As I’m sure you know already if you keep up with my posts, I recently went on my first cruise with my boyfriend and his family along the Mexican Riviera. I was admittedly pretty nervous for the vacation (Would I feel seasick? Get claustrophobic? Crash into an iceberg and have to sacrifice my boyfriend because there’s only room for one of us on the floating piece of wood?) but I ended up having an absolutely great time. I wanted to share all the ins and outs of our cruise in today’s blog post in case anyone else is curious about how they work and whether they would enjoy a cruise as a vacation option! Buckle up, ’cause it’s a long one (you can skip to the Pros and Cons section at the end if you want the SparkNotes version).

Itinerary

We did the 5-Day Mexican Riviera from Long Beach (Los Angeles), CA cruise on the Carnival Firenze, which is a new ship that only started cruising earlier this year—Italian themed (Firenze is the Italian word for Florence). We boarded the cruise on a Thursday, Friday was an “at sea” day, Saturday was our port day in Cabo San Lucas, Sunday was another at-sea day, and Monday was our second stop in Ensenada. The cruise ended on Tuesday morning.

My boyfriend, who had done a very similar cruise out of Long Beach to Catalina and Ensenada a couple of times before, said the new Carnival Firenze was a far nicer ship than the ones he’d been on previously. The Italian theme was evident in the decorations, such as large murals on the walls with fake ornate framing, a bar with Italian cocktails and only Italian wines, and painted ceilings. It actually reminded me a lot of the Venetian hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, and lots of other Vegas hotels for that matter, in terms of the fun, fakey décor.

For our two port days, I was able to experience both methods of getting off the ship—walking off and tendering. In Ensenada, the port is laid out in such a way where the ship can just pull up to a dock and everyone walks off. In Cabo, however, we had to take a tender (a smaller boat) to the shore, which was fun to experience. I still don’t entirely understand the offboarding process for port days because my boyfriend’s mom handled it all for us, but I think in Cabo we were assigned a specific time to meet at the bottom of the ship, where we got onto the tender boat.

Boarding

Like plane travel, the boarding process onto the cruise ship was not particularly sexy. We flew into Long Beach the day before the cruise (I’m glad we did—I would have been stressed having to travel same-day), and we were assigned a boarding time at 12:30pm about a week before the cruise. We had to print boarding passes and luggage tags prior to arriving. My boyfriend and I Ubered from our hotel to the boarding area and met up with the rest of the family there. Right away, there were tons of cars lined up to park/drop off passengers, and there were workers on the sidewalks ready to accept bags. My boyfriend and I both “checked” our suitcases to be delivered to our room. Then we got in line!

Once we got in line, we moved very quickly through a large dome-shaped building on the pier, showing our passports and going through a series of checkpoints where we had to show our boarding passes again and again (I think my boyfriend’s brother counted 12 times?). Then finally, we crossed a bridge onto the ship! I would be shocked if the whole thing took longer than an hour. I was feeling hot and kind of nervous during this process, but really, it wasn’t bad at all. My boyfriend said in the past the boarding process took much longer and that this time it was a lot more streamlined.

We entered the ship into the grandest bar aboard—it was round with a large lion statue on top of a “marble” pillar, with ceilings painted like the sky. I felt a little like cattle as we were shepherded from place to place, and the ship was very crowded initially as everyone entered the same general areas. I’m really glad I was with people who had cruised before because I would have felt really lost without that experience! I didn’t book the cruise myself, so I would hope I would have received more communications about what to do, the boarding process, etc. if I had booked it. Thankfully the rest of my party knew what they were doing and knew we had to make our way to the muster station (Mustard? That’s what I kept wondering, too).

The muster station is the place on board that you’re supposed to report to in the event of an emergency. We visited our designated spot and received brief instructions about the location of life vests and what to do if we hear certain alarms (too brief, in my opinion!). But my boyfriend said on previous cruises he’s been on, all passengers had to meet on the top deck of the ship—and the safety briefing couldn’t start until all the passengers showed up. Thank goodness it’s not like that anymore! After the muster station, we were free to officially start our vacation. My party told me the pro-tip to pack a swimsuit in my carry-on (which I still had on me) so we could hit the pools/deck right away, even if our suitcases hadn’t been delivered to our rooms yet.

