this hate from an article whose author admits two going on not one, but two cruises himself. Which is 100% more than most of these “fat”, “vulgar”, “suburbanite” Americans that we’re supposed to share his disgust for have ever been on. So if a fat suburbanite has been on one cruise is to draw our ire what are we then to think of the author who has been on two?
Sad.
Do less, alibaba.
But I agree with what you are saying.
Some articles on this site are good but many just seem like Buzzfeed lists thrown together to hate on some aspect of life
Well said, Alibaba! Not bad enough that Trouble looks down his nose at the generations that built this amazing (though in many aspects flawed) civilization, but the two cruses he went on didn’t cost him a dime. He was freeloading. And then complaining about it.
Sure, “old” people are dull in his estimation. That is because he never knew them when they were as randy and stupid as he is now. The “old” folks have carried the burden of working and raising families for a long time and now they get to spend their time and money however they damn-well please. If I live another hundred years, I will never try to impress a 22 year old. Not a male one, anyway.
Really depends on the cruise. If you find the right one leaving out of a major metropolitan port that is not in Florida and there will usually be a lot of young people and easy women. Choose the wrong one and its fat men and old women. Sneak on your own booze (see rum runner products for an example) and you can get a decent peaceful vacation with some action for a decent price.
Hard to sneak in booze, although I heard someone say they brought in vodka in a mouthwash bottle, with some green food coloring in it. They x-ray your luggage, not for weapons or terrorists, but to detect illegal booze. They make money from selling $15 watered-down drinks (that includes the “mandatory gratuity”)
But the point is they really aren’t doing that they’re just doing what they always do at home they just aren’t hum working at their jobs.
And say they have been to a foreign country.
Americans are particularly afraid of travelling because terrorism which was only exacerbated post 911. And a lot of Americans are deathly afraid of travelling by themselves. I remember when I was kid, people use to tell me to get lost. Now when people tell me to get lost I reply with an, “I wish I could”
Afraid of terrorism, and completely oblivious to the fact that they themselves are responsible for it,
Your average Americans only crime is being blissfully unaware, they didn’t cause acts of terrorism
Go fuck yourself
Yeah blissfully unaware they CAUSED IT! Dumbass
Too soon lol
I was a contractor for a boat repair company once and we had to board the cruise ships to do some contract work on the lifeboats (and they are in shit condition, BTW).
What was amazing to see what how freaking fat the passengers are. Seriously. It was an embarrassment. I could get along with the crew when there were no passengers. They are good people, these crew members., They ranged from Southeast Asian to British in nationality with a lot of Russian/Belorussian/Ukrainian in between. Heck if I was not married at the time I could have practiced some serious “when you get shore leave” game with some of the ladies working on those ships.
But when “the Americans” were on-board, their attitudes changed. Ugly Americans? Worse. Fat disgusting ugly Americans with bad attitudes. I would tell the crew “look, we are not all like this. These are the people who are after cheap cruises and doing the $300 for 3 nights special. They are the brainless segment of our society”.
And yes I will say brainless. “Self propelled stomach” is even more accurate. Anybody who can get as fat as a manatee and not look in the mirror and notice this or be like “My God, what happened? I have to do something about this” is brainless.
I think the crew understood that but still, when 99.9 percent of your contact with a culture consists of the worst of the worst, the impression is not going to be good.
If you want to hit the water I am told that liveaboard cruises are better. Bring a lay.
Another way of traveling is to book a spare bunk on a cargo ship. It’s a relativel cheap way to cross the Atlantic.
This is a really good point. I still kind of want to experience a cruise, but that can wait. I have gone on foreign adventures and vacations and I can say those were a lot of fun and produced some great stories to tell.
I did a “cruise” last summer with the wife and two kids under ten. Only it was delivering a 43 foot sail boat 1000 km through the Hudson River, Lake Champlain, the St Lawrence Seaway and the length of lake Ontario. All in a week.
We passaged 27 different locks from hand operated to ones big enough to handle 500′ long ships. We stopped for a few nights when we had to but we also did lots of all night runs as well. Navigating past well over 1000 channel markers and such in that time.
No GPS, just paper charts.
Taught the wife and son to navigate properly with charts, hand bearing compass and a pair of binoculars. Kids both had to help us get through each lock, everyone had a role on the boat all the time and it has to run like that to be safe and happy.
Got to see some really cool backwater bits of New York State and Vermont, not to mention Quebec and meet some neat people along the way. Very pretty in places, very quiet, just our own little world floating along occasionally touching down to meet the locals, the real locals like at a diner in the middle of nowhere in some small farming town.
Included managing hours of storms in the middle of nowhere in the dead of the night, all night, with winds touching 50 knots frequently. while watching coast guard choppers 10 miles away rescuing people. You know, real live adventure shit with the whole family. Some beers, some sights, some hard work, some actual danger, and lots of unknowns along the way.
