12 step program for cruiseaholics?

[Terre]

I'm wondering if there is a 12-step program for cruiseaholics?

My name is Terre, and I'm a cruiseaholic. Actually, I really don't want any help, just wondering...:D

(Okay, I stole this from the Carnival boards. They had a thread going a while back called O.A.T.C. --openly addicted to cruising. There are many members, of which I am one. Wanted to see if there are Princess cruisers with the same addiction.)

[ghgeckos]

Newly addicted member. I admit I must cruise at least once a year.

[Aquarian]

I'm in really bad shape. We don't have a cruise booked. It's been over a year since my last cruise. Help!

[cruzbabe]

I'm also a newly addicted member that is always looking at when I can do a cruise.

[creed205]

I have given deep thought as to what you can do to resolve this addiction. It's a very hard thing to live with due to the expense involved with cruising.

Here are my suggestions on how to get better:

1. First you must admit you have a problem

2. Once you have resolved step one, you must take time to relax and reflect so one would recommed a vacation. Perhaps a cruise!

3. I forget.

 

:D

[ILUVCRUIZN]

My name is Chanda and we do not go on our next cruise until December! :(

I am having such a hard time waiting that long especially when the cruise commercials come on TV!!!!! I just sit in the chair and dance to the music. Is that pathetic or what!!!!!!!!! :confused:

 

Oh wait, I was suppoed to admit that I have a problem first. oh well, I do, but it is a problem that I love having!!!!!!! And in December when this problem is over I need to find a new one hopefully alot closer than 8 months away!!!!!!!!!!! :D

 

BTW this is a cute thread!!!!!!!!!! :D

[wannasail4ever]

Hi, my name is Macy and I've been addicted since 1994. Can't seem to stop :eek: Don't really want to, either. Have tried 16 ships trying to find a bad one to cure this addiction. Nothing seems to help but the smell of the ocean.

 

P.S. Please don't send help! :D

[cruzbabe]

Macy, very cute!

[Deb in Cali]

I don't want to be cured. But if you would like to help, send money. For another cruise of course. :cool:

[Dreamer333]

Yepl, I "suffer" from this addiction too.

 

In fact it is so bad that while I am on a cruise, I am already thinking about my next "hit" and always end up booking another cruise before I get off the ship.

 

It's a shame... ;)

[VibeGuy]

and I have a cruising problem.

 

It started in the early 70s, when my favorite great-aunt offerred to take me off my mom's hands for an allegedly well-deserved break. Of course, my great aunt being who she was (Auntie Mame, but the Roz Russell one, not the Lucy one), she commenced to take me on a cruise. Mom was mortified. She was afraid I'd "act up" and cause some sort of international incident. Dearest Auntie knew of my even temper and legendary good nature, and persisted. "Nonsense. Eric always behaves for me." I have discovered why grand-relatives and children get along so well - they're united against a common enemy. My mom was widely regarded as being "No Fun".

 

So that's how it started. First time was with her, to Acapulco. I got to swim and have ice cream with lunch and have a grand old time. Aunt L couldn't quite pass me off as her son, but I made a pretty servicable "youngest nephew", and in short pants and sailor suits, no less. (Trust me - I'm so mortified by the pictures that I can't send them in for Captains Circle credit - too embarassing). Children of any sort were pretty rare on board back then, and I was *totally* spoiled by the experience. I thought having an upper berth was just a great adventure, and the *only* misbehaviour of any sort was my disappointment that we weren't going to be sailing all the way home. I couldn't understand why - we lived right by an ocean port.

 

Then came the Love Boat. I was only allowed five hours of TV a week growing up, and for 9 years, one hour of that was the Love Boat. The pilot movies were fun, but I couldn't understand some of the plot lines (the whole adultery thing wasn't quite clear in my mind yet). It was like a weekly fix.

 

A year or two after the Love Boat pilot, right as the regular series was starting, my grandfather received a cruise on the Sagafjord as a gift from his employer, and they thought it would just be *super* to bring me along as a third. ("He just loves ships so much!"....(no, he loves liners and cruise ships because he gets spoiled rotten)). A few more kids that time, still total doting.

