After 100 straight weeks of talking cruises, we’re still just getting started. To celebrate 100 weeks, here we are launching this blog, which will be a new way for us to communicate cruise opinions, news, and more on a more frequent basis. It’s worth calling out, this is simply a reflection of what we learned over the last 100 weeks, and no, we aren’t trading in our microphones for keyboards.
When we embarked – pun intended – on this journey 100 weeks ago, let’s just say, we didn’t really know what we were doing or getting ourselves into, and there truly was a lot of growth and learning along the way. If you don’t believe us, go back and give some of our early episodes a listen, you’ll see what we mean. So let’s dive into some of those things that we’ve learned and perhaps, surprised us about the cruising industry.
#1 – Cruise reviews are remarkably subjective
If you’re someone who joins all the cruising Facebook pages, you’re most likely nodding your head as you read this, but it’s TRUE! If you take any cruise ship, any sailing, and interview all the guests, there will be one person that will say, “That was the best trip we’ve ever been on” and there will be another person that will say, “That was the worst trip we’ve ever been on”. As we’ve ramped up our travel agent business, we’ve also heard these types of things first hand. One client will absolutely rave about a cruise, and then another guest on the same cruise will complain. Everything we talk about on our podcast has some level of subjectiveness, and we feel that this is what makes our podcast enjoyable and relatable, but it is something as a listener or a reader that you have to take into consideration, and we’ve learned this the hard way.
#2 – There’s a cruise line out there for everyone
When we started this podcast, we had a pretty narrow point of view on cruising. It was Royal Caribbean and Carnival, because that’s what we were used to. Now, we regularly talk about 8-10 different cruise lines, and what we’ve discovered is that cruising is not a one size fits all. This is another reason we recommend everyone booking with a travel agent, because unless someone comes to us and knows exactly what they want, we try to understand more about who they are, what type of things they enjoy on vacation, who they are traveling with, and then recommend the best option. While Client A may love Oasis Class ships, Client B may prefer a premier/luxury option over a large ship with thousands of guests. Our goal over the next 100 weeks of podcasting is to continue to deliver this message, especially for anyone reading this that may be skeptical about cruising.
#3 – The value of cruising is unmatched in the travel industry
While the cost of cruising has increased over the last few years, it still holds true that there is not a land based vacation that provides the value that cruising does when you take into account the food, entertainment, and level of service that you receive on a cruise, especially those that are cruising with kids or multi generational families. We’ve learned this first hand as we’ve had multiple clients of ours try to compare all-inclusives against cruises, and when we show them the hotels they can get for the same price as a Celebrity Edge Class balcony room, they realize the same thing
#4 – The size of the cruise industry
Early on when we began sharing with friends and family that we would start a cruise podcast, those that are less familiar with cruising would say things like “Wow! That’s a great niche!”, and in the moment we thought nothing of it and sort of agreed. But the truth is that as we began unpacking topics, cruise lines, cruise news, etc. we realized our scope is incredibly large. There are over 50 cruise lines, 400 active ocean sailing cruise ships, with ~30 million passengers a year. So going back to our friends, yes, cruising is a “niche” topic, but we quickly realized our podcast will most likely only cover a sliver of the industry. We can’t wait to try more cruise lines!
#5 – Cruising is so much more than just the Caribbean
If you asked us what our favorite cruise was that we’ve been on, we’d both immediately think of our Mediterranean cruises, which is hilarious because out of the 35+ cruises we’ve been on, we’ve only done 2 in Europe. Michael did Italy, Spain, and France on Wonder of the Seas, and I (Frank) did Italy, Greece, and Turkey on 28 year old Enchantment of the Seas. Between the two of us, we’ve been on the latest and greatest Carnival and Royal ships many times, cruising around the Caribbean, but these two cruises in Europe stick out as our favorites for one reason.. We experienced so much culture on the Med cruises in 7 days. We both love the shiny new ships, the onboard experiences of cruising (which we will post more blogs about) but cruising offers so much utility when going to destinations like Alaska or Europe where it would be more difficult to see 4+ cities or countries within a week. We look forward to bringing you more thoughts around Alaska as we are both experiencing that for the first time this June.
Those are just 5 things we’ve learned over the last 100 weeks, and we know there is so much more to learn. Thanks for being on this journey with us—whether you’ve listened since episode 1 or just discovered us today. Here’s to 100 more weeks of Cruise Conversations!