8 Fun Ways to Recreate a Cruise at Home

The hardest part of any cruise vacation is the inevitable disembarkation and return home to reality, but you can keep the spirit of the voyage alive with some classic and new ways to recreate it.

Bedding

Did you love your bed at sea? Several companies from Carnival Cruise Line to Oceania Cruises actually sell their bedding collections including the mattresses themselves. Even Princess Cruises plans to sell its new Princess Luxury Bed in the near future to bring the comfort home.

Virtual Balcony

Just as you can pull up a screensaver of fireplaces for those without, you can use your television to display a high-definition photo or video of the view outside the ship from your cruise. That way you can effectively make it in to a virtual balcony to peer out from. You can even extend this to a slideshow of all your favorite vacation images on rotation.

[READMORE]READ MORE: Is It Cheaper to Cruise Than Stay Home?[/READMORE]

Towel Animals

Here's a fun one. Several cruise lines playfully fold bath towels onboard into animal shapes. For those who haven't seen it, think balloon animals made from towels. Classes on the subject and how-to books can bring the craft home so you can hang a monkey from the ceiling and have it wear your sunglasses.

Art Auction

A suggestion that's an oldie but a goodie is to take all the artwork down from your walls and hold a make-believe art auction. Best of all, even if you get outbid, you know the piece is yours. So, get yourself a gavel and start selling those paintings to an audience full of towel animals.

Home Theater

Chances are you don't have a stage handy to invite a troupe of singers and dancers to perform live on or an IMAX screen hanging high from above, but you just might have the next best thing: a home theater system. Put on your favorite movie or concert, crank up that sound and to add some pizzazz, get some flash lights with colored plastic wrap to swing around the room and rent a fog machine to catch the illuminated beams.

[READMORE]READ MORE: 7 Cruise Embarkation Tips[/READMORE]

Recipes

Many cruise lines share their recipes with guests and are also available online, so if you want to enjoy some fine dining at home, you can cook it up for yourself. Especially, if you've learned from the master chefs how to do so while onboard, here's a perfect opportunity to put your new skills to the test.

Take-Out

Alternatively, you could just order take-out from your favorite local restaurant or order a pizza delivery and pretend it's complimentary room service, to enjoy in conjunction with your home theater entertainment, of course.

Survey

After you've recreated some of your favorite cruise experiences, you might even recap it all by evaluating how well it turned out. Just like those post-cruise surveys, you can judge the delivery of goods and services at home. I just woudn't expect it to be pulled from a drawing to win a free cruise afterwards.

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