Accommodations

We stayed on floor 8 of 14 in a pretty central location, front-to-back speaking. It ended up being a great spot because we were pretty much equidistant to everything on the ship, and it was far enough away from the common spaces that our room was quiet. I was really quite impressed with how much our room felt like a normal hotel room—there was a TV, a couch, a mini fridge, a safe… It was smaller, sure, but it really didn’t feel that small. The biggest difference by far was in the bathroom. The bathroom did feel very small, particularly the shower. It wasn’t bad by any means, but I would say the bathrooms just generally were the least-nice part of cruising. I’m glad I never had to shave my legs on the cruise (thanks to my laser hair removal) because I overheard one woman saying she didn’t have enough room in the shower to do it. The shower only offered one liquid (bodywash and shampoo in one) so I’m really glad I decided to bring my own hair and body products, something I don’t normally do in a regular hotel.

We did have a room on the outside of the ship with a deck (big enough for two chairs and a small table), which was SO nice. I really don’t think I could have cruised in a room with only a porthole window, and I know I couldn’t have done an interior room with no windows at all—I would have felt so claustrophobic.

The rooms are serviced every day, like in a regular hotel. A really fun part of the cruise was always coming back to the room to find a different towel animal!

Things to Do

I couldn’t believe how much there was to do on the ship! On our first afternoon aboard, we spent some time wandering around and discovered a ropes course, a mini golf course, three water slides, a pickleball court, a ping pong table, a couple of duty-free stores, and a handful of pool areas (though the pools themselves were quite small). There was also a schedule for each day which included events like themed trivia, karaoke, live music, contests, ice carving demonstrations—all sorts of stuff. Oh, and how could I forget! There was even a casino on board, which we spent a lot of time at.

Some of the highlights for me were going to the piano bar the first night and going to one of the late-night comedy shows (they had two comedians on board). There were so many things happening at any given time, but in the end, I ultimately didn’t go to that many scheduled events. We spent most of our at-seas days in lounge chairs viewing the ocean, sipping piña coladas and reading. It was really relaxing.

Regarding port days, you can choose to either purchase/plan an “excursion” run through the cruise company or do your own thing. While you can arrange Carnival-led excursions once you’re on the ship, it’s cheaper to book your events beforehand, which we did a month or two before the cruise. In Cabo we booked a snorkel and sail excursion on a sailboat where we spent four hours out on the water—snorkeling, eating lunch, taking photos in front of the famous Lovers Beach, and sailing (although, it never got windy enough to actually sail). For this reason, we never really “saw” Cabo, except what we could see of the shoreline from our sailboat. You also only really have a few hours at the stops because you have to be back on the ship kind of early, around 4:00/5:00pm depending.

In Ensenada, none of the Carnival-led excursions seemed very interesting, so we decided to save the money and do our own thing. My boyfriend and his family had been to Ensenada a couple of times before, so they knew where to go. We got off the ship and took a $4 shuttle to “downtown,” where we just stopped into a bar for chips and guac and then wandered through some of the shopping (after one store, it was all the same kind of kitschy souvenir stuff—and people were pushy, always trying to sell to you). My boyfriend and his parents kind of agreed that if they did this cruise again, they wouldn’t get off at Ensenada and would instead just have an additional at-sea day.

This was really interesting to me. I always assumed the most fun part of a cruise would be the destinations, not the days you’re just hanging on the boat. But I ended up actually really enjoying the at-sea days—and agreed that Ensenada wasn’t the most interesting place to stop. I would imagine there are other cruises (Caribbean, European) that are much more about the destinations, but this one did feel more like an all-inclusive resort with the unique setting of floating on the ocean.

Dining

There were a handful of places to eat on the ship, including a buffet, a sandwich shop, and a pizza place. There were also two sit-down restaurants, and you are assigned one of them at the beginning of the cruise. You could either choose a set dining time where you have to eat dinner at the same time every day, or you could do “anytime dining,” which is what we did. It was really nice to just go to dinner when we felt like it; we just had to put our name in ahead of time to secure a spot.

