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How do you stand mulitiple days at sea on your cruise?


librarygal

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You get to sleep in, order room service and enjoy a leisurely breakfast with mimosa made from the champagne you brought on board and the OJ you ordered from room service out on the balcony. Check out some ship activities, do a little gambling in the casino, pick up a light snack from the buffet to take back to the room and enjoy on the balcony with your tablet. Try to read, but catch yourself staring out at the ocean and have to start the page over again for the 10th time. Play some cards with the family on the promenda deck. Have some pre-dinner drinks. Enjoy a nice leisurely dinner with family and go see a production or comedy show together. Go out on balcony with DH and enjoy the stars :D. Sounds like a perfect day to me.
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The only problem I have with days at sea is I spend too much time in the casino!

When I'm not there, I'm at the pool, or taking an afternoon nap, or reading a book, or going to bingo or trivia contests, eating lunch. Last cruise there was an afternoon ice show. Once I watched an ice sculpture being made on deck.

I almost never get bored, at home or on vacation. I gave that up many years ago.
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Unless you are actively engaged at a full time job, there is usually less to do at or near home than on a cruise ship. Library, shows, movies, swimming pool, shops, reading, various games and contests, casino, lots of people with whom to interact, etc. - pretty well meets or surpasses what you would have at home to occupy your time. Then, of course, there is the sea: for many of us being there is in itself a good thing to do.

Of course, cold and wet weather can make a day at sea less charming. That's why in the Navy we would wait for "shipping over weather" (sunshine, and hopefully warm) before scheduling re-enlistment talks.
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[quote name='Sipsey']The only problem I have with days at sea is I spend too much time in the casino!

When I'm not there, I'm at the pool, or taking an afternoon nap, or reading a book, or going to bingo or trivia contests, eating lunch. Last cruise there was an afternoon ice show. Once I watched an ice sculpture being made on deck.

I almost never get bored, at home or on vacation. I gave that up many years ago.[/QUOTE]

Ditto on the casino!

We love sea days as well, and select cruises based on a good sea day/port ratio. I could (and have) spend hours just staring at nothing but ocean. Especially at the wake. Wonderfully peaceful and relaxing.
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I love sea days, and especially like it when we have 2 sea days starting out before we do a port. So relaxing, and really puts me in the cruise mood.

Roz
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[SIZE=3]AHOY SHIPMATES

I love cruising. Being a nice person and always willing to help someone with an obvious problem (dislike of sea days) I have done some intensive research and come up with three possible solutions;

1. CAR 2. TRAIN 3. AIRPLANE

Hope one of these works out . LOL



[/SIZE]
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[quote name='antique sailor'][SIZE=3]AHOY SHIPMATES

I love cruising. Being a nice person and always willing to help someone with an obvious problem (dislike of sea days) I have done some intensive research and come up with three possible solutions;

1. CAR 2. TRAIN 3. AIRPLANE

Hope one of these works out . LOL



[/SIZE][/QUOTE]
Very helpful, then there is also 4. BUS.
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DW and I love sea days and sometimes do not even bother getting off the ship at certain ports. Last year (2012) we spent 101 days on cruise ships and approximately 50 of those days were sea days. Loved every minute of those days :). So what do we do on sea days? Actually very little. If the weather is good we will often be out in the sun (or shade) doing a lot of reading. We also enjoy good lectures and will go to some activities such as wine tastings. Socializing is also an important part of those longer cruises and we have made many new friends over the years.

Hank
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[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Blue"]On sea days we normally spend quite a bit of time chatting with others .... in the shade around the pool or in bar/lounges.

We also enjoy having lunch in the MDR.

