Welcome!

Hello All!

My name is Crystal and I am 23 years old! If you can tell from the title I love cruising! Of course i don't mean driving around I am actually getting on a ship and traveling. I like any type of traveling and vacations but i prefer and pretty much only go on cruises!

I began cruising at a young age, or at least that was my first cruise. When I was simply 5 months old. Of course I don't remember this cruise but I have heard a lot of stories, especially the fact that other guests were very angry when they saw a child on the ship, but the crew had a very different view about me.

I have been on about 14 cruises and plan on many more in the future. With this amount I have done a lot of packing with things I think I will need and end up never needing and then there are those things I don't bring and find would have been helpful, with all this trial and error I will be giving you all the information you need to never have to be on a cruise and realize "Damn I never thought I would need something like that!!"

Lets start by pointing out that cruising used to be much different then it is today, it was a luxury, it was for older people and it was much more expensive. My parents shared with me that when they were on a cruise for their honeymoon it was all seniors and they were the two youngest on the ship. Since that time the cruising world has developed a great deal. It has changed from a seniors trip into a family vacation for all ages.

Back to me! When I was on that first ship (Which is now retired) my parents were approached by a older women at the end of the trip and was told that her and her large group were very angry when they brought me into the dining room, but ended up being pleasantly surprised by how well behaved I was. They must have been expecting a screaming baby. Now the crew, as I mentioned before felt differently, many of them work 6 to 8 months at a time and have young children at home that they haven't seen in almost a year, or were born while they were working and they were never able to see their children at all. They were always asking to hold me and they would take pictures with me, it was cute but now its changed so much for both these groups.

So yes I may have started young but most of my cruises have been in the last 10 years. I would like to take the time to thank my parents, without them I would not have fallen in love with cruising and I would have never been able to go on as many as I have today.

As mentioned in the description of this blog, I am in no way an expert because I know there are many people that have gone on more cruises then I have, but I really do want to share my own knowledge to help anyone that ever wants to jump into the world of cruising!

I hope you all enjoy this blog, and I truly hope you learn something from my experiences.

Happy Cruising!

Crystal!