Who says cruising is for the elderly? I do.
Modern day cruising isn’t all quiz time and art auctions… Although those quizzes can be quite fun, especially when the host happens to be Swedish eye-candy…
But four young girls are not restrained to have the same experience as the pensioners, and when you’re not quizzing or fine art auctioning you might just find yourself getting messy after a few cocktails, getting a nose piercing and eventually getting in a spot of trouble with the ships security…
After backpacking for two months a cruise was pure luxury. Our 4 berth interior dorm may have been the presidents suite after experiencing some of the horrific hostels I had spent nights in, not to mention that month of camping…
We boarded in Italy and along the way marvelled at sights in Greece and Turkey. Having the convenience of seeing a new city each day without lugging a 20kg backpack was a luxury I had forgotten existed. But the best part of the cruise was spending quality time with some quality girls.
I am not very good at group travelling. So spending a lot of time with the same three people was a true personal test. It’s a good thing that Eliza, Isabel and Charlotte are so wonderful. Despite dinner quarrels and touristy disagreements after a couple of cocktails each night we were a happy family.
A couple of cocktails each night quickly turned into as many cocktails as our poor little livers could take. We had decided to be ambitious and buy an unlimited drinks package for the journey. And we definitely made the most of it. We probably could have written lengthy reviews about the 30 page cocktail menu by the end of that week. Sorry liver.
But for those of you who haven’t cruised before – don’t be too quick to judge. Being on a ship for a week gives you a lot of free time. Free time that is basically designed to be used for drinking, eating, and quizzing (of course).
As a travel agent I could list all the great features of these cruise ships. Especially Royal Caribbean, the fantastic company we were sailing with. With an onboard rock climbing wall, ice-skating rink, gym, swimming pool and theatre there was an abundance of things to do. Strangely enough my main memories are all of scanning the cocktail menu. Well, right up until the final night when we almost got arrested at sea.
You see, Royal Caribbean is an American cruise line, which follows American laws, like that silly old ’21 is the legal drinking age’ thing. So we were only allowed to buy the unlimited drink package for the two older cruisers. Eliza and myself were youngings at the time, not quite meeting the age allowance for the Pina Coladas. But given that Eliza and Isabel share genetics and a few facial features, not many questions were asked for the 6 days that Eliza shared Isabel’s ID card…
All I can say is that our last night on board was an extremely sober one which featured an  intimidatingly large security guard.
But despite our bad behaviour and last night sobriety the cruise was an amazing break at a time when we all needed one, or maybe it was just a week-long sugar rush. Either way, it was fun.