Almost all of the food is included, so it was really nice to be able to just stand up and go when you’re done eating without having to wait for the check. There were a couple of menu items that were an additional cost, and there were certain dining areas (like the steak and sushi restaurants) that you had to pay for. That’s one critique I had—I found it very difficult to tell what food and drinks were included and which things cost extra.

Additionally, we all paid extra for the drink package. Normally you would still have to pay for alcoholic drinks, but with our little passes (which doubled as our room key) we could drink up to 15 (!!!) alcoholic drinks a day. Really though, you need to drink about four each day to make the drink package worthwhile economically. It was so nice to just order a drink, sign our name on the receipt, and then walk away without needing a wallet or ID or anything. And tip was included. In fact, I didn’t bring my wallet around anywhere on the ship, which was so nice!

I thought the sit-down food was decent for the most part, especially considering that it must be mass produced and not very fresh. The buffet food was… buffet food. Thankfully, they had a lot of gluten-free options, including GF pasta and bread in the sit-down restaurant. I quickly learned though, especially at breakfast and lunch, that the additional wait for GF food was a lot, so even though they had it as an option, I just started picking other foods I could eat without the pasta/bread substitutions because it wasn’t worth waiting half an hour for it.

Sea Sickness and Claustrophobia Concerns

I really haven’t been on that many boats in my life, especially out on the ocean. I kept telling people before the cruise that I was nervous about seasickness, and they would always ask, “Do you usually get seasick?” Well I don’t know! I’ve hardly been on any boats! That’s one thing I don’t really like about a cruise—I feel like you can’t know if it’s for you until you try it, but if you hate it, then you’re stuck there…

That was my biggest fear, and on the first night, I let it get to me a little. We were seated for dinner in the center of the ship, so I couldn’t really see outside anymore. The boat had also picked up speed, so I could feel it swaying a lot more, which felt exacerbated since I couldn’t see the horizon. I accidentally let one little thought about seasickness/claustrophobia creep in and after that it was just a rush of adrenaline like I was going to be sick. My boyfriend took me back to our room so I could try to calm down. I’m not someone who gets panic attacks, but I felt like I could have had one if I wasn’t careful. It took a lot of self-control to keep myself from completely freaking out and feeling stuck in the middle of the ocean—I knew if I crossed that point I would have had a real problem. Thankfully, with the deck in our room (life-saver!), I was able to get some fresh air, pop a Bonine, put on some acupressure bracelets, and calm back down.

I know it was all in my head, which I think is why I was able to reverse the rising panic. I was just so scared of feeling sick and then being trapped on the ship for five days. I took a precautionary Bonine on the second day, but I ended up feeling completely fine the rest of the trip and didn’t even wear the bracelets or anything. I’m curious if I do another cruise if I would have a similar freak-out moment at the beginning, or if now that I’ve done a cruise I’m over whatever my concerns were—I think (and hope) it’s the latter.

While I didn’t actually end up wearing the insanely dorky motion sickness glasses, I still had to put them on for a funny photo-op!

Offboarding

On the last day of the cruise, we woke up back in Long Beach had to be out of our rooms by 8:30am. We were assigned a location to wait until our offboarding time was called—I think ours was 9:30, so we wandered and sat on the lido deck for about an hour. You could choose to check your luggage off the ship, similar to when we got on, but I wanted to carry my luggage off myself this time since my boyfriend and I had a plane to catch.

When our boarding time was called, we were like cattle again and made our way across the same bridge, back into the large dome building. Thankfully the line never really stopped moving so it went very quickly. We had to briefly show our passports (it was US Customs) but it felt much simpler than Customs in an airport—I was never given any declarations handout, didn’t have to answer any questions, nothing like that.

Once we made it out, the place was unsurprisingly a zoo, with tons of people trying to either get their luggage, get to their car, or find an Uber. It took a minute for our Uber driver to finally get through all the traffic, but thankfully our flight wasn’t for a few hours so we were in no rush.

