Cruising makes you fat.  If this were true, why are there so many healthy looking people on cruise ships? With a few tips and rules for yourself, cruising can be a wonderful way to vacation without upsetting your New Year’s weight loss goals. Balance is the key in vacationing where there is unlimited food and 24 hour service.

1. Tasting is good thing.  I’m talking taste, not committing to a meal of Mac & Cheese in the buffet, just because it looked yummy.  They keep refilling the buffet all through the meal time. This is not your home where it is gone when your brother woofs it.  Join a different club than the clean plate club. Taste some healthy veggie dishes and fish you would not commit to at a normal restaurant.  Talk, relax, pause and you may find you are full enough.  It is not your last meal, and don’t get into the “gonna get my money’s worth” frame of mind.  The fruit and veggies are already cut up for you, yeah!  Service is the luxury of this vacation.
2. Avoid the buffet – the dining room serves user-friendly portions and the food is really better there.  Try the fish.  If you don’t care for a dish that is the beauty of cruising, they will bring you something else, really, it’s so cool!
3. Try to get the table to taste many desserts.  Most of the time, a bite savored in your mouth really satisfies the craving.  They got it right in kindergarten, sharing is caring.
4. Use the stairs.  Would you ever want to be stuck in an elevator?  If you have a full dessert, use the stairs to get to the gym.
5. First thing, first day, go to the Spa. Learn about what classes are going to be offered.  Sign up – budget for taking classes on this trip.  Some are free, such as Yoga or stretch classes, so go to those too.  The more trendy classes like Pilates and Spinning are around $12.  Class sizes are typically small and once you sign up, you pay, (unless you remember to cancel before the class) so you are more likely to show up.
6. Sign up for active shore excursions.  Riding around in a bus looking at things is not fun.  Get out and do something.  Kayak, snorkel, hike or at least walk the town you’ve docked at.
7. If the ship has a “swim against the current” pool, go use it.  It is great fun.  If not, get in the pool; tread water for 15 minutes or more while you chat with friends. Yes, you could chat in the hot tub, but save relaxation for a reward after a workout.  Sitting in hot water is not a work out.
8. If the ship has a rock wall – Do it.  What a rush it is to get to the top.  You are in a harness and they walk you through it.  Just remember hand, hand, foot, foot, and start climbing.
9. Walk the promenade deck.  Doing this as the ship docks or departs is extra special.  One cruise line has weighted vest you wear to get extra benefits in calories used and correcting posture.
10. Just dance, at every opportunity you get.  Read the activity list in the little newspaper delivered to your room.  See a conga line forming… get in it. Activity staff teaching ballroom, or line dance, perfect time to learn.  Sleep solid by finishing out your day with a few dances at the disco.
11. Take the opportunity to try out some pieces of work out equipment you have never tried.  Don’t forget the proper clothes to work out.  Some lines are very strict about wearing appropriate athletic shoes into their gyms.  Your sports sandals might not pass.
12. To get a top of the line workout room, it is best to work with a cruise specialist to direct you to specific ships.  The difference in gyms regarding size, age of machines, etc. is huge, so work with someone who has at least toured the industries ships.

This is the first cruise company to cross the line that has been holding for a while now, even though the price of oil has been high for many months.  I don’t think it will be very long before we will see the rest of them follow suit.  Fuel supplements will be back.  Air prices are high, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.  Why don’t they just up the price of the cruise… cause the consumer likes a certain advertised price.  If they can keep this as an add on, they don’t have to advertise it.  It’s a pain for me, travel agent, to have to explain.

Cunard is saying new bookings, but most lines have had a clause on their invoices that they can add a fuel supplement to existing bookings if the price of a barrel of oil exceeds – $70. Some lines have a different price.  The average price for 2010 was $79.  The expected price for 2011 is $93.  Not good.  Something to plan for.

I had a trip to Costa Rica all planned and everything set – but didn’t take that trip as it was scheduled for 2 weeks after 9/11. The business portion of the trip got canceled and there went all my planning. I’ve been there for a day since – did a river rafting shore tour from the cruise ship I was on. I think that was part of my panama canal cruise. The river was super low and we had to practically walk the raft. When they gave us a chance to get out and quit the non-exciting boat experience I jumped at the chance. It was still a very entertaining experience, mostly in listening to the extremely confident guide that came on the bus transportation. He told us all about the educational requirements for the people of Costa Rica. It’s one of the most literate countries in the world. They have wonderful community centers. Each little town we passed had the same things – a church, a school, a store, some kind of recreation, like a park and a bar. What more in life does one need – he said. He told the entire bus that Intel – the company my hubby works for – was moving EVERYONE down to Costa Rica. That the president of the country had worked out a deal with them. That statement I had to stop him on and said…. hmmm – that sounds like an outrageous rumor. Then he confronted me with questions like… WHY, wouldn’t you like to live here? and things along that line. Wow, didn’t expect that and had to worm out of that the most gentle way I could. Touchy about thinking they have the best country in the world – and for all I know maybe it is?? They certainly haven’t gotten involved in any wars and were one of the first to think conservation and they certainly don’t have a welfare problem. I would like to see & experience more of Costa Rica.

