Our very first cruise (or: How young and stupid were we?)

I don’t remember exactly when or even why my husband and I decided to take a cruise. We had never been on a cruise ship. We didn’t 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 weren’t 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: “Where do you normally vacation?”

Me: “In front of the T.V. We could never afford a vacation before.”

Nice lady: “Would you like an inside or outside cabin?”

Me: [laughing]…”What! There’s no penthouse?”

Nice lady: “How much have you budgeted for this?”

Me: “I dunno. Can’t we use a credit card?”

Nice lady: [smiling]…“Of course you can!”

She said she would take care of everything for us. We wouldn’t have to lift a finger – 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 couldn’t 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, c’mon! Rhode Island? Really?…five days!…Penthouse suite? [big mouth]…How much?

Blame it on youth. Blame it on inexperience. (I really don’t want to say ‘stupidity’ – it’s true but I don’t 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!)

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