MuttMutt

During my time in Royal Navy, I spent a lot of time in the Caribbean.  So when my wife started suggesting a Caribbean Cruise, I was rather resistant.
However, over the  years I rather mellowed to the idea and when we approached a big birthday for her, I had an opportunity to book a 5 day western caribbean on Brilliance out of Tampa, so I took it.  I also arranged for a suite at the Sheraton the night before boarding, all good.
So we held Sheryls birthday partty on Saturday, and I presented her with luggage tags for her bags.  This was it, happy days, I got it right...  Err no...  Remember this was Saturday, and boarding day was on Monday morning, apparently it takes more than 36 hours to pack for a cruise.  Fortunately, not only am I the master packer, I had been insisting on shopping trips for a few weeks ahead of time or I would have been in deep doo doo.
Suffice to say, we boarded Brilliance in Tampa and had a fantastic time. I was hooked. I had forgotten how amazing it is to be a sailor at sea. I could feel the ship coming alive, was able to second guess the manouvers, even to the point of knowing when speed could change.  Heaven for me.  Of course, despite being in an outboard cabin on Deck 3 amidships (I wanted the most stable part of the ship to avoid the potential for seasickness) the accomodations were rather impressive compared to the last time I had been at sea.
We booked our next trip onboard and have never looked back. I am a convert.
 

Pretty self explanatory and I am sure a lot of people will be in the "cause it was somewhere to take a vacation" group but I have to wonder if there are others with different reasons.
For me it was something I always thought would be interesting but would never be able to afford.  Then when my wife passed away it became something to get me out of the house and keep me from pulling my own hair out literally.  About a month after my wife passed and was cremated I received part of what was left of her burial policy and didn't know what to do with myself.  My wife was from Jamaica and we had talked multiple times about getting on a cruise and then stopping in Jamaica and dropping off a power chair because she was having a hard time walking.  I took the same route we had looked at which left from Galveston, TX and went to Cozumel Mexico, Georgetown Cayman Islands, and then Falmouth Jamaica where I dropped off a couple bags because I was going to be back in Jamaica a couple months later.  When leaving Jamaica I stood on the deck as the ship was leaving and cried long and hard because my wife didn't get to see home again.  The whole time we were married we were supposed to go down and were supposed to have been give the trip by her aunt as a wedding gift but it was never the right time.  
 
My first cruise had only been planned for a couple months but having something to look forward to helped me keep going and in a way my next one is slightly similar.  The day I booked the next one I felt like I have a little something to look forward to doing and started planning and reading to be ready to go.  In a lot of ways to me it's more the trip than the destinations though being able to be in good water for diving will be a big advantage.

Pretty self explanatory and I am sure a lot of people will be in the "cause it was somewhere to take a vacation" group but I have to wonder if there are others with different reasons.
For me it was something I always thought would be interesting but would never be able to afford.  Then when my wife passed away it became something to get me out of the house and keep me from pulling my own hair out literally.  About a month after my wife passed and was cremated I received part of what was left of her burial policy and didn't know what to do with myself.  My wife was from Jamaica and we had talked multiple times about getting on a cruise and then stopping in Jamaica and dropping off a power chair because she was having a hard time walking.  I took the same route we had looked at which left from Galveston, TX and went to Cozumel Mexico, Georgetown Cayman Islands, and then Falmouth Jamaica where I dropped off a couple bags because I was going to be back in Jamaica a couple months later.  When leaving Jamaica I stood on the deck as the ship was leaving and cried long and hard because my wife didn't get to see home again.  The whole time we were married we were supposed to go down and were supposed to have been give the trip by her aunt as a wedding gift but it was never the right time.  
 
My first cruise had only been planned for a couple months but having something to look forward to helped me keep going and in a way my next one is slightly similar.  The day I booked the next one I felt like I have a little something to look forward to doing and started planning and reading to be ready to go.  In a lot of ways to me it's more the trip than the destinations though being able to be in good water for diving will be a big advantage.

Was never interested in the concept of cruising. Then my in-laws, who had taken the entire extended family on a couple trips to all-inclusives of their choosing let their four daughters select the next big family trip. They chose a cruise to Bermuda.
Based on that experience, I went from "not interested" to "this is a great way to travel" rather quickly.

