Thelife- I always thought cruising was a lazy way to vacation.
- After taking a cruise with my family, I realized that laziness can be wonderful.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting on my porch chatting with my husband and in-laws, who were visiting from Australia. They had been hard at work helping us paint our home, install a closet, and complete other ambitious DIY tasks around our fixer-upper. All that work exhausted us, and we wanted to book a special fun-focused getaway before they returned home.
But since it was July in New England, and we're a family full of epic procrastinators, everything within driving distance was either fully booked or exorbitantly expensive. We didn't want to deal with airport chaos. Then, my mother-in-law piped up with an idea:
"There is that cruise," she said.
At the risk of sounding like an entitled millennial, I'll admit that my nose crinkled. I have friends that love cruising. I understood the appeal in theory. But, like any other worldly millennial, I try to travel off the beaten path, chasing authentic cultural experiences. A cruise seemed like the perfect storm of American gluttony and Western imperialism, perhaps with a touch of COVID thrown in.
And yet, I couldn't argue with the price or the flexibility of one location that had something for kids, parents, and grandparents. So we booked it and set sail a few days later.
When I got back to Boston, I was a total convert.
The cruise made day-to-day logistics easy
Like many moms, I manage most of the invisible labor in our house. My husband helps with dinner and bedtime, but I'm the one thinking about what we're eating and which kid needs an extra-early night. Plus, I'd been hosting my in-laws for seven weeks, thinking about their happiness too.
Put simply, I needed a break from managing everyone else's needs. The cruise gave it to me.
It started with how we booked. We chose a Norwegian Cruise Line trip departing from Boston, which is within driving distance and helped us avoid the stress and expenses of flying with kids. We bought a drinks package, which meant once we were on board everything we needed was included — I didn't need to think about money at all.
The weeklong trip had a three-day stop in Bermuda. That seemed like enough time to see the place, even at our kids' pace.
Once we were on board, the cruise made entertainment and food constantly available.
No one was asking me to make them a snack or saying they were bored. An itinerary appeared each day, without me planning it. My husband could go to a comedy show one night while I went to a painting class the next. The grandparents joined us for lunch, then enjoyed a fancy dinner without kids. With so many options, we were able to enjoy time together and time apart pursuing our own interests.
And each night, I slipped into a freshly made bed in a cabin that I didn't have to tidy. It was glorious.
There was some cultural exposure
I won't claim that cruising was a cultural experience. But there were aspects that broadened my kids' horizons.
My daughters made friends with kids who had disabilities and mobility challenges, and kids from different races and states. They learned to understand the accents of the crew, most of whom were not American. It was a type of diversity that was hard to come by in our small New Hampshire town.
Once we reached Bermuda, my older daughter was thrilled to use her passport to enter a new country. True, we spent two days at the same child-friendly beach, but as I watched the girls exploring each cove and shrieking with excitement over every new type of fish, I realized this wasn't a manufactured experience: it was a bite-sized piece of travel that was showing them the thrill of exploring, without overwhelming them.
Taking a multigenerational family trip will never have the same feel as solo backpacking, and that's OK. A cruise made an international vacation with kids accessible and refreshing. In fact, I was so impressed that I'm already trying to convince my side of the family to book their own.
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