Best time we’ve ever spent together in along time.
Saw a video on TV once about cruise lines and it showed typical cruise CCTV footage of all the problems with neegroes getting drunk and starting big fights. No security.
Um Yeah.
No thanks.
Are you guys kidding?
1. I wouldn’t recommend anyone spend an entire summer on a cruise but saying ‘Going on a Cruise is Stupid’ is (ironically) stupid. Moreover, comparing a cruise to backpacking or hitchhiking is like comparing apples and oranges; The two are barely related.
2. If recreating a Jack Kerouac novel is your definition of a fruitful summer, common sense would tell you to avoid cruises. However, if fucking random sluts is more your speed, a cruise is a viable option.
3. Whoever thinks that cruises are full of overweight Americans either A. went on the wrong cruise line B. went during the wrong season or year or C. went on a family cruise.
I went on a three-week cruise of the Eastern Caribbean (Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, et al) with my boys, a year or two back and got it in, in a major way.
Sure, we experienced an homogenized version of the culture but if we wanted culture we would have went to fucking Peru. Further, we most definitely fucked wayyy more women (in a shorter span of time) than we would have had we gone to Lima.
Think about it:
You’re on a boat full of women (with their girlfriends) whose sole intention is to tan and fuck a bunch of random guys without their boyfriends finding out.
90% of these girls are good to go as soon as they board the ship; If not for pleasure, at least because of ‘the implication’
They went on a Walmart cruise you must’ve been on the Ron Jeremy cruise tomato tomatoe yet you both ended up with same in the end over-eating and a big liquor bill.
” You’re stuck in the middle of the ocean with hundreds of them for at least three nights in most cases.”
And right there is why I would never go on a cruise. If I want that experience, I’ll go to a big city, bang all I can, and then retreat to my hotel for some peace and quiet. At least I can leave whenever I want. I can’t stand being anyone’s “captive”. On a cruise, you’re paying to be a captive, and the other “inmates” are, by definition, the dumbest f**kers in the world who are also gullible enough to pay to be trapped with strangers in a shiny floating prison. No thank you!
Cruises, to me, indicate a lack of imagination. Kind of like people who only go to Vegas for vacation. Or people who only go to the all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. They also typically pull from the same mouth breather pool that buys timeshares and spends their free time in Disney. I live in FL, if I want to be surrounded by idiots, pay for overpriced everything, stand in endless lines, and gawk at out of control children and overweight Americans I just have to drive to Orlando. 🙂
What you fail to acknowledge is the basic premise of a cruise:
To take a vacation.
va·ca·tion
an extended period of relaxation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling.
Filling your schedule with flights all over the world, dealing with the stress of delayed flights, layovers, dealing with translation issues, passport problems, customs/visa officials, etc is not the average persons idea of a great way to relax.
If you grind your ass 50 weeks a year at some miserable corporate shit job, I think you’ve earned the right to relax and have your every need catered to by staff who’s sole job is to kiss your ass for the duration of your trip.
Your judgement of a persons desire to actually RELAX one their VACATION shows an utter lack of understanding of the definitions of both words.
I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but your critical judgment is mis-applied, and you’re making an ass out of yourself with the argument you present here, and not really connecting with the audience you’re seeking.
The bottom line: The people who will read, understand and agree with you probably aren’t taking cruises, and those who you want to speak to, to convince, persuade, and motivate, will be turned off by your arrogant tone and lack of empathy.
The premise doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
“I don’t like cruises and neither should you,” is what I’m getting out of this.
If a guy takes a vacation and spends that time laying in the middle of the woods sipping margaritas, who am I to judge?
To each his own.
Shorter article: “I don’t like cruises and neither should you and people who go on cruises are revolting”…”now, let me tell you about all the times I’ve been on cruises.”…
The best thing is all the little sheep like beta-males who have poured out of the woodwork in the comments parroting every vapid, shallow urban Pop-Left Approved hatred of Middle America. “Oh their men don’t even shave their chests!”, “Ewww non organic food!”.
The author is some Asian computer nerd, he doesn’t know shit, but talks like he does. Take his articles and his opinion with a grain of salt. He is by far the worst poster on ROK. Ever seen his site? LMAO. We’re supposed to be impressed because this limpdick went to Europe, ONCE. And spent like 2 days in each city. 22 year old spoiled ass Cali fag and thinks he has something important to say…just LOL.
That’s the sad truth behind more than a few of the authors here
I still read ROK for the good ones I guess
Yeah, pretty much. Cruises (assuming you avoid Carnival) are a nice way to kick back and relax for a week out in the ocean and sun without having to spend a ton of money. Yeah, the food was mostly crap and there were quite a few people on our boat approaching spherical dimensions, but I had a nice relaxing week, got to see some beautiful locales, and had lots of sex. No complaints here – saving up to go on another someday soon.
