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Do ships decorate for Christmas?

butternut1

By butternut1,
in Princess Cruises

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caber

caber

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They certainly do. I don`t know exactly when the decorations go up as we did the Sea Princess Christmas cruise in 2010. The ship was beautiful and the atmosphere was great. The crew choir sang carols.

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jcarlisle

jcarlisle

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Ok, I think my title says it all. :) Thinking of booking a cruise in December and just wondered if ships decorate for the holiday? If so, does anyone know about when in December this is done? Thanks so much.

 

Did a Panama Canal Transit several years ago on Sun Princess and the decorations were up. Absolutely beautiful. Think they took them down somewhere around the 4th or 5th of January. Ship looked so different when they came down... still beautiful but different!! Took us a day or two to get used to it in "normal" mode.

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Bucky3

Bucky3

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One year our cruise began on December 7th, and the ship was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We did a Christmas cruise in December 2011. The ship was lovely, and there were many special holiday activities as well. We love Christmas cruises with family. Enjoy!

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MaryinMichigan

MaryinMichigan

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I was reading the wonderful post that Pescado Armarillo wrote about their 100 days at sea, which included Christmas (AND Thanksgiving AND New Years AND Valentines Day!!). If you go to her post you'll see a link to her blog, and there you'll find tons of photos of the ship decorated for Christmas. On that ship I think they started decorating on Dec 1st, so start looking around that date. Here is a link to her post on this board

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1575538

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UT-Volsfan

UT-Volsfan

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We were on the Golden Princess over Thanksgiving last year. Princess began putting up Christmas trees and decorations on Saturday after Thanksgiving, which made for a very lovely and enjoyable cruise.

 

We've been on two Princess cruises in early December, and we've taken Christmas stockings with us both times to keep on our cabin door just to help out with the Christmas spirit on board.

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shepp

shepp

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How can I say this without sounding mean-spirited or worse?

 

I'll just say it. As a non-believer, it seems to me that celebrating Christmas for a month to six weeks seems just a wee bit over the top. Until today, I didn't realize that my entire month-long cruise this December will be a Christmas cruise. Can't say I'm all that enthused.

 

Ah well, at least Christmas onboard doesn't start right after Halloween, the way it's come to do in stores.

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geoherb "Live from...." Rare

geoherb

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Your whole cruise will not be a Christmas cruise. There are decorations up around the ship, but they're secular ones--Christmas trees, garland, poinsettias. The real Christmas activities are for the actual holiday cruises--midnight Mass, carolers in the atrium at embarkation, Santa coming to give gifts to the children, snow, Christmas performances by the singers and dancers, Christmas themed trivia, special Christmas menu at dinner, etc. We have sailed a couple of cruises the week before Christmas and six that included Christmas.

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kywildcatfanone

kywildcatfanone

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Ok, I think my title says it all. :) Thinking of booking a cruise in December and just wondered if ships decorate for the holiday? If so, does anyone know about when in December this is done? Thanks so much.

 

We have done two cruises at Christmas and three at Thanksgiving. I believe they take the thanksgiving decorations down and put the Christmas ones up on the turnaround day after Thanksgiving.

 

Mike

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kywildcatfanone

kywildcatfanone

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How can I say this without sounding mean-spirited or worse?

 

I'll just say it. As a non-believer, it seems to me that celebrating Christmas for a month to six weeks seems just a wee bit over the top. Until today, I didn't realize that my entire month-long cruise this December will be a Christmas cruise. Can't say I'm all that enthused.

 

Ah well, at least Christmas onboard doesn't start right after Halloween, the way it's come to do in stores.

 

As a believer, and someone who has been on Christmas cruises before, Princess does this very well, it's very understated. There are no religious overtones, just some simple, elegant, Christmas type decorations. I would not think it would be anything that should bother a non-religious person.

They do have a special Christmas show on the cruise that falls on Christmas day with some songs that are spiritual in nature, but it's nothing over the top.

 

Mike

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PescadoAmarillo "Live from...." Rare

PescadoAmarillo

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The only thing I think Princess is a little over the top on is the playlist that is piped all over the ship starting the first full cruise in December (generally). It's all Christmas, all the time. Not all Christmas carols are created equal, and about 50% of them are pure crap. A nice White Christmas is wonderful; sung with a country twang it's just painful. In 2010, once they passed a certain date (like 12/8), that was all there was, all day, every day. Gag. In 2011 it seemed a little less annoying, and I think they did a few days of Christmas and then a non-Christmas day occasionally. It would be really nice if they had a few of the good carols mixed in to their regular playlists every day.

 

But, and I, too, am trying to say this without sounding mean-spirited, I have NEVER felt the need to wear my religious beliefs on my sleeve, and detest the whole crock "war on Christmas" thing (an affront, I think, to anyone who's been in a REAL war). I LOVED the way that Princess handled Christmas. It was pretty, and nice, and different from a "regular" cruise without shoving Christianity down anyone's throat. Yes, on Christmas Day, there were a lot of "Merry Christmases" from the crew, and I never heard even one Happy Hannukah or Winter Solstice from anyone at anytime, but I also didn't hear any "Merry Christmases" on any other day but 12/25. There was one Mass and two interdenominational services and Christmas caroling on Christmas Eve only. We even attended a Hannukah candle lighting service, which is something we wouldn't normally do.

 

So, I guess I'm saying that the whole thing, while quite Christmas-y in a secular sense, was not overtly Christian except for the day itself. Frankly, that's how it should be. I can partake in the Christian side of Christmas as I wish...I don't need the world to feel it with me.

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compozer

compozer

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I was in such a good mood last year between getting out of the cold weather and not having to decorate and I wanted to spread my cheer around. We boarded on Christmas Eve and I decided I was going to greet everyone with Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I did great all day until we went to the pier and was registering. As I walked away I said Merry Christmas to the lady and she said "I'm Jewish". I felt terrible but she was so nice and we talked about it for a while (no one was behide me so I didn't hold the line up).

After that I made a point of noticing what people said and everyone said "Merry Christmas"

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shepp

shepp

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The only thing I think Princess is a little over the top on is the playlist that is piped all over the ship starting the first full cruise in December (generally). It's all Christmas, all the time...

But, and I, too, am trying to say this without sounding mean-spirited, I have NEVER felt the need to wear my religious beliefs on my sleeve, and detest the whole crock "war on Christmas" thing (an affront, I think, to anyone who's been in a REAL war). I LOVED the way that Princess handled Christmas. It was pretty, and nice, and different from a "regular" cruise without shoving Christianity down anyone's throat.

 

Thank you.

 

That's actually encouraging...except for the carols part. When I was picking up a prescription at Walgreens in mid-November (pre-Thanksgiving) and heard "Oh, Holy Night" on the muzak, I thought, "Wow. Really?"

 

I might somewhat mean-spiritedly add that though a Christmas tree might be non-religious (actually, it's a steal from the pagans), it's not really secular in the sense that Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists all put up Christmas trees, too.

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mes531

mes531

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This past year we boarded on New Years Eve. All our doors had a pretty decoration by it. The trees throughout the ship were fantastic! So festive. The year before we did a Carnival and boarded on the day after Christmas, also a beautifully decorated ship. So festive..it will be hard not to cruise during the Christmas season every year!

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