Hi everyone.

[desiree741]

So I’m new here to cruise critic. By the end of the week I will be booking the 5 day Christmas sailing on Valor (still trying to make some final decisions). This will be our (DD and I) third cruise. Our first was a 4 day on Elation to Cozumel, great for getting our feet wet. We then took a fantastic Alaskan cruise on the Triumph 3 years ago, first balcony and now I’m sold lol.

My daughter is almost 15 and she’s getting to the age she doesn’t want to hang out with mom to much. especially on a cruise so I’m lucky to get her to mdr with me at the same time lol  but we decided in Liu of birthdays, Christmas, summer weekend get always we will splurge on a cruise (need to make memories where I can)I opted for the extra expense of a balcony because that is where I will spend a good bit of my time. I’m a introvert with slight social anxiety so while I say I’m going to get out and mingle, most likely won’t happen. I will be happy with a book laying on the balcony 

Anywho I have been reading a lot trying to re-familiarize myself with all the cruising stuff. I really don’t have any questions atm as I pretty much found the answers I needed by searching. Y’all have been a plethora of information, thanks!

 

[smurfm69]

We are doing a 4 day on the Valor in November and looking forward to cruising on a different ship.   Cruise Critic is a great website with so much fun and money saving info.  Hope y'all have a good time!

[Organized Chaos]

Welcome to CC. I know what you mean about the kids. My son is 18...where did the years go? We started with a 5-day cruise a few years ago and enjoyed it so much, we bumped up to a 7-day last year. Now we've recently booked an 8-day for next March. We'd LOVE to go on an Alaskan cruise, but that's not within our budget right now, so it'll have to wait. I kind of wanted to save up and make Alaska our next cruise, but my wife wanted to do one with her family, so that's how we got this next one. Our son was 15 on our first one. He didn't care for it much because he was by himself and bored a lot. He's not a social kid, so didn't want to interact with the others. We spent a lot of time with him, but also wanted to do our own thing, so he spent a lot of time in the arcade. Last year he took a friend, so it was better for him. We didn't see them much, but had dinner in the MDR every night together, and a few other things. He'll probably take a friend again next year.

 

I'm pretty introverted myself when I'm around strangers. Last year my goal was to break out of my comfort zone and do things I wouldn't normally do. And I did. I got picked to go up on stage during one of the Playlist Production pre-shows to do a short song & dance routine with a few other guys (to include wearing wigs). Not my proudest moment. I spoke on stage during the military appreciation ceremony even though I'm deathly afraid of public speaking. Among other things. Looking back at video, I wished I never did a couple of them. LOL

 

Again, welcome. And don't be afraid to ask something.

[RWolver672]

5 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

Among other things. Looking back at video, I wished I never did a couple of them. LOL

 

 

Just remember, one of the  best things about taking a cruise is that you'll probably never see those people again.  😉

[deadmoney]

That explains some of the odd behavior you see.😀

[keywest1]

12 hours ago, desiree741 said:

I’m a introvert with slight social anxiety so while I say I’m going to get out and mingle, most likely won’t happen. I will be happy with a book laying on the balcony 

That's what I said too, but somehow I manage to transform into a moderately social person on the ship.  

Enjoy your cruise!!!

[cloudninecat]

Our last cruise was with the whole family. My oldest was 20 and my youngest was 15. I figured it was my last chance to make memories with our 20 year old before she forgot she had parents and made her own way in life. We had a great time and I will cherish those memories. We did have a rule that they had to eat a meal with us at least once a day and on formal nights we all had to dress up, go to the MDR and have a nice meal together. So glad we did. It was a good time to catch up on each other's day and we had many laughs together. 

 

I'm an introvert too but knowing I'll probably never see these people again makes it easier to step out of my comfort zone. On one cruise I even sang Karaoke with my friend. I don't know if we were really bad or really good but for the rest of the cruise people would point at us and say, "There are those singing girls" or something to that effect. I choose to believe we were really good. 😂

[evandbob]

The OP may want to check into the roll call for her Valor cruise on CC.  Just go to Roll Calls, Carnival, Valor, and search for the day of departure.