The kind of people who enjoy cruises are the kind I’d rather not run into on my travels. So I have no problem leaving them to their floating casino “adventures”.
I have never been on a cruise and don’t really desire to. I did take a Globus bus tour of Italy once, which I enjoyed. Most mornings were with whatever museum/church tour and most afternoons you could either go out on your own in whatever city you were in or buy their experiences.
I don’t feel a particular need to immerse myself in the culture, to which you would actually need years. I just like to see their art/ taste their food, and learn a bit about the history.
Cruises are great if you’re older and like having activities planned for you.
When you’re younger and spontaneous, not so much.
The “see Rome in X hours” comment is right – you can’t see a place like Rome in hours, not even in a long weekend (unlike Prague, where you can basically walk anywhere, Rome’s massive). And it’s not much fun being hurried about on a coach tour and herded into the tourist traps. It’s much better when you can take your time and wander wherever your fancy takes you.
Is there an underlying message I’m not getting? This just sounds like a subjective opinion piece.
You don’t like cruises and you have a right not to, but I don’t see anything wrong with them if you enjoy what they have to offer.
Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum.
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
It takes different strokes to move the world. 🙂
It’s akin to saying vanilla ice cream sucks.
Common people want to spend the ten days they get off work each year spending money, eating, and fucking. We have 24-hour lighting and nice clean clothing made in China, but most people are still peasantry with peasant attitudes.
I am going on a cruise, but in my country, we don’t have the ugly fat American. I don’t know if sleeping and eating in the most expensive excluded part of ship is still considered a crap sort of vacation. Our cruise is 112 days around the world. My mother and late father went on this liner and trip in the early 1980’s, so we wanted to take it as well..
Stupid, narcissistic, commericialist, and superficial anti-vacation. The popularity of cruises speaks volumes about the vapid and horrid values of modern americans. Carnivals of self-indulgence, on water. Unsurprisingly, they market heavily to single, divorced, widowed females… because of course they are going to meet mr right on the Captain’s Dance Floor and then etc etc.
Cheers.
Went on one cruise when I was a kid, got horrible food poisoning from some tainted crab.
NEVER AGAIN
I worked as chief officer (1st mate) on a cruise ship for a few months, about 10 years ago. Horrible pay. I’m a tanker captain now, and my lowest paid crewman (the cook’s helper) makes more than I made as 1st officer. On the other hand, I had hot-and-cold running women on hand to choose from. I averaged about 2 new bangs a week. Difficult to manage with the workload- the mate handles everything to do with the ship’s operations except for hotel, engineering and navigation management. I think I slept about 3 hours a night on average.
With cruises, you get what you pay for. It’s relatively cheap travel, modest quality food but a lot of it, and some opportunities for light fun with friends or family. That’s about it. You CAN pick up some amazingly hot 3rd world nationals that work as stewards and maids, even as one of the cattle that pass through every 6 days. And if you’re not bloated and grotesque, talk to the shop staff and find out where they unwind in port. I couldn’t touch any of my crew because of harassment liabilities, but the decent looking staff were complete whores. We had a couple of fireships- wholesome-looking American or Brit shopgirls with the clap, who infected 40 something guys in just 2 tours. I had to overnight boxes of pap smears and urethral swabs and stuff to the CDC, so wrap it.
So, based on all that, if you’re not a complete slob and can afford to not live in your mom’s basement, a cruise actually isn’t a bad way to spend a week. Not every adventure has to end up following the plot line of Romancing The Stone. It’s something worth doing once as a young man, and then once again as an old fart.
In my early 20’s I didn’t know any better.
Now I know that the price of a cruise will get me a round-trip ticket to Asia, and depending on the circumstances all the other expenses won’t be very much more that the alcohol tab of the cruise would have been anyways.
try another article when you are 40 and have something to offer.
I admit I took my first seven cruises courtesy of the US Navy, but going out on the ocean for fun can be fun. Just decide what you want to do and do it.
It’s possible to stay paleo/atkins on a cruise, and to keep in shape… once that’s taken care of, hooking up with the crew or in the stops can be as fun as a week in wroclaw. admittedly it’s more of an older guy’s vacation, but just because it’s not your idea of fun doesn’t mean another man might not enjoy the hell out of it.
You probably hate golfing too.
Who wants to be around a bunch of obese suburbanites out in the ocean?
No thanks
I agree cruises are stupid but you lost me with the hairy chest thing.The only thing a man should shave is his beard and that’s only when he wants to.
Not me. I’m in shape and I think a neat, trim appearance is good.
But then on the other hand, whatever women would find more attractive I would be interested in. Haven’t heard a definitive answer about that, though.
well, that’s like, your opinion man
tip: don’t work a shitty job where you only get two weeks of vacation
Wow, wish I thought of that. Beta, keep your unoriginal thoughts to yourself if you have nothing to add to the discourse.
