After-the-Cruise Rituals

[Nor'Eastah]

After our last cruise together, my mother-in-law found a funny way to keep the cruising spirit alive. Whenever she used the restroom at work she would fold the toilet paper into a point - like they do on the ship. It drove her co-workers crazy! They were all a-buzz about the TP mystery in the restroom!

 

My goofy ritual is for a week or so post cruise I make up our bed at home the way our room steward did at night -- even include a chocolate sometimes. My husband gets a kick out of it.

 

Anyone else have any fun things they do to stay in the cruise mood?

[kevinsac]

Anyone else have any fun things they do to stay in the cruise mood?

 

Plan the next trip/cruise.

 

We don't have kids....and travel is very important to us. My Dad always said: see the world while you are young; you can ride Greyhound around the US when you are old. We reached a goal of 7 continents in 7 years when we visited Antarctica last year.

 

Anyway, we take a lengthy vacation each year. This year, it's the 2+ week cruise, plus early arrival in SEA and staying over in Japan before we fly home. As we are sitting on the plane coming home from vacation each year, we start planning our vacation for next year. "Where do you want to go? What do you want to see? How much money can you save up by then?" For us, planning the trip is part of the excitement. By the time we get home, we may not have made the final selection, but we've narrowed it down. And that excitement helps ease the post-partum depression of coming home from vacation.

[huskerdude]

Our favorite ritual is to plan the next cruise!

[suntan]

We, too, start planning our next cruise. Also, once I get the 20 or so rolls of film back, I put them in a photo album, chronoligically, include the dailies from the cruise, and then type a little story about the pictures and what I did on a specific day. It takes me about an entire week to do this, but once it's done, I can and relive my cruise experience with family and friends.

[kakalina]

I agree. The best thing for the post cruise blues is to start planning your next one. I tape up my large list in my bedroom and start putting in things I only use on a cruise and checking them off one by one. My DH & I usually have a silly little celebration ech time we change "decades" from 5o to 40 days etc. It really helps the waiting to go fast. If we're really lucky we already have a cruise booked after that one and can plan ahead. Cruisin' fools thats us A rooling deck, a drink in hand, a sunset, an attentive steward at my elbow ummmmmmmmm!!

 

Trish

[toesockrock]

I cry. Yeah, not the best after-cruise ritual, but it's true.

Right now I'm doing research for the next cruise, and reading over my cruise journal. Ooh, and uploading cruise pictures!

 

xoxo

Maggi

[Cotton]

Nor'E - Your MIL must be a character!:D How funny! I like your idea of the chocolates on the bed, too.

 

What I do is to gather up all my photos and papers from the cruise and get my 'travel' scrapbook out. I always do 4-5 pages of each cruise (or other trips), and I enjoy all my memories of the cruise all over again as I work on the scrapbook. The 'title page' of each cruise is the picture they take just before boarding the ship. It has the ship's name and date of cruise, so is perfect for that.:) I make a few notations on each page, but the scrapping tells the story.

[Nor'Eastah]

Thanks everyone for all the great replies! Planning the next cruise is sure a great ritual! I also take a million pictures. I have a slide show of my cruise pics as my screen saver so I'm always just minutes away from a trip down memory lane!

 

Cotton - yes my MIL is quite the character....she is great all around and especially fun on a cruise.

[kenandlaura06]

Nor'E - Your MIL must be a character!:D How funny! I like your idea of the chocolates on the bed, too.

 

What I do is to gather up all my photos and papers from the cruise and get my 'travel' scrapbook out. I always do 4-5 pages of each cruise (or other trips), and I enjoy all my memories of the cruise all over again as I work on the scrapbook. The 'title page' of each cruise is the picture they take just before boarding the ship. It has the ship's name and date of cruise, so is perfect for that.:) I make a few notations on each page, but the scrapping tells the story.

 

Sounds great! I love scrapbooking

[hotmike98]

Our first post cruise ritual, in addition to unpacking and laundry, was to put all of the furniture, pictures, and knicknacks back, as my niece dog sat and painted all our downstairs rooms. Next was to drain and refill the jacuzzi. Meanwhile, in additional to dreaming about the next cruise (have to pay the credit card bill from this one first!), we are waiting for delivery of the salmon we caught in Alaska--we'll have a big barbecue and invite the rest of the group we cruised with!!

[T_Bird]

After we returned from our last cruise, every morning for the 1st month back, my fiance would recite the captains good morning announcement (with the captain's funny accent) after our alarm would go off. "Good morning, good morning, good morning. This is Captain Johnny and it is going to be hot, hot, hot."

[clc6p]

Like many of you, we too start talking about the next cruise, and what we where we would like to do next. I have new DVD software on my laptop, so on the planeride home I start downloading my digital pictures, put them in the software and add in special text and music to tell the stories and relive our vacation. I like the idea of including the daily papers, etc. I think I will scan them in and include them in my next vacation DVD slideshow in October.

 

Cyndi in VA

 

1998- Carnival Ecstasy ( Got married on)

1999- Carnival Fascination

2000- Carnival Imagination

2001- Carnival Destiny

2002- Carnival Triumph

2003- Norwegian Star

2004- Royal Caribean Serenade of the Seas

2005- Carnival Conquest ( to sail next month)

[kenandlaura06]

After we returned from our last cruise, every morning for the 1st month back, my fiance would recite the captains good morning announcement (with the captain's funny accent) after our alarm would go off. "Good morning, good morning, good morning. This is Captain Johnny and it is going to be hot, hot, hot."

 

Very cute! :)

[Bookworm77]

DH & I will be taking our first ever cruise on 10/22 aboard CB. We are already planning on bringing a minimum of 3 cameras with us (we are picture fanatics). We keep an online photo album on our website so far away family can watch the kids & grandkids (almost on a daily basis sometimes). I love the idea of putting music & slideshow to our cruise photos. We've never really done anything like that and I would be very interested in what software folks use to do this and how compatible the DVD is with older players.

 

My FIL cruises about 5-6 times a year and have a 3" 3-ring binder of photos for every cruise he's taken. In his basement he has an entire floor to ceiling wall of bookcases that house these albums. We've always loved to thumb thru them whenever we go to visit. I'm really looking forward to building some of our own!

[kakalina]

One of our favorite crise rituals is to send ourselves a postcard from every port then when we get home we have them to look through and sometimes we put them into a pix frame with other cruise mementosTrish

[Chucksta63]

We go get all our pictures developed and then sit down and make a photo album of them while it is fresh in our minds!!:)

[Nor'Eastah]

You guys are so good with the photo albums! I still have a stack of pics from my 2002 cruise that I keep promising myself I will get into a scrapbook...someday!

[Lorianna]

My # 1 after cruise ritual is to stay over at least another day before flying home. It gives you a day or so to "almost get back to reality". I also save a good book to read on the flight home for a distraction.

 

#2 I laugh at how many times I bump my head on the medicine cabinet when I bend over to wash my face and brush my teeth!:rolleyes:

 

#3 I take my time unpacking the souveniours so it lasts longer!