I love shows that give you that taste of a country. The recent -Oprah takes her audience to Australia -did a wonderful job of getting me excited for a trip there one day. I love how they had different groups take off to many parts of the country. The Great Barrier Reef looked amazing! Brilliant.

Here is one that looks pretty sweet today.  NCL, a good solid line, not luxury in the sense of what I know to be luxury, but they do the cooking and cleaning, so it’s luxury all the same.

A NINE night cruise- round trip Miami starting at $499 pp. If you need a window $649 pp.

Here is where it’s going:

The food is gourmet all the way and even a massage is included in the price.  Premium wine, beer and spirits are included.

Having a small vessel like this allows for flexibility.  This is the type of trip where if they see whales they can stop and linger.   This is the perfect situation to charter the entire yacht for a family gathering or company incentive group.

They are doing 7 or 10 night sailings around the Hawaiian Islands.  Dates for these – started this November and run until May 2012.  The 7 night goes from Maui to the Big Island visiting Molokai and Lana’i along the way.  Some of the experiences on this one include:

My favorite stop was Santorini, for sure.  My pictures from that stop are wonderful (if I can brag… just a little).   The sail in was incredible -with seeing what they say looks like snow capped mountains, really being the white buildings tightly snuggled together on top of the cliffs.  That’s what I expected from all greek islands.  My desire to do “Greek Isles” came from seeing a James Bond movie- “For Your Eyes Only” which I thought was an island and now after some research discovered that it is on the main part of Greece.  The shot that looks like an island has a highway running right under what I thought was the cliff with ocean below. There are many of them, so not sure where they filmed exactly. They used a monestary in the area of Meteora.   I need to watch the movie again…! If you have similar needs and false impressions, than you will be disappointed also.  Most of the islands are flat or somewhat hilly, but the dramatic cliffs on Santorini, at least on one side of island don’t disappoint.

The ships drop you off below Fira and you can get to top on a funicular, cable car looking thing, walk up… or ride a donkey.  Walking up might seem like a good idea until you realize that it’s the same path the donkeys take and they poop.  So I can’t recommend that.  I think you MUST take a tour on this and the best one is with the ship going to the city of Oia.  Oia is about 20 times cuter than Fira, and it’s a little ways away.  The tour I took takes you by boat directly to the area where tour busses can go up and you go to Oia first and then they drop you off at Fira and give you a ticket to the funicular to come down.  When we got to the line for that it looked super long, but it moved along really quickly and so don’t be afraid of the line.

I can’t decide if I would want to spend a week in Oia or not.  It’s extremely photogenic, but I don’t know what all I would do there after swimming, tanning and reading.   I guess there will come a day when that’s all I will want to do.  A drop in on a cruise ship was pretty perfect for me.

Second favorite stop on this cruise was Split Croatia, with it’s walled old fort looking thing and just the general feel of the place was wonderful.  People were very friendly there.

Corfu is where I rented a scooter and took my sis on a ride down the coast line.  It was beautiful and if I hadn’t stopped too fast and she fell forward in weird way and burned her leg exhaust pipe – it would have been a perfect day.  We didn’t get far enough into the walled old seciton of the city and I think we should have done that.  Having a passenger on a little scooter is hard.  Oh, you can’t rent a scooter… at least not at the place that I went to, without a motorcycle license which I have…

Mykonos was a cute town, but it was very windy and overcast that day.  Pictures were not as nice…  When on the shoreline that day and it was hard to just hang out, my hair wouldn’t even stay in a ponytail.  My sister remembered it very differently from her 1st honeymooon and it’s changed and grown, so it was a disappointment to her.  I found it charming.  Walking around the little lanes was delightful.  I have a few decent pictures from that day- and had a nice time.  We didn’t linger there very long though.

Crete – we weren’t there long enough to get a real sense of that.  I would have liked to rent a car and get into the countryside instead of the big city that you can walk around.
We had a nice time and I learned alot about what I would recommend people  do in these ports.  Having an inside track would be very helpful on these.

Santorini, Favorite Greek Isle

This August 2010 there is a similar cruise with an amazing list of speakers: Condoleezza Rice, William Perry, Mikhail Gorbachev, (and others).   Maybe sold out, I haven’t checked,  but this one starts with a land tour in Moscow and then flies to Istanbul and takes a luxury cruise around the Black Sea with stops in Georgia, Odessa, etc. and would be just fascinating.

This is one of those situations where you get what you pay for (minimum price per person $24K) – of course-  an amazing trip with once in a life time experiences.  If you love to hear great lectures and hear about the world from different perspectives this is for you.

I’d love to help you get onboard one of these amazing adventures. 

http://www.worldleaderstravel.com/trips/category/status-upcoming-events  see what’s out there

http://www.cruisesbyrose.com  my contact info