I Took a Cruise Despite Hating Them—Here's What Happened

On the second night of her voyage, a lifelong cruise skeptic received a piece of information that would define her entire journey. When she asked a bartender what time the rooftop jacuzzis closed, he matter-of-factly replied that they closed whenever the first person of the night threw up in one.

She had noticed the tubs were drained that morning and had trustingly imagined it was part of a daily cleaning regimen. The truth—that it was likely the result of a passenger's indiscretion—was nauseating. Yet she found herself trapped on a 90,000-ton boat with 2,000 strangers, and the truth couldn't set her free.

The truth can't really set you free when you're trapped on a 90,000-ton boat with 2,000 strangers.

Ultimately, she confessed the information to her boyfriend. If she had to sit with this nauseating piece of knowledge, so should he. This moment of uncomfortable honesty set the tone for what would become a journey of confronting preconceptions.

The trip began with a premise that seemed almost too absurd to be true. Her boyfriend had claimed he won a free cruise by playing Tetris on his phone—a story she initially dismissed as a joke. After sharing it with friends and coworkers, she realized this was actually a typical response to such a claim.

The reality was more complex: after approximately four years of an hour-long New York City subway commute, he had accumulated points through a Tetris app tied to a casino app. The more he played, the more points he earned for various prizes—a modern-day loyalty program designed to hook users.

For someone who had long viewed cruises as floating petri dishes of yuck, the idea of voluntarily boarding one felt like madness. She had no desire to become part of a headline about a norovirus outbreak or mysterious disappearance. She considered herself perfectly mobile and capable of managing her own travel without a literal or figurative cruise director.

Yet the promise of a free vacation proved irresistible. They booked the trip, though it quickly became clear that "free" was a relative term. Beyond surprise fees and taxes, they splurged on a cabin with a window for $51 each and an unlimited drinks package—a decision that would later make her annual physical appointment feel like a confession.

One deliberate choice they made was to skip the WiFi package entirely. With the exception of two days spent off the vessel, they had access to only 75 minutes of internet for the entire week. Her therapist framed this as "forced relaxation," while she saw it as an opportunity to completely disconnect.

A friend predicted she wouldn't make it through the week without internet, which she took as a personal challenge. She assured her mother not to worry if she didn't hear from her, reasoning that if anything truly catastrophic happened on the cruise, it would make the news anyway.

The daily schedule—dubbed "the newspaper" by the couple—became the center of their internet-free existence. This simple printed guide dictated their days, helping them navigate the ship's offerings and avoid activities like the cover bands SoundBeat and Muzik Jam, which she quickly determined were not her jam.

Without the constant pull of digital notifications, the experience forced a different kind of engagement with the environment. The ship itself became a self-contained world where the only news that mattered was what appeared on that daily schedule.

The first night aboard, she found herself wondering if she was becoming a "Cruise Person," even the "Queen of the Cruise People." Despite the sewer-like smell in some hallway sections and the discovery that their queen bed was actually two twins shoved together, she felt oddly smug.

Her roughly 30 minutes of consuming cruise packing hacks online had paid off. She knew about Dramamine, hanging toiletries bags, and extension cords. The room was surprisingly larger than expected. For now, she thought, this is fine.

However, as the novelty wore off, frustrations began to surface. The pools were smaller than anticipated, and most lounge chairs were claimed by abandoned towels. The basketball court had been taken over by pickleball players. The daily schedule became both a guide and a source of disappointment.

Getting off the ship for excursions proved to be its own challenge. On their first excursion day, she didn't line up early enough for a good tender—the small boats that transport passengers from the large vessel to shore. The wait was tedious, and the excitement of reaching Cabo San Lucas was dampened by the struggle to simply leave the ship.

In Cabo San Lucas, they took a water taxi to see the Arch, a natural rock formation where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific. Their captain, a Mexican man with the accent of a surfer from California, shared a story that shifted the entire perspective of the trip.