LuLu
~~~~ [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT="Georgia"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Navy"]I don't think that most of us see multiple sea days as something we have to stand. At least for me, sea days are very pleasurable, very calming. I "stand" them by finding a shady spot out on deck with my iPad in hand, reading, and watching the waves go by. It's a nice place to reflect on how nice it is that I'm able to be there.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
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Like the op we hate sea days. The ship is packed and no where to go. I love the shop when in port. It's empty and have the pools to ourselves. Of course there is the sightseeing too in the ports.


Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app
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[quote name='librarygal']Generally I [B]love[/B] to go on cruises but [B]hate[/B] certain aspects of the experience. (Which I have discussed in some of my earlier posts)

One thing I hate is the days at sea. I don't understand the appeal, especially multiple days at sea if the weather is cold.

Cruise brochures are full of cruises that spend the majority of their time at sea with no shore excursions- or land to look at for days at a time, moving across cold places where it would be too chilly to enjoy the deck or the walking path on top of the ship.

Generally I feel disorientated and bored on the days at sea and pick cruises that have as few days at sea as possible.

How do you[B] stand[/B] multiple days at sea on your cruise?[/quote]

Sea days are my favorite. It's a non-stop vacation, with something to do every minute of the day or night, if you choose to participate; or you can just chill and relax as much as you want to without worrying about going somewhere, sitting in traffic, etc.
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When I went on my first cruise in 2001, I was very naive as what all cruising involved. I assumed I would be bored on sea days, because I didn't realize how big the ship would be and all the activities that would be offered. After a couple of port intensive days in Alaska, I was happy for some R&R, and wished there were more days like that.

Now I look for itineraries with a good mix of sea and port days.

Roz
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[quote name='librarygal']Generally I [B]love[/B] to go on cruises but [B]hate[/B] certain aspects of the experience. (Which I have discussed in some of my earlier posts)

One thing I hate is the days at sea. I don't understand the appeal, especially multiple days at sea if the weather is cold.

Cruise brochures are full of cruises that spend the majority of their time at sea with no shore excursions- or land to look at for days at a time, moving across cold places where it would be too chilly to enjoy the deck or the walking path on top of the ship.

Generally I feel disorientated and bored on the days at sea and pick cruises that have as few days at sea as possible.

How do you[B] stand[/B] multiple days at sea on your cruise?[/quote]

First of all, I can't get my head around the "stand" issue. I'm the exact opposite. I think stopping at a port where you look out your cabin window and see a dock is completely interruptive of shipboard life. If you want to be on land just fly from place to place. Why use a ship as a taxi? A ship is about the ocean, not ports, except of course your embarkation and disembarkation ports. I've been on three transatlantic crossings that made one stop at Madeira. These were ten, twelve, and thirteen day voyages. While Madeira is a very nice place, I felt that the one stop there was one stop too many. That's why I often tell people that I'm a crossing person, not a cruise person.
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It's really not a matter of being able to stand any days at sea. I don't tolerate them, I embrace them!

I love "at sea" days. Lots of activities on board, lots of people to meet, or I could just lounge around, enjoy the weather or find a quiet place to catch up on my reading (I love to read, so I bring the Nook). I enjoy these days (and the ports of call) equally.
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We we were a lot younger and working hard 10 -12 hour days, it was hard for us to relax and we did not like sea days because we got anxiety doing nothing or doing every at a very relaxed pace. It was like we were in withdrawal from too much activities in our day to day lives.

We often returned from a cruise exhausted because we did not know how to pace ourselves.

We have been retired for 10+ years, only work part time and have lots of time to do as much or as little as we want at home. When we go on a CRUISE it gives us a change of scenery and we love both sea and port days.

We get into our own rythme on board the ship - we spend time exercising, exploring the ship and activities available, have meals at a set time, take a nap in the afternoon, read, simply watch the sea and horizon either from our balcony or a lounge area aboard and plan activities we can do on our own in port.
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Went on another cruise with lots of sea days since I posted on this thread last year. Still love sea days. We didn't even have good weather (some cool days and even some rain). Then I get home, and while looking at the Patters as I write up my review, I wonder how I missed doing this or that. So many things to do if I want to, and never feeling bored when doing nothing.
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never feeling bored when doing nothing.

 

That's exactly how I spent the 8 sea days of my last cruise......truly happy when doing nothing. I actually surprised myself - I had lists of activities and lectures I wanted to attend, but when it actually came time to do them, I had no interest in doing any of them. In fact, I usually didn't look at the clock until after they had started (or even finished), and was surprised at how long I'd been sitting/lounging/wandering/reading. I did attend some computer photography courses, but kind of resented them for making me "watch the clock" and monitor what time it was.

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I too love sea days! There is something so peaceful about being out in the middle of the ocean. Of course, most of my cruises have been to warm weather places. I love exploring the ship, relaxing with a book, or just spending time with my husband. Our lives a quite hectic so for us cruises are a great escape and sea days are wonderful. Now, after I do one where we are in cold weather for the majority of the time, maybe my outlook will be different LOL :)

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Looks to me like the collective response to OP can be summarized as "How can you stand not having multiple sea days?"

 

Yep. Some years ago, we were looking at one itinerary we were interested in, but then noticed it was mostly port days. We were thinking several ports in a row over a week or 10-day cruise wouldn't be relaxing enough for us.

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