Types Of Cruise Vacations
What are good family cruise vacations?
There are a number of terrific family cruise vacations, and they are so broad that it would be hard to focus in on it. Whether it is a luxury cruise, a contemporary cruise or a premium cruise, all of them cater to family these days, and it really depends as some destinations are a little bit more interesting for children. As an example, sometimes people want to go to Europe and they have children that are six and seven - there is nothing wrong with that, but to what extent will a six year old really appreciate Europe, and how are they going to spend their time? A lot of that depends on the parents and what experience they want for their children, and what they think their kids are capable of - different kids have different tolerances. At the same time, even for those types of cruises, many of the cruise ships allow you to have your child stay on board the ship if you go ashore. If you are in a port of call, you can leave your children in the care of the Childrens Councellor of the kids program on board the ship. The kids are going to have fun and games, they'll be fed, they can take their naps, and you can go off the ship and enjoy yourself.
When is the best time for families to go on a cruise?
There's no best time for families to go on a cruise. However, a typical question is will there be other children on board if I take a cruise at a certain point of time on this particular itinerary. The easy answer to that is if you're travelling over summer break, if you're travelling over the holiday periods, there are always much more children on board if it's a cruise that caters for the kids. If you're travelling off season, outside of those time windows, when school is in session, it's less likely that you'll have children on board. The reverse is also true for seniors. Lets say, you want to take a cruise and don't want to be on a cruise with lots of children. We would suggest that you avoid the holiday cruises. We would encourage you to look at times when school is in session, because there'll be a less chance that there'll be children on board.
What are popular party cruise vacations?
Everybody can make a party on any cruise that they choose to take. However, some people ask, What are party cruises? To that I'd say, typically a two or three day cruise. You can find them on the West Coast, you can find them on the East Coast, to the Bahamas. Often, those become party cruises because people are just looking for a weekend getaway. Some destinations are more prone to being party-oriented. I would say the Caribbean, because the Caribbean cruise is more of a beach type of vacation. People motivated to do a Caribbean cruise are often not looking for cultural experiences, but for beach experiences. On the other hand, if you go to Europe, or you go to Alaska, you can have a party, and you can have a great time, but there's a lot more to the concept of what I'm going to do there - I'm looking for a little bit more intellectual stimulation or I want to enjoy nature, as opposed to just having a good time on the beach.
What are popular cruise tour vacations?
One of the developments in the industry has also been combining a cruise with a land vacation experience, which we call cruise tours. For years, they have been very popular in Alaska. Alaska is a destination that you have to really cruise to, because you can only see Alaska from either the air or from a ship. Juneau, the capital of Alaska, you cannot even drive into. You can only fly into Juneau, or take a ship there. It's such a rugged country. It's become very popular to combine an Alaska cruise with a land tour. On the land tour, you get on a train or a motor coach, and you tour the interior of Alaska. What is very popular is Mount McKinley, better known as Denali, the local name, to see the mountain, and to see nature and wildlife. That's a very common experience. Europe, now, has seen an incredible growth in cruise tour vacations where you can combine a cruise of Europe with a land vacation, because you cannot get to all of Europe by ship or by sea. That's becoming popular in different parts of the world.
What are popular active cruise vacations?
Cruises can be as active as you care to be. Today's cruise ships offer a lot of opportunities to be active right on board the ship. We have rock climbing walls on some ships, and we have ice skating rinks on some ships. We have surf rider machines on some ships. We even have a boxing ring on a ship, where you can spar on the cruise ship. There's a lot of developments - this is in addition to fitness centers where you can do cardio workouts, you can do yoga, pilates, and spinning. All of these things are available right on board the cruise ships. Separate of what you can do on board the ship, depending on where the cruise goes, you can have a very active vacation on land. On Alaska cruises you can do a site seeing tour, but you can also do mountain biking, you can do river rafting, and you can do kayaking. In different parts of the world, there are different opportunities to do very active sorts of things.
What are popular budget cruise vacations?
People that have never been on a cruise or on a very tight budget often come to us and say, "What's a cheap cruise?", and that varies; it varies on time of year, it varies where they live. I'm on the west coast so its very easy to hop on a ship for a two day or three day cruise off the west coast or people who live in Florida, its very easy for them. But if you live in the middle of the country, you have to fly, you have to get on the airplane and that can cost a few hundred dollars just to get anywhere so it really depends where people are residing, where they have to go to get on a ship. However, you can get a two or three day cruise for $149, $199 at certain times of the year per person. And there have been offers that are even less than $100 per person per day for all your food, your accommodations and all your activities. That's an incredible value.