He had been brought to the United States as a young child and was living in Arizona until a couple of months ago, when he was swept up in an ICE raid and dropped off across the border. He was now rebuilding a life away from his wife and daughters, hopeful that a January court date might allow him to return.

The group fell silent. None knew how to feel, let alone what to say. The cruise conundrum—whether the jacuzzis were clean, whether the bed was comfortable—suddenly felt small and insignificant. The real world had a way of sneaking up on you, no matter how far away you traveled.

That night, they discovered the casino's very silly machines, each losing about $100 over the next few days. Meanwhile, her boyfriend finally gave in and bought WiFi to read the news, learning that Zohran Mamdani had won the New York City mayoral race. She won the bet about his digital detox, but he won knowledge of the outside world.

Day four brought them to La Paz, Mexico, where they found themselves docked in a government-controlled port. Getting off the ship required bargaining and begging with guards. They had devised a non-cruise-approved activity—snorkeling on a remote beach—and had reserved a much cheaper Uber, but couldn't connect with the driver because only sanctioned shuttles and taxis were allowed into the port.

Eventually, two women who worked at the port agreed to drive them out after overhearing their kerfuffle with the guards. The entire day felt like a negotiation, with everyone seemingly in the wrong but no clear right answer.

They stumbled upon an artisan selling blankets and attempted to haggle, though she never felt comfortable with the practice. Dynamic pricing is not fun in any setting, she thought. She didn't want the guilt of undercutting someone just trying to get by, so they paid full price. The artisan threw in a cheap bead bracelet that she still wears from time to time.

The most bizarre activity was the onboard art auction, which the daily schedule promised would be a delight. It turned out to be the best activity on the boat, though not in the way she expected. She watched one man bid $9,000 for a painting of a Fireball bottle with a personified chile pepper, only to see a similar piece by the same artist sell for $200 in the next round. The man stood up and walked out, and she hoped there was some sort of return policy for regrets.

Seasickness arrived on the last day, disguised initially as a hangover from multiple days of unlimited alcohol. By the time she realized what it was, it was too late for Dramamine or anti-nausea bracelets. The ship's entire vibe seemed intentionally bad—the pool was closed due to rough seas, and disembarkation instructions blared over the loudspeaker.

She found herself going through the emotions that come at the close of every vacation: wondering if she should have done more, dreading the return to real life, and facing the final cruise-ship Caesar salad that, despite being marketed as different at every restaurant, was exactly the same.

In the evening, her seasick boyfriend went to bed early, and she went to a bar for a final martini. There, she ran into a man they had met a couple of nights before while watching the moonrise and sunset simultaneously—a genuinely nice experience. He asked if she was new to cruising. She said yes. He said he was too… he'd been on five.

He explained that he had worked for the US Forest Service and took a buyout in early 2025 as part of efforts to slash the federal workforce. He saw this as an extended break and planned to do nonprofit work eventually, but she couldn't help feeling he seemed lost. At only in his 50s, his career had been stopped in its tracks. Doesn't there have to be more to life than a cruise boat?

Getting off the ship for good proved confoundingly difficult. She received an extra inspection from customs. Her boyfriend's key card didn't scan at the exit, creating a debate about whether he could leave. They walked the wrong way exiting the port, and she started to feel the poor signage was intentional.

Finally, they exited. Their long (six-day) national (personal) nightmare (vacation) was over. Post-cruise, they engaged in unacknowledged white-lying to others, embellishing their level of enjoyment because nobody really wants the completely ambivalent truth.

She continues to insist that what makes an activity fun is being personally fun, not the activity itself. It feels weird to say, "OK, so I would not recommend it, but also maybe I would, but also I don't know, are cruises your thing?"

She did get in the jacuzzi—trusting it was vomit-free post-cleaning—because life requires some hard choices. A choice she will not make again is to get on a cruise. Probably.