Cruise Tips And Advice: Why And When Cruising Is Better Than Land Based Vacations

This morning I did an interview with Heather Cowper of the heatheronhertravels.com travel blog and podcast about cruise tips and advice for first time cruisers and cruising for her popular podcast series. I have been following Heather’s blog for a while, although only got to meet her in person at the Travel Blogger Exchange Conference in Girona Spain earlier in the year for the first time.

I will share the link to the podcast once it is posted, but thought the questions she asked were pertinent and helpful for people looking at cruising. So here are some of the thoughts and topics that I spoke about to help people interested in cruising. Once the podcast is available you will be able to listen to that, instead of reading the tips if that is something you prefer.

P&O Arcadia Cruise Ship at Basseterre (Capital of St Kitts)

How did I get into cruising?

•  The first cruise I ever did was when I attended a marketing conference on the P&O ship Aurora in 2004. The Richmond Events conference company hires out a whole ship every year for 3 nights to run a conference of talks, meetings and training. I loved it.
• I then Convinced my less than enthusiastic partner to try a short “taster” cruise based on this, and we enjoyed it so much that we then booked a transatlantic crossing on the QE2 for December that year. It was a very rough crossing with 30 and 4 foot waves, but did not put us off. We been on coming up for about 20 cruises since then. Mostly on Cunard that I adore.

 What do I love about cruising, and what makes it different from other vacations?

• Being at sea. For me the best part of cruising are the sea days, and will always choose cruises with a lot of sea days. The experience and pace of life with a series of sea days is amazing. You truly can unwind and relax, as it is peaceful, there is no-where to go, internet connection is too slow to really bother with and phones are largely off (as costs a bomb to use). You unwind and relax like you never do on land.

• Get to see places that can be hard to see by land. For example, a Norwegian Fjords cruise will get you to see 3 or 4 or more places within the Fjords and the incredible scenery through the Fjords you cannot do by land.

• Region Taster. It is great to get a taster for a number of places in a region and then decide which you want to go back and spend time at and really explore. For example, it can be hard to decide which Caribbean island you want to commit to going to for 2 weeks. But if you go on a cruise around the area you will see 5 or 6 islands, explore for a day and decide which you want to invest more time and money in.

• People. Very friendly and sense of community. People are more chatty and friendly as have a shred interest and focus – much more than on land based holidays.

• Diversity of things to do – all within a short walking distance. It is a one stop total city experience where everything you want is within a few hundred metres and huge range. Fine dining. West End Style Shows. Variety of bars. Shops. Lectures. All night partying. Fitness centre. Spa etc. Everything.

•  Variety. For people that prefer not to stay in one place a cruise means they can see many places without the hassle of packing and unpacking, changing hotels etc.

I have a huge amount of cruising tips and advice on the blog. Visit the CRUISING tab at the top of the page for more links and articles.