 

Texting there may help develop a friendship or social ease with other passengers.  Then again, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a balcony while a teenager hangs with her new friends.   Just have her check in with you via the Hub app every (enter time) hrs or so and then enjoy the MDR or steakhouse.

 

There's no rule that says one has to socialize with other guests on a cruise.  Be polite and respectful, sure, but loners are indeed welcome to their private balcony space.

[yaddayaddayadda]

My teen daughter had a blast on our cruise at the teen club.  It's worth trying to get your daughter to go to the initial meet-and-greet.

[OkieRican]

Loved the Valor! We took her on our first cruise, 5 days, 2 years ago with 3/4 kids for my 2nd DS's senior vacation. Our kids were 9, 12 and 17 at the time. I signed them all up for their respective clubs. We did inform them they had to be at the MDR dressed accordingly for dinner. It worked out really well. They had a lot of fun. This time it will be just the hubby, me and his brother and wife. No kids! We are sailing a 7 day on the Freedom out of Galveston again. Can't wait!

[Organized Chaos]

7 hours ago, RWolver672 said:

 

Just remember, one of the  best things about taking a cruise is that you'll probably never see those people again.  😉

 

We're from a tiny rural, Midwest town out in the middle of corn fields. Believe it or not, on our first cruise, we ran into a couple from our town. Crossed paths out by the pool about halfway through the cruise. The woman knew my mom, used to work with her in our local drug store decades ago, and even remembered me coming into the store as a little boy. ~1,500 miles from home, middle of the Caribbean, out on the ocean on one of dozens and dozens of possible cruise ships (not to mention cruises), and we meet people from our small town. That's nuts to me. Luckily, I didn't do any of the aforementioned embarrassing stuff on that cruise to give them gossip to take home.

[LuckyStar]

19 hours ago, desiree741 said:

So I’m new here to cruise critic. By the end of the week I will be booking the 5 day Christmas sailing on Valor (still trying to make some final decisions). This will be our (DD and I) third cruise. Our first was a 4 day on Elation to Cozumel, great for getting our feet wet. We then took a fantastic Alaskan cruise on the Triumph 3 years ago, first balcony and now I’m sold lol.

My daughter is almost 15 and she’s getting to the age she doesn’t want to hang out with mom to much. especially on a cruise so I’m lucky to get her to mdr with me at the same time lol  but we decided in Liu of birthdays, Christmas, summer weekend get always we will splurge on a cruise (need to make memories where I can)I opted for the extra expense of a balcony because that is where I will spend a good bit of my time. I’m a introvert with slight social anxiety so while I say I’m going to get out and mingle, most likely won’t happen. I will be happy with a book laying on the balcony 

Anywho I have been reading a lot trying to re-familiarize myself with all the cruising stuff. I really don’t have any questions atm as I pretty much found the answers I needed by searching. Y’all have been a plethora of information, thanks!

 

I cruise with my sisters since my DH is not a fan so it works out that I spend a lot of time alone, some days.  My sister likes to lay in the sun and I do not.   I just get bored after an hour or so, so I head off and do stuff by myself.  I do trivia contests, lectures, etc. and usually have no problem finding people to talk to.  I also take a good book and find lots of nooks to hunker down and read and people watch.  I have three kids so I am seldom alone so I appreciate my alone time on the cruise.

 

Forgot to say Welcome to Cruise Critic!  🙂

Edited March 27, 2019 by LuckyStar

[Organized Chaos]

6 hours ago, cloudninecat said:

I'm an introvert too but knowing I'll probably never see these people again makes it easier to step out of my comfort zone. On one cruise I even sang Karaoke with my friend. I don't know if we were really bad or really good but for the rest of the cruise people would point at us and say, "There are those singing girls" or something to that effect. I choose to believe we were really good. 😂

 

We went to karaoke for the first time last year and really enjoyed it. Ended up going a few times. I liked it so much because there was no judgement based on singing talent, or lack thereof. Everyone cheered all of the singers no matter how they did. It was just good energy in there. One guy kept encouraging me to sing every time we went. That little voice in my head was telling me, c'mon you're here to break out of your comfort zone. Get up there and do it. A very teeny tiny part of me considered it...then I duct taped that voice's mouth shut. 🤐

[cloudninecat]

20 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

...then I duct taped that voice's mouth shut. 🤐

I thought I responded to this but I don't see it so if two show up later I apologize in advance. 

