First, there's the Being On A Cruise thing. That's like being in a fancy hotel with about three times as much staff per person as a fancy hotel. There is as much food as you can eat for free whenever you want (except for alcohol, which is understandably non-free, and soda, which is more inexplicably non-free though it is cans rather than fountains); there's breakfast buffet or Served Breakfast in the main dining room, and lunch buffet, and high tea in the dining room, and tacos out by the pool, and dinner buffet or Served Dinner (though Mike pointed out to us that one can ask for two desserts or two appetizers or whatever, rather than the traditional one from each category on the menu), and late night snack buffet and ice cream all the time and about a dozen bars and also the chocolate drinks (oh, more non-free) down by the jewelry store. Not to mention, whenever there's a group somewhere (which includes things like standing in line for the show) waiters will wander by asking if you want drinks from the bar. So, it's really pretty over-the-top that way. The food ranges between decent (except for the key lime pie, which tastes like sorrow (not my quote)) and quite good, with an extra non-free dinner which is Really Darned Good based on a fancy NYC restaurant. My bar for perfect food is pretty high, because there are a lot of really good restaurants in Boston, and it's probably hard to serve dinner to a thousand people at a time really fast, so I can't blame them for that only being quite good. So, food. And two swimming pools, and a spa; Jerry likes the massage, Marleigh likes the heated chairs, Mike gets his hair cut. And the dozen bars is actually also basically "a dozen smaller cozy spaces you can go and hang out in comfy chairs and smaller groups". Many of them also have musicians. And there's the main cruise shows;we tended to not go to those, but the bit I saw could be described as a non-edgy comedian. The Indonesian Crew Show (the officers are Dutch, the crew is Indonesian) was neat, and had more of an amateur-real-person feel to it. There's a wine tasting. There's cooking classes. There's yoga. There's lounge chairs to sit on the deck and watch the ocean. And then there's the actual Places Where the Boat Stops. The first is Half Moon Cay - pretty much all cruise ships have a private island, and this one is Holland America's, so it's beach and excursions, and the food is also free. The later ones are Aruba (which seems to be a giant diamond store) and Curacao (which is a brightly colored Dutch town) Excursions means things like "snorkeling" or "horseback ride in the surf" or "swim with manta rays" or "visit the ostrich farm" or things like that. Jerry and I did excursions last time, but just wandered around in a little group. (Jamaica, last trip, is apparently not great for wandering around in; people tried to sell Mike drugs and harassed Marleigh).
Anyway, that's the "cruise" side of things. If the being catered too by a tropical beach hotel thing doesn't just skeeve you out, it's really pretty relaxing. Hmm, I wonder if this is going to be too long for a comment.
more about cruise
First, there's the Being On A Cruise thing. That's like being in a fancy hotel with about three times as much staff per person as a fancy hotel. There is as much food as you can eat for free whenever you want (except for alcohol, which is understandably non-free, and soda, which is more inexplicably non-free though it is cans rather than fountains); there's breakfast buffet or Served Breakfast in the main dining room, and lunch buffet, and high tea in the dining room, and tacos out by the pool, and dinner buffet or Served Dinner (though Mike pointed out to us that one can ask for two desserts or two appetizers or whatever, rather than the traditional one from each category on the menu), and late night snack buffet and ice cream all the time and about a dozen bars and also the chocolate drinks (oh, more non-free) down by the jewelry store. Not to mention, whenever there's a group somewhere (which includes things like standing in line for the show) waiters will wander by asking if you want drinks from the bar. So, it's really pretty over-the-top that way. The food ranges between decent (except for the key lime pie, which tastes like sorrow (not my quote)) and quite good, with an extra non-free dinner which is Really Darned Good based on a fancy NYC restaurant. My bar for perfect food is pretty high, because there are a lot of really good restaurants in Boston, and it's probably hard to serve dinner to a thousand people at a time really fast, so I can't blame them for that only being quite good. So, food. And two swimming pools, and a spa; Jerry likes the massage, Marleigh likes the heated chairs, Mike gets his hair cut. And the dozen bars is actually also basically "a dozen smaller cozy spaces you can go and hang out in comfy chairs and smaller groups". Many of them also have musicians. And there's the main cruise shows;we tended to not go to those, but the bit I saw could be described as a non-edgy comedian. The Indonesian Crew Show (the officers are Dutch, the crew is Indonesian) was neat, and had more of an amateur-real-person feel to it. There's a wine tasting. There's cooking classes. There's yoga. There's lounge chairs to sit on the deck and watch the ocean. And then there's the actual Places Where the Boat Stops. The first is Half Moon Cay - pretty much all cruise ships have a private island, and this one is Holland America's, so it's beach and excursions, and the food is also free. The later ones are Aruba (which seems to be a giant diamond store) and Curacao (which is a brightly colored Dutch town) Excursions means things like "snorkeling" or "horseback ride in the surf" or "swim with manta rays" or "visit the ostrich farm" or things like that. Jerry and I did excursions last time, but just wandered around in a little group. (Jamaica, last trip, is apparently not great for wandering around in; people tried to sell Mike drugs and harassed Marleigh).
Anyway, that's the "cruise" side of things. If the being catered too by a tropical beach hotel thing doesn't just skeeve you out, it's really pretty relaxing. Hmm, I wonder if this is going to be too long for a comment.