It all depends on what you want to do.  I have a Cannon T3i and love it for most stuff and thought about getting a case for taking it when I dive, but after hearing the horror stories about having a camera end up flooded from having a piece of hair or something like that on an O-ring I opted for a cheap off brand GoPro.
The kits really are great and I got mine a couple years back at Sam's club.  You can also find the kits second hand some places and honestly for a teen and family that may be a good option.  A Cannon T2i is still a decent camera and can use just about any lens intended for a Cannon DSLR camera, the body by itself is about 100.00 and figure 50 per lens and you don't have a bad kit.  Newer camera's get higher megapixels and such but the lenses don't change all that much unless you start getting really high end stuff.  The biggest thing is get a circular polarizing filter for taking pictures outside for sure but just about any picture will benefit from it.  https://photographylife.com/lens-filters-explained
As far as places, I have a bad taste in my mouth over one of the big groups in NYC, LeisurePro is the name of that place I dealt with and the Electronics/Camera arm is Adorama.  Had purchased a brand new item and they kept giving me the run around when on the very first dive a gauge was flooded.  Ended up contacting the manufacturer directly who had no issues getting it fixed and LeisurePro said that was impossible to do as well and that I could only deal with them.  After dropping nearly 1000 on stuff they could have been a lot better.  So I would avoid them like the plague.

Hi @MuttMutt. That's really touching about your wife, very sorry that your start to cruising was on such a difficult chapter in your life.
For me, cruising was also something that struck me as being in the line of luxury vacations, but I always wanted to do it and have an experience akin to what I saw on Titanic or Poseidon Adventure (well, the good parts before icebergs and rogue waves made things to pear-shaped! ?). Then I found out from a coworker maybe 15 years ago now that it had become a lot more affordable, and the fire was lit under me. Took many years to convince my wife, though. She thought cruising was just a nonstop buffet and lazing around with nothing to do, basically The Love Boat without the stops in Puerto Vallarta and the other nice places. Took having two kids and getting them to gang up on her with me with finally make our first cruise a reality.
At that time, we were going through a bit of a tough patch ourselves. But we also had a lot of really big milestones approaching, like our older daughter graduating high school while the younger one was finishing middle school. A cruise just seemed like a great way to celebrate all of those big events and what we figured was going to be... maybe not the end of the tougher parts, but at least the beginning of the end. Which it does seem to have been.
We did an 8-night sailing to the eastern Caribbean, visiting St. Kitts, St. Maarten, San Juan, and Labadee. It was a great time for all of us, and my wife agreed that she enjoyed it and would be good with doing something like that again. It's only been 2 years since that first cruise happened, and the big bucket-list one I had planned for this year got scrapped due to Covid-19; but now that we know how much you get with a cruise while being able to see a bunch of destinations we'd otherwise never get to without spending a ton more, it's looking like it's the preferred vacation type that we'll be taking as much as our budget and time off allows.

Didn't notice about anything other than water but didn't pick up a drink package.  Honestly it was super easy for me to carry around a vacuum insulated 40 oz steel water bottle and have it filled up with water or tea or whatever.  Not sure how that will change with all the stuff currently going on though.  Often rather than taking multiple cups they had filled they would often just put some concentrate and water in and send me on my way.  Generally didn't have an issue while off the ship with that as well as a hydration bladder.
I know the policy does state that you can carry on 12 "standard size" cans or bottles per stateroom of water, juice or whatever so it should be simple enough to carry on some bottled tea.  
 
Just looked and on the Adventure of the Seas 5 day cruise they have a 12 or 24 pack of Dasani  the 12 pack is 11.00 and the 24 pack is 17.00 though I am sure prices may vary a little bit it should be similar.

While they may not actively be cruising I can imagine there are certain types of work that are being done.  And some of that work will also require them to move around and make turns to ensure that things still work correctly.  Something as simple as replacing a piece of navigation hardware or updating some software will mean lots of checks because if they are going along and it acts up bad things can happen.
And in a lot of ways the ships are more like a power plant than a car.  They don't just get mothballed and left to sit.

While they may not actively be cruising I can imagine there are certain types of work that are being done.  And some of that work will also require them to move around and make turns to ensure that things still work correctly.  Something as simple as replacing a piece of navigation hardware or updating some software will mean lots of checks because if they are going along and it acts up bad things can happen.
And in a lot of ways the ships are more like a power plant than a car.  They don't just get mothballed and left to sit.

While they may not actively be cruising I can imagine there are certain types of work that are being done.  And some of that work will also require them to move around and make turns to ensure that things still work correctly.  Something as simple as replacing a piece of navigation hardware or updating some software will mean lots of checks because if they are going along and it acts up bad things can happen.
And in a lot of ways the ships are more like a power plant than a car.  They don't just get mothballed and left to sit.

Planning for my second cruise Adventure of the Seas, Leaving Galveston on Feb 5th.
Here is hoping that things settle down and a vaccine is available before then.
 
First one was last year October 20th on Liberty of the Seas.

Planning for my second cruise Adventure of the Seas, Leaving Galveston on Feb 5th.
Here is hoping that things settle down and a vaccine is available before then.
 
First one was last year October 20th on Liberty of the Seas.

Planning for my second cruise Adventure of the Seas, Leaving Galveston on Feb 5th.
Here is hoping that things settle down and a vaccine is available before then.
 
First one was last year October 20th on Liberty of the Seas.