 

We'll untape that mouth and have some fun. That's what I liked about it. No matter how someone sounded everyone seem to be having a good time and enjoying themselves. I honestly don't know how I sounded but I don't care. It was fun. I plan on doing it again. Of course a little liquid courage always helps. 😉

 

[wesorbeth]

I work at a Pediatric Hospital with over 15,000 employees.  On my first cruise our departments HR rep was on the same cruise!

[pyropoodle]

I second checking the roll call.  i made some very good friend through various roll calls, some i still keep in touch with even though our schedules haven't aligned for us to be able to sail together again.   it really is a great way to start a cruise, getting on board and feeling like you already know someone is very comforting (i'm an introvert as well, but get to know me and i kinda explode with too much personality)

 

i love the idea of cruising instead of large parties or gifts.  my kiddos are still really little, but we are doing a NYE sailing next year (2020 into 2021 when my son will be 6. ) we will open gifts on christmas morning and santa will have brought us plane tickets and cruise tickets , we'll fly out on christmas day and set sail the next day. i hope he loves it so much that we can continue (not necessarily expensive holiday time) but continue to replace big parties and gifts with this one of memories.   fingers crossed. 

[desiree741]

8 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

We're from a tiny rural, Midwest town out in the middle of corn fields. Believe it or not, on our first cruise, we ran into a couple from our town. Crossed paths out by the pool about halfway through the cruise. The woman knew my mom, used to work with her in our local drug store decades ago, and even remembered me coming into the store as a little boy. ~1,500 miles from home, middle of the Caribbean, out on the ocean on one of dozens and dozens of possible cruise ships (not to mention cruises), and we meet people from our small town. That's nuts to me. Luckily, I didn't do any of the aforementioned embarrassing stuff on that cruise to give them gossip to take home.

That’s crazy! Something similar happened to us. We are very close to Biloxi Ms and while in Juneau Alaska we ran into DD principal (3,000 miles away!). They also happened to be on our same ship. It we didn’t realize till we was getting back on at the end of the day and saw them sitting there at the port.

[schazzy]

17 hours ago, RWolver672 said:

 

Just remember, one of the  best things about taking a cruise is that you'll probably never see those people again.  😉

 

That was my philosophy on my last cruise and will be going forward, I think I really started to come out of my shell more and actually enjoyed myself more. It also helps when you see others dancing just as bad as I do 😄

[schazzy]

8 hours ago, cloudninecat said:

Of course a little liquid courage always helps. 😉

 

I might have to actually hit the 15 drink limit on my Cheers package to do karaoke 😄

[Organized Chaos]

29 minutes ago, schazzy said:

 

That was my philosophy on my last cruise and will be going forward, I think I really started to come out of my shell more and actually enjoyed myself more. It also helps when you see others dancing just as bad as I do 😄

 

I'm still going to try to break from my comfort zone, but I'm just going to be a little more choosy with how I do it next time. On one occasion last year, the Fun Squad was having a party in the lobby. I forget how they put it exactly, but they were looking for people full of excitement and willing to help keep the party going, something like that. Dancing along with them, repeating after them, whatever. A couple of them would roam through the crowd and pick people to "win" a free drink. Some blue concoction, I have no idea what it was, but I tried so dang hard to get that stupid drink. At one point I could see one of them out of the corner of my eye standing behind me. She was standing there for a while, so I start ramping up the ridiculousness convinced she was going to pick me. After about 5 minutes, she gave the drink to some older, drunk guy who couldn't even get up off his bar stool. I know it was just a dumb thing that didn't mean anything, but if she only knew how hard that was for me. That's when I realized breaking free from my comfort zone has its limitations.