 

And so it began. Trips with mom and dad. Becoming awfully proficient at shuffleboard for someone under the age of 60. A stint at a crappy charter airline where I got to go on an RCCL fam trip (two nights before the inaugural, on Majesty of the Seas), a few Portland-to-Vancouver-after-drydock repositionings. I'd do anything to support my cruise habit - work overtime, cash in recycling....I was not well.

 

The odd thing is, I could never find peers that were enthusiastic about cruising. They all thought it was for "old people" or for the braindead members of Kathie Lee's Discount Navy. They couldn't understand why someone would want to wear a tie for dinner on their vacation. They couldn't understand why the word Lido made me all misty-eyed. They JUST COULDN'T UNDERSTAND ME. So, I mostly cruised with widowed relatives, or relatives whose husbands didn't like to cruise. I learned bridge. I carried bags. I tried to dance.

 

A few years passed. I hadn't really had a great vacation in a long time - got bored with the islands thanks to the crappy charter airline (won't set foot on several of them, including some awfully common cruise ports-of-call). My trips were of the student-budget type. The Love Boat had been off the air for 12 years at that point. I thought I'd kicked the cruise habit.

 

It wasn't to be. An early Internet auction site was selling distressed NCL inventory for pennies on the dollar. They had outside cabins on a transatlantic that called at Madeira (a place I'd wanted to visit for a few years, but wasn't sure I wanted to spend a week on) and it was leaving in a month. I bid. I was sweating. I was biting my nails. I won. Those pushers hooked me into 17 nights from Miami to Barcelona, and even had the audacity to sell me a *VERY* cheap upgrade into what had been one of the named suites when it was the SS France. Damn them. Damn them all.

 

I called a friend who had never cruised before. He had business in St. Barts. scheduled for two days after the cruise called in St. Maarten. I explained the utter brilliance of a few days of cruising first. He made excuses. He wouldn't like the people, he wouldn't like the food, the cruise director would make him do stupid things. I said it would be fun, that he'd be off in a few days if he didn't like it, that it would be our little secret. That was the first time I'd ever turned a friend on to cruising. He was hooked.

 

The first night out, a form was sent to cabins asking about disembarkation options. I noticed that some cabins had different colored forms, and when I inquired, was informed that the line had marketed Miami-Marseilles to the EU market and Miami-Barcelona to the US. I'd just read a story on Marseilles on the plane to Miami. Would I like to stay onboard another night for $25?

 

Time passed. I acquired my current partner the same year that Seattle got regular cruise line service. Dropping him off one day at the ferry terminal, I noticed the very shiny new Radiance just down the waterfront. I pulled the car over, called RCCL, and booked the next departure. Partner said "I'm going to hate it". He changed his mind after sailing away, in the hot tub, giant Pina Colada in hand, watching the poor wretches waiting for the ferry. Another convert.

 

He got his dad and his sister. Sister said she wasn't going to cruise until she was 80 and couldn't do anything else. Sister changed her tune, bigtime. Dad enjoyed it. He still expects towel animals to appear on his bed at night.

 

Now, it's hopeless. I can't function without a periodic cruise. I am not well. I come over to the mainland from my place on Saturday or Sunday morning in the summer, and I'm faced with three ships in port, beckoning me with the siren songs of cheap booze and vegas-style revues. I can't escape the hordes of tourists wandering Pike Place Market clutching tote bags bearing the logos of every smack-dispensing leviathan on the docks. I pass the offices of one of them every day on my way to work. I am sick.

 

I keep hoping against hope that I will stay strong, but then inducements to cruise flow into my email like "champagne" into the fountain of glasses on the second formal night. When I realize I can spend three days (albeit in an inside) for less than it would cost me to commute on the ferry and eat lunch and dinner out, I cannot keep the demons at bay any longer. So I book, and I sail, and I try to cleanse myself with purgative steamings and sauna-ings. I row that rowing machine to try and escape. But nothing works. I've corrupted my friends, my family and my colleagues. I've ended up with pictures of my place at the y table, draped in black velvet to commemorate my absence while on Yet Another Cruise (why, oh WHY must repositioning season fall over Mother's Day?).

 

Eric

[yancycruiser]

We also have a problem and are proud of it. I can wait 198 days, I can wait 198 days, I can wait 198 days...

[mii]

Heck I am going on a cruise next month, have a cruise already booked for May 2006 and am waiting for the fall 2006 to come out. Am I addicted? You betcha.

