Are you a cruise person, or not?  If you are - read on.

If you are not - READ ON.

Those who are 'not cruisers', bemoan the possibility of being jammed in for two weeks or more with 2000-plus other people they don't know, and maybe won't like.

Those who love cruising (and quite often they are the partner of a not-loving-it cruiser), wholeheartedly embrace the activities and the infinite number of possibilities to wine, dine, and kick back and relax. And meet thousands of new 'friends'.

Not-cruisers: if this sounds like the perfect reason to refuse the idea of a cruise, or let your partner go while you stay home with a book, bear with me.

I would classify myself as a not-cruiser. My main positive is that I don't get seasick, not even in a Force 12-plus gale in the Drake Passage (the world's roughest ocean crossing) heading from Antarctica, when the tables and chairs spun across the dining room faster than passengers bolted back to their beds.

Today's modern cruise ships take extreme care to make sure this does not happen on their trips. Or if the weather turns bad, they are equipped to deal with it. Think, stabilisers, radar, weather warnings, mandatory safety drills, for a start.

Now, let us take you on some of the many cruises we have enjoyed (and yes, you heard me right - enjoyed!) in the past couple of years.

WATCH THIS VIDEO.....  and then read on.....

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It’s the ‘do you come here often?’ opener, beloved of cruise passengers. “Have you been on many cruises?” just about everyone asks us. It’s not quite a pick-up line, but certainly a legitimate ice-breaker.

On my first-ever cruise, I answered it twenty times before our ship cleared the heads at Sydney Harbour. I was still almost within sight of my house! Here’s what I have learned since then.

No more packing and unpacking: the destinations come to you. This is what I really like about cruising.  I can buy as much as I want on the shore trips – fill every cupboard if feel like it. If I depart and arrive by my home port, there’s no need to worry about overweight baggage. It' a shopaholic’s pure nirvana. Even the check-in is painless. After leaving bags at the kerbside we don’t see them again until they are delivered to us onboard. Likewise, they are spirited ashore when we return.

Day One I begin learning cruise-speak. No longer do I ‘just pop back to the cabin’. It’s the stateroom. I learn to say ‘aft’ when talking about the back of the boat (oops, that’s the ‘ship’) and ‘port’ instead of left (easy to remember they tell is, each word has four letters!). I commit my stateroom number to memory as every deck looks the same.

I also learn  that my plastic key, which I am encouraged to wear on a cord around my neck, is absolutely essential as I need it to charge anything extra to my account, as well as to get back into my stateroom which is serviced by a steward (another new word - our room attendant) who takes time to create creatures like this to leave on my bed at evening turndown!

 

Day Two I begin to realize that I can eat and drink 24/7 - if I want to. 

....snack bars near the pool, or a truly decadent afternoon tea somewhere else. As if that's not enough, a tray of canapes arrives in our stateroom each afternoon and is left beside the fruit bowl which the steward keeps topped up.

Then at least once each cruise, there may be a special all-you-can-eat extravaganza to celebrate something or other.

I guess it's totally feasible to take an entire cruise and never spend your waking moments more than arm's reach from your plate or glass!

Which explains why the marked walking and jogging tracks on deck are so important!

Day Three (we might be slow-socialisers, too) we start to meet our fellow-passengers. Depending on the ship you could be rubbing shoulders onboard (sometimes, literally, in the packed elevators) with anything from 600 to 4900 other people.

We meet someone from Queensland who is on her 43rd cruise with the line. On another there is a legendary permanent passenger who has her own suite, many decks above our stateroom. Some people even end their days on a cruise ship, choosing to travel nonstop in their floating retirement villas. It could be worse!

And why not? After all, most cruise ships are like mini villages with all the services and entertainment anyone needs – library...

...shops, doctor, laundromat ...

 ...casino...

......daytime and evening entertainment........

....spa, beauty parlour, gym.....

pool and hot-tub – as well as stewards and butlers and others to assist with anything you need. 

Water-loving, travel-loving Australians adore cruising. It’s official. Statistics show a record 221,033 Australians took a cruise in 2006 with the most popular length of cruise between eight and 14 days.  Eight years later that figure jumped over 400 percent to 1,003,256 in 2014 and the rate is showing no signs of slowing.

In any month of the year it is possibly to cruise somewhere in the world, and each cabin's TV has a channel that keeps you posted with your exact location. Just in case you get a little confused about your whereabouts - or the time, or even the date.

Cruising can make you forget simple things like that, and one ship even changes the mats in the elevators to tell you what day of the week it is!

Cruising is a global industry, and cruise-lines love to keep track of that, proudly displaying these commemorative plaques.....

.....gifts from each new port they visit.

In some ports, entertainers will come onboard to share cultural dances.

Then there are the lectures which ships make available from specially selected experts on a number of topics which can include details of the destinations to be visited, the culture, food, arts and heritage and much more. 

(Jim Kennedy, ex head of NASA, and a riveting speaker - here with his wife)

Or there may be presentations concerning other topics: the inside stories on space flights, for instance, or trivia from the golden years of Hollywood, or workshops on photography.

We have been privileged to be guest lecturers on many cruises and it is an interesting way to be involved. If you think this might be for you, and have a specialty subject or area of expertise and want to know more, click here...

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But cruising is not all about the ship!

(an Indonesian welcome)

Naturally passengers want to travel, and see the world, and this is an ideal way to do it. Admittedly the time in port is often short - only a few hours in many cases, overnight in others - but there is still the opportunity to at least glimpse life in another culture....

....and climate! (Petropavlovsk, Eastern Russia)

Fortunately, getting ashore....

Then, of course, there are other times when the ship will take you into places where landing is not possible, like the awesome Sounds on New Zealand's South Island.

There is so much more, and if you haven't seen it yet, please, before you leave this page WATCH THE VIDEO near the beginning, for some of the action awaiting you onshore.

Many ports will feature entertainers and bands to welcome a ship. It's a big event for all concerned. In Japan, delightfully, they like to farewell a ship too.

One cruise line also believes in making its own goodbyes memorable too.

‘… what a beautiful world....’. As Crystal Symphony edges imperceptibly away from the wharf, this  well-known song is piped over the ship’s PA.

It’s subliminal. A coded message which will return every time passengers hear that music again, anywhere in their own ‘beautiful’ worlds.

The intention is this: nowhere else will you feel like this, be treated this way, have such a wonderful time.

‘..and I say to myself…’ (says me, the converted not-cruiser, quoting the song) 'surely it must be time to plan another cruise!'.

 

(PS: The T-shirt says it all...)

 

**Fellow cruisers, if you are familiar with these ships, you may have fun trying to guess which pictures belong to which vessel!

Text & images: ©Sally Hammond

Video: ©Gordon Hammond

In the past two years,  Gordon and Sally Hammond have travelled as lecturers and presenters on Rhapsody of the Seas, Voyager of the Seas, Celebrity Millennium, Celebrity Solstice and Crystal Symphony.