 

26 minutes ago, schazzy said:

 

I might have to actually hit the 15 drink limit on my Cheers package to do karaoke 😄

 

I've sang karaoke a few times, but that was in my early 20's and having alcohol-fueled fun with friends at wedding receptions. My inhibitions have significantly increased since then. The Roll Call thread for our cruise last year only had a few other people in it. I tried to spark conversation, but no one talked, so I didn't get a chance to talk to anyone from here beforehand. But while we were there, I constantly wondered if I was ever seeing people from CC. We did talk to one woman who said she was on here at that time, but we didn't exchange usernames. I know there's Meet & Greets from here, but I'm not sure if that's for me. That first initial social interaction with strangers face to face is where I feel uncomfortable. Once I start feeling comfortable around someone, I do better.

[schazzy]

8 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

I'm still going to try to break from my comfort zone, but I'm just going to be a little more choosy with how I do it next time. On one occasion last year, the Fun Squad was having a party in the lobby. I forget how they put it exactly, but they were looking for people full of excitement and willing to help keep the party going, something like that. Dancing along with them, repeating after them, whatever. A couple of them would roam through the crowd and pick people to "win" a free drink. Some blue concoction, I have no idea what it was, but I tried so dang hard to get that stupid drink. At one point I could see one of them out of the corner of my eye standing behind me. She was standing there for a while, so I start ramping up the ridiculousness convinced she was going to pick me. After about 5 minutes, she gave the drink to some older, drunk guy who couldn't even get up off his bar stool. I know it was just a dumb thing that didn't mean anything, but if she only knew how hard that was for me. That's when I realized breaking free from my comfort zone has its limitations.

 

Yeah, let's just say that I had something similar when for some reason I felt I wanted to be a part of the Love & Marriage show, my DH reluctantly went along with it, and we did get quite a bit of applause, but there was a Canadian couple that apparently wanted it way more and did a whole dry humping routine to get even more noise from the audience and they got the spot on stage. In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't get up there because I'm pretty sure the spotlight would have made me realize very fast that my comfort zone has it's limitations as well, but it was still an experience I'll never forget.

 

8 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

I've sang karaoke a few times, but that was in my early 20's and having alcohol-fueled fun with friends at wedding receptions.

 

Well, except for the wedding reception part, that was me, although my BAC at the time made the details of the event kinda fuzzy.

 

But except for performing on stage, I have managed to get a lot better at being more sociable and have made a few cruise buddies on the last two cruises.

[Organized Chaos]

2 hours ago, schazzy said:

But except for performing on stage, I have managed to get a lot better at being more sociable and have made a few cruise buddies on the last two cruises.

 

That's a more realistic goal for me/us as well. Be more sociable, skip the embarrassing stuff. I'm very private and I never put pictures/videos of myself online. And I really don't like that everyone these days wants to put everyone else online too. When I volunteered at the Playlist pre-show and ended up doing that goofy song & dance routine on stage, I wasn't thinking straight and forgot about that until I was up there, looking out at all the cell phones in the air. LOL Doh!!

 

We did meet an older couple last year that we kinda became on board friends with, if you can call it that. We were in the MDR one night, just my wife & I so sitting at a 2-seater, and they were sat at the table right next to us. It was their first cruise and the husband said he wasn't really enjoying it. We talked about some of the new things we had tried so far and he said maybe that's why he wasn't having fun...they weren't really doing anything. So we said yeah, definitely get out and do things. We suggested they try the comedy show that night, not knowing if they would. We went to the show with our son and his friend, so we got a big semi-circular booth. We saw them walk in, and had plenty of room, so we invited them to join us. Then we ended up sitting together at Quest a couple nights later. I passed by their table at breakfast one morning on Lido and stopped to say hi before everyone got off the ship, but that was the last time I saw them. It seemed like he started to enjoy it more, but we never got a chance to really find out. Meeting someone new and hanging out a few times like that was so new to us that we didn't think to exchange info., or at the very least, find out what cabin they were in to see if they had a good time. I've seen plenty of people say they've met others onboard, then went on future cruises together. I don't think we're at that point yet. Baby steps. LOL