Help: I'm a Cruiser, She's a Porter

[TC1957]

My DW loves the Ports of call.

 

Because we have a great marriage (just celebrated 40 years) we have learned to compromise and take advantage of all the port days to the maximum. lol :)

 

 

Sounds like the compromise was you saying "Yes dear." :p Smart man...

 

We are lucky, we both want to see and experience what we can. We don't overdo it. For example, we are tossing around an Alaskan cruise and have had friends tell us "Oh, you will have time to do two excursions in that port." I don't think so, one excursion...maybe a little shopping or wandering...then back to the ship for some relaxation.

[skandls]

I want to see different parts of the world. We will save our cruising days for the future when we may need walkers and may not be able to get around the ports.

[luvscruising2007]

We both like cruising and ports. So, far we haven't duplicated a port except for Labadee. So, we still find ports interesting. Our Panama Canal partial transit was the best of both worlds. We had 5 port stops and 6 sea days. Perfect!

[Hurlymcgurly]

Love the ship, but we are definitely porters. We normally do 1 shore tour and then do a bit of shopping or hit a bar if there's time.

[Gunner22aa]

Lots of times we do different things. Quite often there will be a tour that really appeals to her but not to me or the other way around. We have gone single to these, sometimes in the same port. Other times one of us might just stay onboard. More often that would be her as there are great deals in the spa on port days. We do compromise and do things together as well. This port may be her tour of choice and the next mine. That game plan has worked for nigh on 34 years so I don't see any major changes on the horizon.

[CarenBear]

I want to see different parts of the world. We will save our cruising days for the future when we may need walkers and may not be able to get around the ports.

 

No this sounds like a plan. Never thought about it like this before. And what a great way to look at life itself!

[Sue Do-Over]

I thought this would be a romantic "I fell in love with a crew member" story. (Smile!)

 

We usually end up with two busy days and two slow days on a cruise... each of us will plan just one activity/tour/excursion, and we spend the other days just wandering around the port.

 

In Europe, we chose small-group tours in Rome, Pisa/Florence and Marseilles, wandered in Monte Carlo, Lisbon, Malaga and London.

 

St. Thomas/St. John - self - bus to ferry to beach for snorkeling

San Juan - small group - rainforest tour

Belize - ship - cave rafting

Jamaica - small group - waterfalls

Barbados - self - beach with casino crew

Key West - self - shopping

Progresso - self - shopping (enough of that!)

Nassau - self - casino (rest of town is a slum)

Grand Cayman - self - walked to seven mile beach/tiki bar

Cazumel - self - rainy day, we never got further than Senor Frogs

Cazumel - ship - Chichen Itza

St Lucia - ship - zip line

St Martin - self - ocean kayak

Bahamas/HMC

[ldubs]

Perfect cruise for us would be one port each day. Having a sea day every once in awhile is good. Having several sea days is just too much inactivity for us. Shoot, most excursions last something like 6 hours. Even if longer, that leaves plenty of time to enjoy the ship.

[freedom750]

I thought this would be a romantic "I fell in love with a crew member" story. (Smile!)

 

Like!!!

[screwsmcernst]

We are a balance of both. We love our sea days, and we love our ports. We usually just pick a couple ports to do excursions in, and then just walk around the others. If we have been to the port many times, we may not even get off the ship.

[Hlitner]

We do understand the OPs issue since we wrestled with similar issues when we were much younger. But for the past twenty years DW and I have learned to enjoy doing things on our own (all over the world) and our norm is to avoid busy tours and large groups. Some travelers seem to feel that they must try and cram as much as is possible (and even more) into port days, which we often think means they miss a lot more then they see and do. The old saying "stop and smell the Roses" can help take the stress out of port days and offer many personal rewards. One can go to a place Paris and run around like a crazy person, go to a huge number of sites, museums, etc. But just sitting in a well-located romantic outdoor café on the Isle de la Cite or perhaps on the Left Bank and enjoying a long relaxing lunch with good food, wine and people watching, can teach more about the spirit of Paris then running through the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay (one of our favorite museums in the world), Eiffel Tower, etc. We think this is a lesson often learned through experience and most of the truly happy and relaxed travelers have mastered this "slow travel" technique. Those that continue with the "If it is Tuesday it must be Belgium" syndrome will often burn-out as travelers and soon find themselves working in their back yard garden rather then spending a week in a place like Paris or Rome.

