Have you ever cruised with friends

[jacketwatch]

A couple we hace known for many yrs. has decided to jopin us for our summer Baltic cruise. Has anyone ever cruised with friends and what advice can you give me? I sort of think we don't HAVE to do the same excursions unless it appeals to all of us. What are your thoughts.

[JoeyandDavid]

Let me answer try and tell you how we have decided to approach this very topic.. Our upcoming cruise thru the Canal will be our first time setting out with friends on board...these guys are our best friends.. I have told them in no uncertain terms I wanted them to feel free to book any excursion they wanted to.. if it interested them then book it .. if it interested us then we would go, however if not we wont.. We want them to feel like they don't have to do everything we do or visa versa..

The point jacketwatch is that I think you have to be honest with yourself and them and discuss it... once an understanding is reached the situation is resolved.

Joey

[Gregswife]

In Nov., we will be cruising with our best friends. This will be our first sailing with anyone other than our kids. We have cabins next to each other and told our agent at Carnival that we would like to have the balcony wall unlocked so we can open or shut it, as we see fit. Sometimes we may want privacy and there will be times that we want to just sit and visit with them while enjoying the scenery. We have discussed the fact that we are not joined at the hip. As this is only their 2nd cruise, and we have been to all but one of the ports several times, they will be more inclined to want to take an organized tour, where we normally prefer to see the sights on our own. We have all agreed that it will be fine and we will just see them back on board when it is time to depart that port. It may be a little different for us because they live in Texas and we live in Colorado so we do not see them all the time - normally just once a year. However, the cruise will make it twice this year as they will come out for a week in the summertime. You should talk to your travelling companions beforehand about your feelings, so that they will not be hurt when the time comes. I am sure they will appreciate your candor and you may find that they have been pondering the same issues.

[btate]

I have an upcoming cruise with friends in Feb. The way we are going to work it is we all looked through the excoursion book the cruise line gave us before we met and then decided what we all wanted to do. We are all going to do one together that appealed to everyone. Others just the guys are going, and the girls will go shopping or whatever they want. Another a few of us are going snorkeling and not in an organized excoursion, just a place that someone has been. We will be renting a car for this one and it is very inexpensive and very flexible. . The other day is not planned and we will most likely just do whatever we want with whoever we want.

That seems to work for us. . . On the boat, we will all have the option to do whatever we want whenever we want as well. We do look forward to eating dinner together and dressing up on formal nights.

Not sure that helps, but that is what we are going to do and we look forward to it.

[bigred]

Well, we have two best friend couples. We have traveled with both of these couples but never all three couples together. Yahoo, on Jan. 20th we all set sail on the Star Princess. We are all so excited we don't care where we go or what we do just so that we are together. Actually, we have one main rule. No one gets mad if anyone doesn't want to do what the others do. It is a hard and fast rule and has worked for us thru 2 cruises with them and umpteen trips. This trip we will eat at 6PM every night with one couple and the other couple will eat later. However, we will all eat together on the night of my husband's birthday. Two couples will do river kayaking in Ocho Rios, two couples will do Sting Rays in GC, my husband and one of the men will go deep sea fishing in Cozumel while the two wives have the Ultimate Balcony breakfast and hit the spa. We will all meet at the Ruins for lunch in Ocho Rios, lunch at Margaritaville in GC, and all go to the barbeque on Princess Cay. We are also having a sail away party in our cabin after muster. Everything just fell into place. I am usually the tour guide and plan everything and then those not interested bow out. This works well especially when we travel with the grown kids. With the kids, we have only one rule; that we all must have dinner together. You would be surprised how many things wind up being done together with your friends. One of my girlfriends always goes to tea with me and we all like to go to the shows depending on the times. It will work out for you to as long as no one takes any offense for any decisions anyone makes. Have a ball! I know we sure will.

[KeithnRita]

We have cruised with neighbor friends twice. Once with two couples. We made them understand that we would do our own thing and they should do theirs. We all met before diner as we dined at the same table. We did do a couple excursions together, and on sea days, met at the pool. They never stayed up as late as us and they got up long before us. We all had a great time both together and apart.

[Dan]

We've done this twice. First was actually with my mother, her husband and friends of theirs. We sat together at dinner and saw each other around the ship, but that was about it. They hung out together and went to the various bars in ports, but that's not our thing. My mom seemed a little upset at dinner after Aruba to hear we rented a car and saw the whole island, while they just walked around the downtown area. She was like "why didn't you tell us you could do that?". I said "Well, I found out the same way you should have, I read the big sign that said "Car Rental" right beside the gate as you left the ship"

The last cruise we did a year ago was with people from Kentucky we met on a previous cruise 6 years previous. We had talked over those years about getting together again. We finally planned it. Then our neighbours said they'd like to go. Then our Kentucky friends said their neighbours wanted to go. So we had 8. Again, we sat together at dinner and went to the shows together. The other 3 couples had cabins near each other midships, while we went aft. The "Bluegrass 4" did some tours together, while we "4 Canucks" hung out a bit but did our own things in port, except the planned meeting at the Cabo Wabo Cantina for some overpriced cervesa.

We really enjoyed having all these people together. We did have a bit of concern by the middle of the first full day that our neighbours were going to be a little too "clingy", but it was their first cruise, and once we showed them around the ship they were fine. (Either that or I got them sufficiently disoriented that it was easy to lose them LOL). They liked it enough to book a 2 week cruise for their honeymoon in 2 months (they got engaged on the cruise with us).

We would like to take another cruise with our Kentucky friends, but maybe just the 2 of them. Maybe we'll get around to it in another 6 years LOL.

[Shari2]

Larry...you have been given some great advice. We have cruised our last two cruises with good friends (my former SIL and her DH) and one cruise we did with my youngest brother and his wife. We alway discussed beforehand the cruise and tours, and we signed up for the tours we wanted to do together beforehand, and we always made it clear that we could go our separate ways if we all wanted to do different things. We always had dinner together but often had breakfast and lunch apart. We always had a great time with them and would do it again.

[momwig]

Our Mediterranean cruise this past October was our first cruise and we cruised with another couple who we consider close friends. We did book private tours together in several ports but left the rest open to be determined as we went along. In the end we spent most of our time together off the ship and had a marvelous congenial time together. On the ship we also spent much of our time together especially at meals but did take breaks from one another to do things as individuals and as single couples. We are planning to cruise together again in 2008 this time we are hoping to visit the Baltic.

[DaCruzNut]

I've travelled with friends several times. The "rule" we set, before we even booked the cruise, was that the only time we would definately spend together would be breakfast and dinner. Everything else was open to discussion. it was understood that we would talk about what we wanted to do, at the other times, and would do things together only if we wanted to. It wound up that we did spend a considerable amount of time together, but never felt as if we had to.