What to Pack and What I Wore

I decided to pack two outfits for every day—a daytime look and an evening look—because why the hell not?! In reality, I ended up living in a swimsuit and coverup during the days, so a lot of my outfits went unworn. I did dress up every evening though, which was really fun—I loved going back to our room in the late afternoon to shower and put on a pretty dress for the night. Friday was “elegant night” on the cruise, so lots of people dressed up for that one. Otherwise, I would say the attire was all across the board—some people dressed really casually, some people only ever in bathing suits, some people putting on dresses for dinner like me. I never ended up feeling out of place or overdressed.

A couple of things I would do differently next time:

• Bring more than one coverup since that’s what I ended up wearing the most (all of my pictures look like they were taken on the same day, ha).
• Leave most of the heels at home. While there were plenty of women wearing heels aboard, I was just never in the mood and only ended up wearing heels once on elegant night. It would have saved a lot of room in my bag (not that I was pressed for space), and now I know to prioritize outfits with flatter shoes. Even though you’re in a confined space, I actually ended up doing a lot of walking on the cruise ship to get from place to place.
• Leave most of the makeup and hair tools at home. Similar to the heels, I just didn’t end up being in the mood for much makeup, and with such tiny bathrooms, it wouldn’t have been fun trying to spend a lot of time in there getting dolled up. I did end up bringing one hot tool but it wasn’t worth it—my hair was always a mess and at the mercy of the wind and ocean air.

And here’s a list of other things you should pack for a cruise that might not be on your usual packing list:

• Lots of swimsuits
• Swim coverups
• Flip flops
• Sunscreen
• A fun floppy hat (I didn’t bring one—they’re always such a pain to fly with—but I deeply regretted it)
• A lightweight towel for excursion days
• Towel clips to keep your towel from blowing around on the deck
• Dramamine/Bonine/acupressure bracelets for seasickness
• All toiletries (I wouldn’t rely on any “hotel freebies”)
• A beach bag
• Liquid IVs and Morning Recoveries (gotta stay hydrated and not-hungover if you’re going to get the most out of your drink package)

Pros and Cons

So would I do a cruise again? I would definitely do it again if I were invited or someone was planning a group trip, but I don’t think I would plan a cruise for myself as a first-choice vacation (aside from an Alaskan cruise or European river cruise—I really want to do those). Don’t get me wrong, I had a really great time and think this may have been the most relaxing vacation I’ve ever been on. However, I’m more of a “trip” person and would generally prefer to spend my travel money seeing as much of a place as possible, which is the same reason regular all-inclusive resorts have never appealed to me that much. That has always kind of been my travel philosophy, but now that I’ve had a taste of true relaxation, I am starting to get the appeal of “relaxing vacations” more!

Now, onto the pros and cons of cruise travel.

Pros:

• You only have to unpack once for multiple destinations.
• It’s extremely stress-free because the itinerary is mostly planned for you.
• If you choose not to pay for internet like we did, being completely unplugged is a huge bonus.
• All-inclusive means you get to try lots of different drinks and menu items guilt-free.
• I loved not having to think about paying or leaving a tip.
• Lots of downtime to read or just do nothing.
• It’s great for groups/families because there are lots of activities to cater to everyone, but you still get to spend a lot of time together at dinner, lounging on the deck, etc.
• The ocean!!! It’s so peaceful (and mysterious) to be on the water in such a unique setting.

Cons:

• You don’t get to see much of the destinations, and the areas close to the dock are crowded with cruisegoers.
• It’s really hard to have self-control when food and drinks are included!
• I can’t imagine you get to experience much of the destination’s culture with less than a full day in each stop.
• A huge part of travel for me is the delicious and unique cuisines of other places, but you only get a few opportunities to eat off the ship since we had to be back onboard before dinner time.
• The ship could feel a little crowded and stuffy at times (but generally wasn’t that bad).

Pro and con might be too harsh of words—really, I think it just boils down to preference. When you’re planning a trip, what are your goals and priorities? If you’re looking to relax, unplug, and forget about all the stresses of work and life for a couple of days, I think a cruise is a great option. If you’re looking to really experience a new destination—not so much.

Have you been on a cruise before? What was your experience like? I know some cruises are more about the destinations (whereas I would say this one was more about relaxing on the ship), so I would be curious to know how much some of my pros/cons would change on a different cruise route.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you stuck around until the end—thank you!

 

Miles of smiles,

Grace