What are the different types of cruse ships?
There are a variety of cruise ships. The first category would be large versus small. The larger ships aren't necessarily better, but chances are they have more bells and whistles. When we're talking about the ships that have rock climbing walls and ice-skating rinks, those are large ships: you can't afford to do that on a very small ship because there's not enough people to support that kind of activity. On a small ship, on the other hand, you have a sense of exclusiveness, and a sense of intimacy. You may not have all the bells and whistles of a large ship, but a lot of people don't like to travel with lots of other people, and they want their privacy. To them, that's more romantic. For some people, being on a large ship with all the bells and whistles is more romantic. You have different types of ships - you even have yachting experiences. There's a cruise line that has sails that passengers can hoist if they want to. They're not obligated to do so, but a lot of people get into it and that's part of the experience for them, is to go out and hoist those sails. They want to be able to come back from their vacation and say Guess what I did? There's quite a bit of variety.
What are the benefits of a large cruise ship?
The wonderful thing about today's large cruise ships is they have so many amenities: miniature golf, electronic golf cages, incredible spas, rock climbing walls, roller rinks, ice skating rinks. There's a lot of different variety and there's no limit to the creativity. There's now a ship that came out this year that has a bowling alley - the first ever - and a couple years ago a ship came out with billiard tables. People always wondered how can you play billiards at sea? Yet it is a billiard table that is actually designed so that it moves to the ship so that in fact, the balls are stable and it's as if you're playing on land.
What are the drawbacks of a large cruise ship?
I would say the actual drawbacks are when a ship comes into port of call and there's three thousand people on a ship and they all want to get off. It's a little bit of a mess. The cruise lines take very good care of it. It's very well managed. But there's a lot of difference between coming to port on a ship with three thousand people and coming in with three hundred people. So getting on and off the ship, it's not a problem, but it's just a lot more movement going on and so for some people that can be a drawback. When at the end of the cruise when everybody is ready to get off the ship, it's three thousand people getting off the ship with all their hand luggage and again there a ways that different cruise lines organize this and they do it very well. They've done it for years, but it's not the kind of experience that some people would really like to end their vacation with. So it's not so much a drawback. It's just the reality of dealing with that many people. Some people might think about how three thousand people eat. Well, that's not a problem, there are multiple dining venues. There are some ships now that have a dozen restaurants on board. So your not necessarily in a dining room with three thousand people. That's never the case. Seating is staggered, there's multiple dining venues. So again, it goes to the concept of being on a ship that's that large and having a sense of not being on a ship that's that large.
What are the benefits of a small cruise ship?
Small ship cruising is quite popular, and it's often popular with experienced cruisers. They've done the big ship and they want a more intimate, exclusive experience. It's also popular with people that don't want a casino. Getting in and out of places, a small ship is able to navigate places where a big ship cannot. So taking a very popular destination, like Alaska; a small ship cruise to Alaska doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a big ship, but the ship can navigate closer to a glacier, it can navigate up certain smaller straights where you might find wildlife that may not be readily seen or available to the larger channels where a large ship cruises. So there are pros and cons both ways.
What are the drawbacks of a small cruise ship?
Small ships is a very broad category - a lot of different things fall into that. For river cruises in Europe, obviously a large ship can't go down a canal in Europe, so if that's the kind of itinerary you want to do, you're obviously going to be drawn to the smaller ship, and it doesn't matter that it doesn't have a casino or it doesn't have certain bells and whistles, because you're looking for that experience.
What is the difference in living space on a large or small cruise ship?
A space ratio is how much space there is - how much elbow room, per passenger on a ship. You can be on a large ship and have a terrific amount of elbow room, and you can be on a large ship and have very little. There are luxury ships that carry 1,000 people that are as large as ships that carry 3,000 people. On the ship with 1,000 people, you have triple the space, and that makes it a more luxurious experience. On a small ship, the same is true. You can have some small ships where space is extremely compact, and you can have small ships where there's quite a bit of comparable elbow room. It would be inaccurate to say that on a small ship, I'm going to be cramped, and on a big ship I'm going to have lots of room. It depends on the space ratio, and that ranges from ship to ship. Luxury ships that you pay more for, generally have a lot more space per passenger, and the more economical cruise lines are going to try to get as many people as they can.
