I donât remember exactly when or even why my husband and I decided to take a cruise. We had never been on a cruise ship. We didnât know anyone who had ever been on a cruise ship. We knew nothing about cruising. I do know it was a long time ago. There werenât any cruise websites or message boards back then. Booking a cruise online was unheard of.
So, we made our way past the dinosaurs to our local brick and mortar travel agency. The nice lady there said she was going to
ask us a few simple questions. She asked things like;
Nice lady: âWhere do you normally vacation?â
Me: âIn front of the T.V. We could never afford a vacation before.â
Nice lady: âWould you like an inside or outside cabin?â
Me: [laughing]âŚâWhat! Thereâs no penthouse?â
Nice lady: âHow much have you budgeted for this?â
Me: âI dunno. Canât we use a credit card?â
Nice lady: [smiling]âŚâOf course you can!â
She said she would take care of everything for us. We wouldnât have to lift a finger â other than to sign the credit card slip.
One day, a package arrived. Wow! It was a very impressive leather folder with gold embossed writing on it. Everything we needed for our cruise was inside. It held our airline tickets, our hotel bookings, our insurance papers and our limo service instructions. We couldnât wait to see where we were going for a glorious week of beautiful
Caribbean island hopping.
Huh?…Departing Boston?…New England ports of call?…Aw, câmon! Rhode Island? Really?…five days!…Penthouse suite? [big mouth]âŚHow much?
Blame it on youth. Blame it on inexperience. (I really donât want to say âstupidityâ â itâs true but I donât want to say it.) But guess what? We had the time of our lives! It was a blast. Short but sweet.
We came away from that first cruise with so many wonderful memories and many lessons learned. I think one of the most important things I learned back then was how to pack for a cruise.
Here are a few things I always bring/pack:
as many smiles as I can squeeze into my already overstuffed
suitcases (I always bring extras in case someone needs one – I give them one of mine)
a sense of humor (I swear I would simply curl up and die if I ever spent a day without laughing)
lots of 10W40 (I spray this all over myself so that any little
aggravations will just slide right off me)
a boatload of patience (I’m often very frugal with this the rest of the time but I save as much up as I can just for cruising)
a ton of thanks!(that I am in a position to cruise in the first place)
a credit card (in case none of the above works, I can always order a drink!)