Do any of you just unplug---like me?

While I recognize that some of you still have business reasons to stay connected to the internet while onboard ship and everyone does need to be available in case of family emergency, I am wondering---do any of you just unplug while onboard and enjoy a blissful few days (or more) with no electronic devices and no internet?

I am just as addicted to the internet as anyone, but on our last cruise, I totally unplugged. I totally enjoyed myself. I did a lot of reading and a lot of just enjoying the moment. My husband, who often chides me at home for being on my computer too much, was just unable to do what I did--unplug--even though he had no business reasons to be online as he is now retired.

So--my question is this---am I the oddball in truly wanting to experience life before the internet? Or do most of you enjoy staying connected so much that you want to continue while onboard (note above that I do recognize some are still working and the need to be reachable).

It's funny, 18 years ago when we took our first cruise to the South Pacific, I worked for a tech company, and was very connected and dependent on email. But I insisted on going "dark" while I was gone. Whenever I took similar vacations while I was working, I did exactly that. And it was wonderful.

But those were the days when email and internet access were synonymous with work. Since I retired almost ten years ago, I haven't found the need to unplug. Funny, when I got my first smartphone, on my first post-retirement cruise, I was ecstatic that I could post to Cruise Critic on my phone via wifi instead of using the onboard computer. And I loved doing that.

Now, not so much. It has a "been there, done that" quality to it. But... then again, texting is my lifeline to family back home, so I won't be just turning off my phone. And I do love posting to Facebook from exotic places.

I don’t think it’s at all odd to enjoy being unplugged on vacation.

I love the work I do, but it does necessitate staying connected. So for the next few years it is what is.

I’m very much looking forward to the first time, whether on a land holiday or a cruise, that I can enjoy being unplugged. Except for my Kindle.

I’m retired now but we need to keep in close touch with family and have them feel they can contact us.

I like the concept of unpluggedness but to be honest, back in the old days it was just as stressful to come back to work after vacation and find various “surprises” than it was later to keep in touch with a periodic email/message check.

And I have to download my NYT crosswords!

The time zone differences give things a distant feel.

While I recognize that some of you still have business reasons to stay connected to the internet while onboard ship and everyone does need to be available in case of family emergency, I am wondering---do any of you just unplug while onboard and enjoy a blissful few days (or more) with no electronic devices and no internet?

 

I am just as addicted to the internet as anyone, but on our last cruise, I totally unplugged. I totally enjoyed myself. I did a lot of reading and a lot of just enjoying the moment. My husband, who often chides me at home for being on my computer too much, was just unable to do what I did--unplug--even though he had no business reasons to be online as he is now retired.

 

So--my question is this---am I the oddball in truly wanting to experience life before the internet? Or do most of you enjoy staying connected so much that you want to continue while onboard (note above that I do recognize some are still working and the need to be reachable).

DH cannot unplug, for work reasons

Though I could unplug for a short cruise, I choose not to unplug,

1. for work reasons, to avoid “surprises” on return, as mentioned above and,

2. for me, modern luxury and relaxation includes the ability to post live blogs and pictures of my trip, as well as the ability to research ports and country histories and culture while on the go, to help me enjoy the ports more. I cannot pre-research everything in advance as some questions and interests come up inspired by what we see walking around or out of the bus window.

A friend of mine who cruised Holland America once after always cruising Celebrity expressed disgust that a lady on HAL she briefly shared a table with, when asked what she had enjoyed most that day, replied it was that she had been able to complete a crossword puzzle — “ the WHOLE thing” — without being disturbed. My friend then concluded she had little in common with HAL cruisers so was going back to Celebrity (the friend, who lives alone without kids, could not understand why people value the simple pleasures of peace and quiet and being undisturbed).

Catlover54, One of the best things about cruising is being out of reach. While we absolutely love our family, our plans seem to be constantly changed when we are at home--the illness of an elderly parent, the babysitting needs of children when both the mother and father have sudden out of town trip for business, and so on. Being on a cruise allows us to have some uninterrupted time for ourselves.

I MAY entertain the notion of sending back to this board live reports from our next cruise. It would be fun to notice details and report on them--that may be of interest to others. It will be one of the very early voyages of the Ovation, so there might be some interest here.

But, if I DID unplug, my husband would not, so we do know that family could always reach us.

