I’ve long avoided cruising, based on the stereotypes of being 4,000 schmucks on some overly packed boat. Though I could change my mind later eventually. Interesting and original, different discussion to have otherwise.
I have only taken one cruise (so far) as discussed above but the highlights for me were the port calls and associated excursions. I would recommend that if you choose to take a cruise thoroughly research where the cruise makes port calls and what activities are available there. Cheers!
The first cruise my wife and I ever did was aboard a Norwegian ship out of Honolulu. The experience was much like what you just described, and based on that experience, we decided ocean cruises probably weren't for us. However, we've subsequently discovered riverboat cruises, which have much smaller ships and more personalized service (we feel). Excursions have been better and more interesting as well. Its completely changed our mind about cruising.
I have found that Oceania was rather lax when visiting ports and bringing back a few beers. On another line I was directed with my booty to see someone else in the check in lane, but seeing no one eyeing me I just walked on. The best, tho, was on a Uniworld river cruise. In Amsterdam I found a great beer bar/store and loaded up a couple dozen. Managed to stagger the half mile to the ship and went right in with the many Belgian bottles and my new beer glass. Made a nice trip for beer tasting. But wait! than you go thru Germany and every day there is a different tavern or brewery to try.
To the best of my knowledge, Uniworld has no prohibition about bringing wine and beer aboard. Guests have access to unlimited alcohol on board (with no additional charge), so there would be little point in prohibiting guests from bringing on alcohol. Oceania was different. We just got back from an Oceania trip last month, which started in Hong Kong. If memory serves, I think each passenger could bring on board a "reasonable" amount of wine and beer. My recollection is that reasonable in this case was 3 bottles of wine per person (can't recall the beer allowance). They didn't seem to be all that concerned about passengers "skulking" on board with a bunch of alcohol, so I'm not at all surprised that they didn't pay close attention to your carry on alcohol. Their cocktail, wine and beer prices on board weren't all that outlandish, leading me to believe that this wasn't an area where they were hoping to make a huge profit.
Norwegian Cruise Lines does not permit you to bring alcohol onboard from port of call visits for on ship consumption. You can buy it but they 'confiscate' it and give it back to you when you reach the final destination (home port). Cheers!
Seeing as I’m already anti-social and don’t know how to swim, I think my only option would be staying at home.
The best part about cruise ships is not being on them. The destinations they go to are so much more amazing during the hours before the tourists are let off the boat and after they return and so the cruise tourists don’t get to experience that-they just get the massive crowds. Going on a cruise and complaining about the craft options is like going on a safari and complaining about the strip clubs.
Cute/clever analogy, but inaccurate. Many cruise lines (Oceania for example) make a big deal of their food and beverage options. While they also offer shore excursions, they really tend to promote all the onboard amenities (which are pretty impressive). Oceania brags about their Wine Spectator award winning, wine friendly cuisine and cellar, and they typically offer several wine focused dinners. So I don't see why craft beer options shouldn't (or couldn't) be important and the focal point of certain cruise lines and tours. As for your comment about the hordes of tourists offloading at various popular ports of call, I think this is a common misconception. There are no massive crowds offloading from Riverboats... they typically hold just a few hundred people and the excursions are done in small groups (usually around 20 or 30). A few just consist of walking into town, but most entail taking a shuttle bus to nearby destinations. Even the larger Ocean going ships... I think you'd be surprised by the relatively small number of passengers that actually leave the boat (and even then, they typically don't leave all at once). Some will go on private excursions, while others may go on ship sponsored tours. Sure, some people get off the boat and simply hit the first cafe, bar or restaurant they come to, and those places tend to get a bit overwhelmed by tourists, but in my experience this isn't as pervasive as you might think and it doesn't last long. Granted, you're only getting a small sampling of the local culture on these cruiseline tours, but it can still be pretty interesting and fun. If you really enjoy the experience, you can always come back later or extend your trip to see more of the port (this is what we did in Paris, Bordeaux and Lyon).
I haven’t done a cruise since 2014. That was on Disney. The only “decent” option was Murphys in the Irish Pub. Then they ran out of nitro gas a day in and I pretty much just drank Stella and wine the rest of the time.
It’s not a misconception when it comes to larger seafaring ships. It’s the plain truth. I’ve seen Princess Cruises bring bus load after bus load of tourists into town and dump them for the day. This was pre-Covid in Talkeetna, AK so things might be different now. Still see plenty of tour buses in Fairbanks in the summertime, but it’s a much, much larger town so the impact isn’t nearly as drastic.
My wife has an uncle who works at a Skagway gift store (in season). As you probably know, it's a pretty small town (just over a thousand residents), and all the large tour lines stop there. There's not a whole lot to do there, and so of course the town is inundated with tourists whenever a ship drops anchor there. In a small town like that, I'll grant you you're going to see hordes of tourists whenever a large cruise ship comes into port. However, in my experience, this is not a widespread, common phenomenon.
My wife and I visited Cape Breton (Nova Scotia) a number of years ago and there is a town (port) called Sydney. When a cruise ship arrives the restaurants and bar get quite busy, but not overcrowded (maybe those were smaller cruise ships?). Cheers!
I've never been big on cruises. I love my AI AO Caribbean resorts. But I've always wanted to explore like a Rhine River cruise or whatever over in Europe (I've visited Europe, wife has never been). That type of cruise would be more my speed. Or a Med Sea cruise that hit Spain, Italy, and Greece.
The folks at Viking will hook you right up. Just be aware that once you get on their mailing list, you'll be getting daily emails from them and weekly snail mail pamphlets. They're relentless.
Have you tried to unsubscribe from them? In the recent past I was getting 'bombarded' by emails from Norwegian Cruise Lines and the unsubscribe feature solved that issue. Cheers!
I'm not going to pretend I know anything about what goes on on cruises, outside the fact I don't care to ever go on one. Though places like Barcelona are on an anit tourism and cruise mindset right now, because it is over run with them. They can have multiple cruises dock around the same time, and that causes a lot of over crowding. Of course, if the cruise companies and Barcelona could try and stagger those drop offs, that would help, and Barcelona itself has been highly dependent on tourism since the Olympics in the 90's. So an argument could be made they brought it on themselves somewhat. This is all second hand knowledge from articles and YouTube videos I happened to read/watch, but its seems like over crowding is an issue in some spots because of this. Just wanted to throw that out there...
Part of some of those cities wanting to ban cruise ships is the mass influx of day tourists stresses their resources and they don’t feel they contribute enough to the local economy- they aren’t buying groceries, staying at the hotels, having breakfast or dinner at restaurants, etc.