“beta” says the guy who is apparently a slave to a shitty job
I’m paid well for my shitty job. I don’t equate that with slavery, since I know that means work where you are not paid, and are not free to quit. Only a woman or beta would exaggerate to that extent.
Cruises are pretty gay. And be honest, most guys are going with their girl or family- so how much fun are you really going to have? Its not a vacation until I get AWAY from the bitch
Agree 100% in fact what I did on my last trip was to learn how to sail yachts in the Caribbean. Way more fun too and sailing a 50′ yacht awesome. I did laugh at the many floating eyesore cruise ships that were in the area. Fortunately, we were able to steer clear of them and the hordes of fat tourists.
Not only all that but a cruise is a great place to disappear and wind up on Unsolved Mysteries. People get drugged, assaulted, washed overboard, sold into the flesh trade in weird countries, etc. frequently. Google “cruise disappearances.” When you disappear at sea you’re in a jurisdictional phantom zone. The cruise companies don’t want the bad press so they won’t prolong any investigation and will push people to sign documents releasing them from culpability. That plus the potential for a stomach virus outbreak tells me I’d feel safer on a commercial jet with one failed engine than on a cruise ship.
Hey, I like my hairy chest…
If you’re considerably older than a girl, and she’s with you, chances are she’d prefer the hairy chest. She’s gets it, you’re older, and she’s not with you in spite of it. Own it, amplify it!
Been on four cruises. Three of which were family vacations and not by choice. Trouble_maker is right about fat americans and the generally bland experience.
But it’s easy to get laid. Two of the vacations I went single. The first one, I banged, had oral sex, or got unlucky with a prude chick I couldn’t close EVERY single night. The second one I wasn’t as successful but had sex with one and oral sex with another.
Yeah if you want adventure or want to experience another culture, don’t go on a cruise. If you just want to lay back, get catered to, get drunk and have a ton of easy women running around, go on a cruise with a few of your boys.
Going on a cruise is like being in jail w/ the chance of drowning.
Like everything else, you get what you pay for in a cruise.
There are a lot of different options. There are some very upscale cruises, including upscale with the focus on singles. Now, you may prefer to spend you money on another type of vacation, but not all cruises are alike and they are not all full of your typical fugly American whales-on-boats (OK, there are always some of them on any ship, but some have a lot less).
I have traveled in so many different ways. From expensive business travel to bumming around with a back pack. A high end cruise has its place. Just make sure you research the hell out of it to make sure you are getting what you want.
cruise ships are form banging DTF girls. No other reason why you would want to cruise.
Concise and brutally honest. Nice article!
That dolphin must be fucking rich by now. Little bastard.
I have to say that while this “article” brings up some good points going on a Cruise is certainly not stupid if you just want to relax. I was lucky enough to go on a Cruise in Alaska in 2011 for a week and I have to honestly say it was the best trip of my life. Sure some of the excursions are expensive but then again a cruise is something you do rarely maybe once every 5 years. Apart from the food sickness of the first few days i loved it more so than any other vacation I have had.(And I have been in Europe and other places before) If you didn’t enjoy your cruise then I guess it depends alot where you took it in the first place or your expectations of it.
No! Cruises are awesome! We in the Caribbean love tourists stopping by so we can profit
The author just sounds like a hater. Sneak your own alcohol on board.
Your price figures are horrendously wrong as well, most people get their cruise tickets for dirt cheap when the cruise like starts needing to fill cabins.
Why the hate? Take a cruise for what it is, a boat where you get shitfaced and sleep with women looking to whore around (if younger) or cheat (if older)
I’ve heard they xray the bags to detect alcohol although they may give you a claim form so you can get it after the cruise is over.
The author has a lot of good points but I would highly recommend a cruise for the honeymoon. The food and entertainment is no extra charge and you don’t feel guilty about staying in your room and ravishing your wife bc you a way sea anyway. I’ve had too many friends that went to Hawaii or New York and spent soo much time sightseeing instead of consummating the marriage.
You nailed it. Trapped in a shopping mall for a week, with bad food and pushy people. I guess some folks think this is “fun” – I don’t get it. I felt trapped and with all the cameras and whatnot, it seemed I was being monitored all the time. A very weird experience.
http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2014/04/why-cruises-are-idiotic.html
I wouldn’t mind going on a transoceanic voyage to somewhere, with the sole purpose of getting from Point A to Point B for a set fee, and then stay in another country for a few weeks, and then board another to get from Point B, back to Point A. Just “cruising” as a vacation is redundant. #1, it’s wasteful of the fuel the ships have to burn, and #2, it’s way too commercialized. Whatever happened to the old days, when people boarded ocean liners (NOT cruise ships) to get from place to place- not to sit out in an Americanized ocean “paradise,” but rather to actually experience travelling?