What possessed you? (to take your first cruise)

[jacketwatch]

Great idea for a thread. It was 2002 when we took our first cruise so I am a late comer to cruising. We had always taken land vacations and were quite happy with them really so there was no thought to cruising. Then one day out of the blue my wife had this idea to cruise for a change and wanted to see some of Europe. Well when she gets an idea like this I KNOW its time to start looking into it. So we ended up on the Splendour fo the Seas out of Barcelona for a 7 day western Med. cruise with a 3 day stay is Barcelona post disembarkation and except for one yr. when we went to the Big Island its been cruises ever since.

[PATJUD]

Our first cruise was in September of 2003. I retired in June of 2003 after teaching middle school for 37 years. I had decided back at the beginning of the year (2003) that when all my teaching buddies returned to school at the end of Summer - I wanted to be headed south on a cruise ship and I wanted it to be the first week of school - my first year not to go back. We had never been on a cruise before and never on vacation during the month of September. I didn't know very much at all about cruising and the only cruise ship that left Tampa, Florida the day I wanted to leave was Carnival's "Inspiration." I booked the cruise on-line and as I said, I knew very little about cruising. I hadn't even discovered any of the many cruiser's sites like CruiseCrazies yet. That came later. The first cruise was wonderful and there have been better ships than the "Inspiration" was but I'll always love that ship since it was the first. By the time it was time to do another cruise, I had discovered one of the larger cruise sites and found a cruising group from that site know as "The Hounds." The group later split and developed their own cruising site. We've been cruising with that group since our second cruise. Now we are booked on the CruiseCrazies cruise of the Caribbean for November of 2009.

[KeithnRita]

Bump for our newest members.

[Seajewel]

Keith & Rita , thanks for bumping this up.

My first crusie was for our Honeymoon in May 1985 on the VeraCruz out of Tampa, we got married on Memorial day weekend and had alot of out of town guests so we didn't want to leave on our Honeymoon until after the holiday on Monday when all of our friends and relatives went home. At that time the VeraCruz left on Tuesdays so it worked out perfectly, especially for us living in Florida.

After that memorable week we were hooked.

[jobowl]

My Parents were avid cruisers. I never went with them always to busy. really sorry about that.

[DebbieandJerry]

Amazing stories. Seems like once you find out that you LOVE cruising, there is no other vacation to take.

We tried the "beach rental" one summer and spent more that week than if we would have take a huge cruise on a fancy trip.

As a matter of fact, for what Jerry and I paid to fly back to Philly for my mom's 80th birthday dinner (just the flight) would have paid for 7-day cruise for both of us. Kinda scarey!

[gemcrusier]

Got divorced and my kids had never been on a family vacation so my son was 10 my daughter 12 we went on a 4 day mexican cruise had a blast. Ever since then I have cruised every 2 years my husband now loves it too, in fact we are going over Christmas and News Years around Horn South America to celebrate our 20 th which was in March

[seabreeze]

My husband and I went on a very delayed honeymoon... 2 yrs after we got married. He loved ships & had always wanted to go. I was game & we have been hooked since that time,although we went many years without a vacation once we started a family. My 2 sons became hooked immediately once they boarded a ship with us. We try to go every year but sometimes need to skip a year to play catch up on home / business things. Our first cruise was in 1979 on Carnival Carnivale to the eastern Caribbean. We had a blast!!

[PegasusGM]

It was our 35th anniversary on 12/26/05 and our five children were going to come home to celebrate. One by one they had to cancel for various reasons. Not one to let a 35 year marriage go with out a celebration, we finally decided we had to do something. John G had been sending cruise info for months, if not years, and finally I asked him if he could find a cruise for us on short notice. We sailed on the Radiance of the Seas RCCL 12/05 to the Caribbean and had such a marvelous time that my husband (who originally could not imagine how he would not be bored out his mind before the cruise was over, Silly Man) and I booked our second cruise 5 months later to Alaska. Thanks, John, for not giving up on me!

[lindasuelucas]

i was just lucky. i was home sick from work and got a phone call. it was carnival cruise lines. i told them i wasn't sure. every time i gave an excuse for why i could not go they lowered the price. i wasn't playing a game i was serious and just wanted the guy off the phone. the price ended up being so low that i decided that it was now or never to finally try a cruise. that sick day turned out to be a very fortunate day for me. that started my love for cruises.