Mar 29, 2020

Cruising: Why Should You Cruise?

Why take a cruise? I'm the perfect person to ask because I did NOT want to go on my first cruise.

Rebecca had to drag me onboard the Caribbean Princess for my first cruise. That was 13 cruises ago and now we're here to share why we love cruising so much and why we think you should give it a try. If you've never considered cruising, we might give you some reasons to consider it.

Full Transcription. Apologies for any typos.

Walter Biscardi, Jr. 0:00 Hey folks, welcome back to Where's Walter? I'm Walter. Rebecca 0:02 And I'm Rebecca. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 0:03 And today we're talking about, why cruise? But what is it all about cruising? Why take a cruise? Why do so many of us love getting on a cruise ship? And if you're one of these people who are kind of sitting out there and you just don't get it, and I don't know if I'm ever gonna set foot on a ship, I'm a great example. To be honest with you, I did not want to go on my first cruise at all. Rebecca, when did we go on that cruise? Rebecca 0:36 2006, our 10th anniversary. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 0:38 2006 our 10th anniversary. You think our 10th anniversary I'm going to be all excited and for whatever reason, I did not want to go on the ship. Well, first of all, it had to be Princess because you know Rebecca loves The Love Boat. Rebecca 0:51 Cheesy bad TV. What more can you want? Walter Biscardi, Jr. 0:53 You know if you don't like The Love Boat, come on. I mean, it's such, it's kind of fun too because lately, Princess has re-embraced The Love Boat, so they brought back some of that stuff. But you know, 2006 I don't want to go on the ship. And to make matters worse, how long was that first cruise? Rebecca 1:09 It was 14 days, two seven back to back cruises. Rebecca 1:13 You wanted to book another one. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 1:13 So my first cruise I don't want to go on it and she booked a 14-day cruise. So I'm gonna be stuck on a ship for 14 days. And so what happens? Well, we get to the port and first of all, when I saw the ship, I was like, Oh my God, this thing is huge. I had really, I don't know what I was picturing, but I wasn't picturing something quite that big. And then I think it was three days in and what happened? Walter Biscardi, Jr. 1:37 I wanted to book another one. So I went from not wanting to go on a cruise to booking a second cruise in three days. That's when I found out what cruising was all about. So why cruise? Well, first of all, cruising is really cost-effective. I mean, let's do the math here. So you get your hotel. You get your base food. You get most if not all the entertainment on the ship and you get your destinations like where you're actually going. All of that's included in your base price. And just give you a sense I'm looking at some cruises right now as we speak, seven nights in the Caribbean for $389 a person. That's $56 a person for seven nights. Now, where can you get a hotel, food, entertainment, and get to go to destinations for $56 a person, and now that is an interior cabin. But that gets you on the ship and we tend to spend anywhere between say what? Rebecca 2:35 Three and 400. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 2:37 Yeah, three to 400 maybe a little over like Rebecca 2:39 Per night for both of us. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 2:41 Sure. And we like to stay in a balcony. In fact, I think we've only stayed on balconies and suites that's all that we've ever done. Rebecca 2:47 Balconies and Mini-Suites or junior suites. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 2:50 Yeah, mini-suite Junior Suite me that that's a thing you know when we will talk about that more, but there's so many categories of cabina, but the cost-effectiveness of this Now keep in mind, you know When you get to a destination, it doesn't cost you anything to get off the ship and go walk around. The, as long as you don't go to any specialty meals on the cruise, well, then the food's not going to cost you any extra. Will the alcohol cost you? Sure it will. But again, $56 a night per person for seven nights to go cruise around the Caribbean, I challenge you to find things that are more cost-effective that have this much value. And that can take you to so many places. Second of all, it's very convenient. So instead of going to one destination, and then if you want to go somewhere else, you have to hop on another plane or you've got to get in a car and drive or take a bus or take a shuttle. Your hotel is literally in a different place every single day. So you wake up, your hotel is in another location. At the end of the night, you want to go out to a restaurant, you want to get all dressed up. It's right there on the ship. You don't actually have to go anywhere. And then when dinner is going on or maybe after dinner, you want to have an extra drink or two. You can because you're not getting into the car. You don't have to worry about driving home as long as you can walk back to your cabin, and get back there, you're fine. You can try new experiences, new foods. I mean, this is one of the coolest things. So I told you your base food is included. Almost every cruise line, if you don't like something, they're just going to take it back and just replace it with something else, no questions asked. Or if there's foods that you've always wanted to try, this is a great time to do it. Because if you don't like it, try something else. So I remember I used to eat escargot as a kid. When I was wondering, do I still like it? And when I got it for the first time on the ship, oh my god. Yes, I did like it. So like, that's my thing. I never order it anywhere except on a cruise ship. If you can't choose between the entrees, many ships will go ahead, you can say can I have an appetizer portion of these three or four entrees? They'll bring them out or if you're really hungry, you can say can you please bring all of these entrees out? We did a Princess cruise one time where literally every time we sat down us and few other couples, we would just say bring everything in the entrees and we would just set them out and pass them around. So it's a really great opportunity to try foods that you might not ever try. Because there's no there's no penalty if you don't like it. Cruising is really one of those things that you don't know if you're gonna like it until you try it right, Rebecca? Rebecca 5:10 Absolutely. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 5:11 Again I am the perfect model for that. I can sit here all day and tell you it's a beautiful thing but you won't know if you like it until you try it. If you are the kind of person who really loves going to you know, hotels with big pools, and you like staring at the ocean, or you just like that feeling of being near the ocean, I think you're really going to enjoy it. These ships are huge now even the small one you know you're talking about 1000 feet long and a couple of hundred feet wide and you know anywhere up to 19 decks tall, so they're really floating resorts. It's hard to get bored on a ship unless you want to. I mean, if you just want to sit and do absolutely nothing, you can do absolutely nothing for the entire, you don't even have to get off the ship. You know, just because the ship comes into a port doesn't mean you actually have to get off and that's actually a trick that a lot of veteran cruisers do because you get the whole ship to yourself. Everybody leaves, and now suddenly, you know, maybe there's only about a quarter of the passengers still on the ship so you get a nice, quiet ship all to yourself. So that's even something fun to do. And there you go. There's our reasons why we think you should take a cruise. It's cost-effective. It's convenient to try out new places, new food, and new experiences. It's very convenient. You don't have to get into a car or plane to go to a new place. But you just really don't know until you try it. So we really hope that you do try it. If you like this advice, please subscribe to the channel. I'm Walter. Rebecca 6:33 I'm Rebecca. Walter Biscardi, Jr. 6:34 We'll see you next time.