 

Hank

[GTO-Girl]

We are definately cruisers. Our daily lives are so busy and hectic that going on a cruise for us means just taking time to breathe and relax.

 

I won't fly so we do a lot of the same cruises to the same ports, but that's fine with me. We may choose to do an excursion but more times than not we just "wing it" as to what mood we are in that day.

 

We like to leave our hectic world on shore and not pick it up until we return......;)

[olemissreb]

DH and I love the cruise portion, but we also like seeing the ports. We have never been the "run around try to see it all" tourists. We usually just pick one excursion that interests us and then maybe throw in some shopping/wandering around town if there is time. Ever since I discovered how easy it is to book independent excursions (with the wonderful help of CC), that's all we do now and it has been way more fulfilling than the cruise line excursions for us.

 

I'm trying to convince him to go on another Southern Caribbean cruise for our 30th Anniversary in March 2015. The plan is to go to the same islands (mostly) that we went to on our first Southern cruise, but that had most of our cruise line excursions cancelled. Won't happen this time since we'll be going independent!

 

For the previous poster that is going to Alaska: there is soooooooooooo much to do in every port. Don't try and cram it all in because you will exhaust yourself. Do lots of research and pick out the excursions you really want to do. We had things planned for each port, but in Juneau while we wanted to head to Mendenhall we never booked anything and ended up just shopping and relaxing on the ship. We didn't feel like we were missing much since we saw glaciers on our Kenai Fjords tour and on the train ride from Anchorage to Seward. It was a nice relaxing day that got us ready for the longer excursions we still had to come. We still only did one excursion per port though.

[ldubs]

We do understand the OPs issue since we wrestled with similar issues when we were much younger. But for the past twenty years DW and I have learned to enjoy doing things on our own (all over the world) and our norm is to avoid busy tours and large groups. Some travelers seem to feel that they must try and cram as much as is possible (and even more) into port days, which we often think means they miss a lot more then they see and do. The old saying "stop and smell the Roses" can help take the stress out of port days and offer many personal rewards. One can go to a place Paris and run around like a crazy person, go to a huge number of sites, museums, etc. But just sitting in a well-located romantic outdoor café on the Isle de la Cite or perhaps on the Left Bank and enjoying a long relaxing lunch with good food, wine and people watching, can teach more about the spirit of Paris then running through the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay (one of our favorite museums in the world), Eiffel Tower, etc. We think this is a lesson often learned through experience and most of the truly happy and relaxed travelers have mastered this "slow travel" technique. Those that continue with the "If it is Tuesday it must be Belgium" syndrome will often burn-out as travelers and soon find themselves working in their back yard garden rather then spending a week in a place like Paris or Rome.

 

Hank

 

IMO, You hit the nail on the head. When we visit a place the intent is to spend an enjoyable and relaxing time. Just "chilling" as our kids would say.

[Traveling Texans]

Married 60years and cruised over 80 times. been there, done that, and now we can lay back and enjoy the ship.

 

That's how we feel too. We are very selective on what ports we visit. Married 51 years.

[no1racefan1]

We're both porters, definitely. We've only done one cruise so far and are preparing for our upcoming one (NCL POA/Hawaii). The only way I could convince my husband to take another cruise was because there are no sea days! We'd rather just use the ship for meals and sleeping, and spend as much time as possible in port :-).

[spunkyhungry]

I'd rather spend more time exploring the ports than relaxing on the ship.

[panoramaofthepast]

 

Are you a Cruiser or a Porter? How do you work out your different tastes?

My husband is the cruiser, I am the Porter. Our compromise - we do one excursion at a port together. If I want to do more, I go off on my own while he retires to the balcony to read and watch the folks run madly down the pier as the horn blows [well, I'm usually back for that, too!]

 

On board, he relaxes, reads and watches cooking demonstrations, while I play trivia, keep the casino and the spa in business and attend lectures on anything but shopping.

 

Compromise is the name of the game - it took us several cruises to work out the kinks in our system, but now we cruise together and enjoy our time together and apart.