I recently had the privilege of taking a cruise with two of my best friends: one is a world traveler and the other had never been on an airplane before, and all of us are in our mid-twenties.
Both have never cruised before, whereas I had grown up cruising, since my mother is a travel advisor. Besides discovering new ships, cruise lines and new destinations, I was familiar with every part of the cruising process, and nothing surprised me much.
Yet cruising with two new cruisers reminded me of the magic of that first experience.
I watched them gaze out at the sea from windows and our veranda for minutes on end, searching for whales or dolphins (we didn’t see any, but we did see schools of flying fish, which was amazing) and counting the iguanas they saw when they visited the islands on our itinerary (26 was our total iguana count for the week).
I watched them giggle at the swaying of the ship that made it impossible for them to walk in a straight line. And I watched as they experienced the excellent service of our hardworking waiters, cabin stewards and other crew members for the first time.
An iguana lounges in the sun. (Photo Credit: Heather Holtz)
My favorite reaction of theirs was when I told them the buffet and main dining room food was completely free and that they could order as much of it as they wanted.
Everything was new for them — even the Caribbean, this old, sun-kissed region of the world that was a far cry from the North Carolina and Wisconsin climates from which they came.
While the newfound magic of cruising had worn off for me, it was alive and well in them. While I knew what I was getting into each cruise, they were surprised by the adorable towel animals our cabin steward made for us each day and were eager to take advantage of every activity that interested them onboard.
It reminded me of how special cruising can be. It’s an easy method of travel — you unpack once, and yet you visit many different destinations, often only steps or a short shuttle ride from the ship, making it attractive for many people.
Yet it’s somehow still personal for everyone. There’s freedom to choose what you’d like to do each day: exercise as soon as you wake up, perhaps, or sit at a cafe and read for hours before breakfast. It brings people together — not only the people who came together, family and friends, but also strangers who would never meet each other outside of the ship, which for a single week brought all these thousands of people from across the world together in a single, floating city.
Both of my friends, though they have different perspectives of their first cruise experience, have said they’d like to cruise again, and take their families, too.
I hope you’ll invite someone who has never cruised before to join you on your next adventure. It is a joy to share these experiences with the people you love and a privilege to be the one to share it with them for the first time.
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