Tips to get the most out of your cruise vacation – and a review of mine

Until recently I had never been on a cruise before. When traveling, I like to get “lost” roaming the streets of foreign cities. The idea of being trapped on a big floating apartment building didn’t necessarily appeal to me. But I gave it a shot anyway: Destinations are as exotic as the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. No driving. No packing and repacking from place to place. All the food you care to eat. Gambling, dancing and all kinds of night life. And best of all, no phones! Here’s a review of my first cruise vacation (with Royal Caribbean), and some tips for yours.

First of all, let me be clear there’s a difference between “traveling” and “vacationing”. Real travel for me is pretending to live somewhere for a while, and act like the locals do as much as possible. Taking a cruise definitely falls in the “vacation” category: mandatory relaxation, with a limited amount of “culture” on the port days: how much can you really soak up from a foreign country with only a few hours to spend in po…