Even as a seasoned traveler, it took me nearly five decades to get on a cruise ship at all. I had never been particularly curious about cruising and had some pretty unflattering ideas about what it involved: heaping buffets of dubious food, brightly colored drinks, crowded decks, and a style of travel that seemed much too packaged for me.
Then, this summer, I spent nine nights traveling through Northern Europe and discovered that much of what I thought I knew about cruising was wrong.
My husband and I went on a cruise for my 49th birthday.
My husband and I sailed aboard Crystal Serenity from Southampton to Copenhagen, a voyage on which I would celebrate my 49th birthday. And this was admittedly a very cushy introduction: I stayed in a Sapphire Veranda Suite with a walk-in closet, veranda, and butler service.
So I’m certainly not suggesting my experience represents every cruise. But as someone who typically takes complicated, high-effort trips, I found these were the things that surprised me most about my first one.
I couldn’t believe how easy everything was.
I’m accustomed to doing a lot of work when I travel. I tend to build ambitious itineraries involving multiple cities, hotels, trains, flights, restaurant reservations, and activities. I love that kind of travel, but there are a lot of logistics involved — and as the mom and travel planner in chief, I’m usually the one managing them all.
Cruising took an astonishing amount of that effort away. I unpacked once, put everything in the closet, slid my empty suitcase under the bed, and didn’t deal with it again for nine nights. While I slept, ate dinner, or watched a show, my hotel was effortlessly transporting me to another country.
The rest felt similarly organized. An on-ship newsletter featured printed itineraries that told me exactly what would be happening on board the following day. Excursions were coordinated around the ship’s arrival and departure. Restaurants, entertainment, and activities were steps from my room.
I hadn’t realized just how much mental and physical energy I normally spend administering my own trips until I didn’t have to.
The food was incredible.
Cruise food, in my imagination, was mostly about quantity: enormous buffets of mediocre food feeding thousands of people at once.
What I encountered on Crystal was very different. The main dining room didn’t repeat dishes, so you could always count on something new to try. Beyond that, my favorite meals came from places that I’d consider hot restaurants even in my buzzy hometown of Los Angeles. Umi Uma, created by Nobu Matsuhisa, served sophisticated Japanese food and sushi. Osteria d’Ovidio offered seriously high-end Italian cooking.
Obviously, this was a luxury ship, and I wouldn’t assume every cruise serves food like this one did. But it thoroughly dismantled my assumption that cruise dining necessarily meant choosing among endless ho-hum chafing dishes at a buffet.
I couldn’t believe I sometimes preferred staying on board to sightseeing.
Before this trip, I couldn’t understand why anyone would travel somewhere only to spend the day on a ship. But the ship turned me into such a person.
There were history lectures, art classes, live performances, a spa, pools, a movie theater, and a casino. I entered a $100 blackjack tournament on a whim and somehow came in third (I’ll be getting mileage out of this proud moment for years to come).
The ultimate test came when we docked in Rotterdam. We had booked an excursion to Amsterdam that would take most of the day, but we decided to cancel it to spend more time on board. I never would have seen that coming.
I actually relaxed — something I’m not very good at doing on trips.
I love travel, but my tendency to cram a lot into every trip means I frequently return home exhausted.
On the cruise, I slept like an absolute baby. (My husband suggested it might be the gentle motion of the sea that lulled me.) In fact, I slept in so late that I ended up setting my alarm for 10 a.m. I knew I’d miss regular breakfast, but I didn’t want to miss the late-riser breakfast from 10 to 11 — or sleep through a day when there were things on board I actually wanted to do.
Without transportation to arrange, hotels to change, or a packed sightseeing agenda to manage, I settled into a pace I rarely allow myself while traveling. For once, the words “travel” and “vacation” actually felt synonymous.
I sometimes questioned how deeply I was experiencing the destinations.
For all the things I loved about cruising, one of my original reservations did bear out.
I usually think of travel as a way to experience a place and its culture. I like wandering neighborhoods, eating local cuisine, figuring out public transportation, and having the kinds of unplanned interactions that happen when you’re actually immersed in a destination (even when they’re stressful).
A port stop is different. We visited some incredible places, and we were generally there for only a few hours before returning to the ship. There was less time for wandering, spontaneity, or meaningful cultural exchange.
In that sense, this cruise felt more like a true vacation than the kind of travel I typically do. And, as it turns out, I really needed and enjoyed that. But I did sometimes wonder how much I could say I’d truly experienced a destination after seeing it within the relatively controlled framework of a port day.
So if my primary goal were to deeply get to know a place, I’d still choose to stay there rather than visit it by ship. But I loved the shipboard experience, and it turned out to be one of the best trips I’ve taken in recent memory.
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