We generally semi unplug when cruising. No internet surfing , only necessary actions online nb: airline websites to check in .

I write a travelogue on "Word" for our friends daily. An absolute necessity to capture the day before it slips away. ( a septogenerian memory ). Then I cut and paste transcripts into my email and send small tastes of our adventures to nearest and dearest every few days.

Our next cruise may different as we have a more generous amount of Internet time.

To the opp - I don’t understand why you consider you reading a book more relaxing / “unplugging” than me reading books, emails, websites. etc. on my iPad. We’re both reading. We’re probably both doing it at the pool or on our balcony. We’re probably both having a glass of Champagne right next to us. What is the perceived problem here?

Floris

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Florisdekort, You misunderstand me. There is no perceived problem. My question was--does anyone else do this? NOT that you were wrong if you didn't. We all find different things relaxing. Sometimes I just like to return to the days when we were not using screens. For ME (and I am not implying for ANYONE else), it is nice to have a break from the computer/phone.

Hello SLSD,

I totally understand where you are coming from on this and share your affinity with unplugging while on vacation. I am retired now so no need to connect to internet/e-mail for work reasons and I am old enough (ahem!) to have travelled during the days when one was not expected to be within electronic reach of family when overseas. So, my family know that I am away and essentially unavailable unless there is a dire (read life or death here) family emergency while I am away. I always provide the itinerary and cruise line contact information in that highly unlikely event so they can contact me if necessary.

I find that works for me, and I enjoy myself immensely by unconnecting for a few blissful weeks. Aaaaaahhhh...

I enjoy remaining plugged in. I like keeping up to date with what is happening in the world. The news we receive via "the paper " is usually at least one day old and doesn't give a broad viewpoint. Am I connected continuously, no, I enjoy chatting with people.

I also have an elderly mother-in-law at home and it is easier for the family to know I will check my emails at least twice a day then to worry about trying to contact me via the ship.

As you say there is no right or wrong answer. Some people like to disconnect and others, like me, feel no need to disconnect.

Julie

This is a very interesting and quasi-philosophical discussion with, indeed, no right or wrong answer. My take: my wife and I have the equivalent of "brown thumbs" with technology. Early adapters we are not.

The late, great Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (who also was a prof of economics at McGill) once began a short story with the sentence, "banks rattle me". Well, while not rattled by all the pervasive technology with which one must (or can) deal during a typical day, I do not profess to understand it well, albeit I do use it--as I have to so to keep in touch and get my work done, including during regular business travel. When on business travel no excuses--am never out of touch except briefly during a flight. Even that excuse may soon vanish, alas!

So, as I am still in the workforce, I travel with an (ancient) Ipad, and finally ditched the old Blackberry (hey, I am a loyal Canadian so stuck with them until near the end) for an Iphone 6 last year. I got a data plan so I am not always glomming on to hotel email and can respond to work emails. Heck, I am even finally texting! I am no longer ever really out of touch, professionally.

On a holiday, by contrast to my being professionally always available, I always tell my colleagues that if the world is on fire and I am the only guy with a hose, call me. Otherwise, figure it out. Its a great way for younger people to learn (of course I have provided all kinds of information and back up and training long before). When on holiday I do prefer to unplug.

Yet everyone has the ability to contact us should an urgent business or personal situation arise (our parents are long gone so that worry, which indeed we had to confront once on a TA cruise years ago, is gone). Other than that one time involving my in-law, we are typically not bothered. When the holiday is over its back to business and to "reality", including using technology. On the last day of the cruise we take the cell phones out of the cabin safe. Usually, with a roaming package, once in the airport lounge I start catching up on office email.

Will it be different when I retire (I do not see myself retiring fully for a long time, if ever)? The world, and the technology available, may be quite different in 10 or even 5 years from what it is now, so who can say. Right now, I prefer to leave the phone in the safe (except perhaps for photos) when on holidays. But that's just me.

You are not by yourself, I also unplug myself. I give my girls the phone number of 2 girlfriends if they need any help and the number to my travel agent and the cruise line for emergencies. Other then that I turn the phone off and enjoy our time. Next cruise is on the Aranui 5 in January 2019.

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When travelling with a teenage daughter no internet is simply not an option :)

By the sound of it those of us who remain connected do so on our terms. Posting travel blogs or comments on here would be much the same as my videos made on board. Some people paint, others write or use their camera.

