Why Do People Hate Cruises?
When talking to people who don’t like cruising, I always ask why. What makes you dislike it so much? What is your distaste for cruising? To be honest, I’d say 9 times out of 10, the reasoning is “the boat was moving way too much.” We all know that calling them boats is a “no-no”—they are ships. More importantly, they are floating cities in today’s age.
Cruise ships today are far larger than what they were when I started cruising. Without having tonnage records in front of me, I’d say that ships today are most likely twice the size of the first ship I was ever on. I’m not going to lie—back then we did hit a night when the seas were rough, but we were also cruising in the midst of hurricane season. With the technology today, most cruise ships are constantly monitoring the weather and finding ways to avoid bad weather as they see it. In some cases, they’ll completely change course and avoid a storm altogether. You may miss the original port you were scheduled to see, but I’d rather avoid the weather than have rain or turbulent seas. Besides the monitoring, most ships today have stabilizing systems they can deploy when needed to assist with the rocking of the ship in bad weather.
A perfect example was this past August when we took our daughter on her first cruise aboard the Carnival Mardi Gras. Before we even got on the ship, she was scared, didn’t want to go, and worried about anything and everything. When we asked her why and where all this was coming from—TikTok! We asked her to show us some of her “learning,” and as you can see from the link, it’s so far over the top and fake that we had to sit her down and explain how it all works. Cruise companies depend on people’s safety and ensuring they have a good time and enjoy themselves. Most Captains pride themselves on making everyone’s journey safe and pleasant. They want to avoid trouble more than anyone else.
What bugs me a bit about people complaining about the weather is that it’s no one’s fault. Period. No one can control the weather, so don’t beat up a Captain, a cruise line, or even the cruise crew for that matter over Mother Nature. There’s nothing anyone can do about it except go around or avoid said weather. Then when they do avoid the weather or go around, people complain about that as well. It’s a no-win situation.
How to Avoid This
- Book your cruise outside of hurricane season.
Remember, the hurricane season doesn’t just affect cruises departing from Florida—you need to consider this when booking from New York, Boston, New Jersey, Texas, or anywhere for that matter. So keep that all in mind. - Start Small
If you’re unsure about being on a ship and the motion, book a short 3- to 5-day cruise. Most of the time you can get some of these extremely cheap, and if you’re flexible with dates, you can sometimes get them for about $100 plus taxes. - Pack motion sickness bands and/or medicine.
In my daughter’s case, we got her a band. We were actually at sea when Hurricane Beryl was taking place, and she never said a word. However, in Carnival’s defense, the Captain had that ship moving to avoid it all. - Book a BIG ship.
With the technology today and the size of some of the ships on the water, you’ll have no problem finding a ship big enough where you don’t even notice the motion. Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, MSC Cruise Line, and Princess Cruise Line all have mega ships.
If you plan your cruise correctly, I’m positive you’d have a good time. There’s so much to do on a cruise ship and so much to see on some of these newer vessels. If you haven’t seen any of the newer ships, check out a few of them below. Most major cruise lines all have new ships on order and coming in the next few years, and they’re all going to be bigger than the previous ship. So don’t rule them out. Unless you’re completely allergic to the sea, I’ll tell anyone to try one!
Never cruised before and not sure? Check out the First Time Cruisers Guide and get some questions answered.