 

Marilyn

[Ethel5]

Eric

You're priceless! :) :D

[Terre]

These are great, you guys. Keep 'em coming. I know there are more of us out there. I keep trying to figure out a way to hide during debarkation, then find somewhere to sleep at night (I know -- the lounge chairs around the pools!). I know I can shower in the spa and eat from the buffet -- but how long can we do that before we get caught?:rolleyes:

 

Eric, stay strong...we're all in the same "boat", none of us really wants to be cured!

[debt1022]

God grant me the serenity to except the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. And while I'm at it, give me the ability to earn money or win the lottery so I can continue to book cruises. :o

 

 

Thanks so much for your time.

DebT1022

 

 

Golden Princess 10-04

Dawn Princess 3-05

Pride of America 11-05

Tahitian Princess 4-06

Anything I can take that isn't addictive for withdrawal symptoms?:D

[kroozking]

Hi, I am Michael and I am a 1 1/2 year cruisaholic. Unfortunately, I only earn $38,000 a year.:rolleyes: I am desperate for money. cruise intended.

[Dreamer333]

Eric, you must be a writer!!

[pazooter]

Hi, I'm Cathy, and I'm addicted to cruising. Luckily we are about to book a Princess cruise. This will be our first on Princess and we are looking forward to all the good things we hear about this line.

 

I don't think I'll ever recover and be able to graduate from this program. Oh, well.

Cathy

[RNay]

Hi, I'm Renee and I have a serious cruise addiction. At least I can admit it. My husband can't, but he salivates for it as much as I do. We went on our first cruise in 2000 and have been cruising yearly since then. Can't find a way to go more often due to having three kids at home and no family in the state. Our next cruise is June 13th in Tahiti to celebrate our 20th anniversary and I am already planning next year's cruise! I usually have one booked before we go, but I am waiting to book onboard. I am so excited at this point, I am checking my personalizer at LEAST once a day and have been reading these message boards to sustain myself. My husband says I am sick but he is really an enabler! No I don't want a cure, I just want treatment (in the form of my next cruise)!:D

[Terre]

Renee (and others),

 

One thing that helps me get through the day is reading the CC boards every day. Usually twice a day, sometimes more. I check them during my lunch hour, when I get home and if I have time, I'll look again before I go to bed or if I get into work a little early, I'll check them before I have to begin work. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just makes the addiction worse because you see all the posts about people doing the doc dance and you start to go into withdrawal. Or I'll hear Margaritaville on the radio and start to picture myself on a ship or an island somewhere.

 

At least we now have each other...

[ahracer]

What a guy can't go on 4 cruises in 18 months with out people thinking he has a problem now???

 

Scott

[Northender]

DH and I are both cruise addicted. There is never an evening that goes by that something about cruising does not come up, whether it be, remember when on our first cruise..... or when we retire we should do this or that cruise.... (may our 401Ks be loaded). What cruise do you want to do next year????? Where is the updated Caribbean/Mexico brochure. Did you ask the TA to send the Panama Canal brochure?????

 

Yup, we have it bad. Coming on here daily helps with the fever and checking our the various sites for upcoming cruises keeps me sane. We have even had a couple of good offers from Princess over the last two weeks, but cannot take advantage of them. In a few years tho, it will be a much different story:D

 

Lord help me, I almost signed up for the Med Group Cruise next May. Have to keep myself in check:D

 

Cruise Critic is chicken soup for the soul of a cruising addict. :)

[RNay]

Because we have finally racked up the frequent flier miles, to get the most out of them I figured we should go to Puerto Rico or Hawaii. So, I'm looking at the Golden Princess in March 2006 out of Puerto Rico. We did the Southern Caribbean a few years ago out of there and loved it. We only wished we had more time in PR. We did go down the day before. We'd do the same and then stay a couple of days after. If for some reason I can't get those airline tickets to PR, then we will do the Panama Canal on the Coral Princess. Yep, it's bad. Not only am I preoccupied with this Tahiti cruise, I'm planning the next one. I've got the brochures for the Caribbean and Panama Canal 05-06.

[norskenancy]

I have one of the Princess CD's that have their cruise info on it. I play it each week to get my fill.

Norske