Being on a cruise makes interacting with the outside world on our terms very easy. "Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, currently in the middle of the Pacific Ocean" is an excuse no one can argue with. They don't need to know you aren't exactly bobbing up and down living off tinned peaches and ships biscuits or that there is a ship based wifi that just about passes as internet.

One of the things that always amazes me when we've been travelling for a while is how little things have changed when we return home. Possibly we aren't quite as indespensible or essential to the world's survival as we think......

Henry :)

In the 'olden days' one did not have much choice - which my DH liked, in that work could not get hold of him to make decisions which they could easily do on their own. Now it must be more difficult for those still involved in the world of work. As we no longer are, I do far less on the internet than at home (even though I have free internet on Seabourn now). So emergency phone nos. left with our (middle-aged) children suffices.

However, I do still like to go on every few days to send and receive emails from family and a couple of friends, just not twice a day as at home. And our children would not send bad news unless it was really important and needed action by us.

In the 'olden days' one did not have much choice - which my DH liked, in that work could not get hold of him to make decisions which they could easily do on their own. Now it must be more difficult for those still involved in the world of work. As we no longer are, I do far less on the internet than at home (even though I have free internet on Seabourn now). So emergency phone nos. left with our (middle-aged) children suffices.

 

However, I do still like to go on every few days to send and receive emails from family and a couple of friends, just not twice a day as at home. And our children would not send bad news unless it was really important and needed action by us.

The last comment reminds me of the time that I went to India on tour with a girlfriend. We had some Wifi/mobile access but my husband was kind enough to keep from me the news that the dining room ceiling fell down during a renovation plumbing disaster.

We are still at an age where we are in the height of our careers and work in competitive environments where being out of touch for more than a week could be detrimental. Fortunately with technology being as such, we can stretch the 20 days of personal leave per year just a bit further by being responsive and thus being able to count "some" of our time away as work. If we do that AND plot travels around weekends and holidays wisely, we can push the normal 4 weeks of vacation out to 6+ weeks a year without it becoming a major issue.

On our last sailing, we purposely did not purchase an internet plan at all and instead decided to only log on to check on things when we had cellular service in ports. It minimized the distractions from our vacation.

Converse from that, my mother and I took a 16-night transatlantic a couple of years ago and I managed 3 weeks away with only 8 vacation days by getting up early each morning (which I do unnaturally early on my own, sadly) and working for a couple of hours from Seabourn Square with a cup of coffee. By the time she was up and ready for a late breakfast, I'd managed my work for the day and could get on with enjoying all the relaxation I could manage!

Unplug until port days and then might (if I can be bothered) touch base.

Won’t pay the highway robbery internet package prices.

I’m with you 100%, vacation is time to unplug. I work in IT and plugging in is my bread and butter but unless my employer is paying for my cruise I’m not plugging in.

The irony for me is when I began to cruise with my wife and children it was to get a break from work. But that was in the early 1990's. We had e-mail back then at my company as we were one of the original pioneer of work but you couldn't do internet on a ship. Prior to that we would go on land vacations and I would continually call in and be on conference calls. Sometimes I would tell the family I would meet them in 30 minutes only for it to be hours. The good thing about cruising is there was no internet and no e-mail for many years. When we would arrive to a port I would call into work. This is why we chose to cruise so I could get a fairly good break other then checking in by phone.

Fast forward to today. You can stay connected because of internet or you can choose not to.

Like most things it's a personal decision and sometimes driven by your particular role in the company.

I do think that if you can get a break from work it is important to shut it down. I believe it's important for the mind and the body. Of course easy for me to say that as I am now retired.

Whatever you do, be happy.

Keith

As I like to savour the moment, I rarely check the internet nor emails and don't make phone calls during my travels on land or cruise.

However, I use it to check in for flights, weather conditions, etc.

Yes! that's exactly it MMDown Under. I am into savoring the moment which is why I stay plugged. Of course I know my husband will maintain at least minimal connection--which means I don't have to.

It’s one of the reasons I cruise. I just tell my work that while internet is available at sea, it’s horribly expensive and also slow and I’m not going to use it. They can volunteer to pay for it if they like but they never have.

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My comment should read UNPLUGGED..