I forgot about that part. The surface of the ocean is equivalent to the Atacama Desert in terms of visible life present. The only beings you might see are birds, and animals briefly surfacing out of their real habitat which is invisible to you. Nor can you touch it or otherwise interact with it except by looking at it from a very considerable height. I find looking at the top of water quite uninteresting since I can’t see any living things. For the same reason, geology and astronomy can’t hold my attention.
The few times I have been on the ocean in a large vessel have been deeply boring. On the other hand, rowing a dory hugging the coast, in Nova Scotia, was memorable.
Hmm. I just disembarked from a 14-day cruise, my 22nd cruise. This was a Hurtigruten Expedition cruise to see Northern Lights, round trip out of Dover and up the Norwegian coast. We had a cabin with a large round window; in fact, it was the same ship and cabin as I had when I went to Antarctica. Our first port of call, Loften, was cancelled for poor weather, but we stopped in Finnsnes instead. Our other ports were as scheduled, incuding Alta and Bergen. We paid for some excursions, such as a trip to the Polar Park and a walking tour of the Hanseatic area of Bergen. Others, such as the Northern Lights Cathedral and daily marine watches with a naturalist, were free; in other ports we walked around watching for birds and drinking coffee. Most ports were alongside, but some required Zodiacs, including a short trip up a fjord to look at waterfalls. We saw Northern Lights 3 nights from the deck, met and ate several meals with a hilarious British couple, compared bird lists with a young man and his aunt, attended lectures or watched them later on the television (plankton, Sami symbolism and customs, cetaceans, Norse mythology, ecosystems, permafrost, geology, etc.), and took a bridge tour. There was a walkable wooden deck and an open deck with hot tubs. There was a sauna. There were aerobics/exercise classes, Norwegian folk dancing lessons, movies, weaving lessons, a science boat, citizen science actvities, kayaking, snowshoeing, and hiking on offer. The food was varied and excellent, including house-made sorbet every night. The choices were the main restaurant (buffet breakfast and lunch, served dinner), a fancier restaurant wth a fee, a pub-style restaurant, and a take-away menu. Hot chocolate, coffee, tea, and soda were gratis, as was wine with lunch and dinner. Cookies and cake were available at teatime. There were 300 guests and 175 staff aboard.
I think that’s a little excessive. I don’t even like going on bus tours because I feel hemmed in by the scheduling, and I don’t like all-inclusive resorts, so it’s rather unlikely I would like this. Plus the idea of being stuck in the middle of ocean for days or weeks at a time with no escape, no matter how big the ship is, I think would trigger intense anxiety rather quickly. (And this is putting aside all issues of the family and friendships I’d be leaving behind for three years and everything else that would make it impractical and emotionally undesirable.)
I know myself well enough and have traveled far and long enough to know this is about the complete opposite of what I like in travel and living arrangements.
I’m a clautrophile, and not all that concerned about being able to look out a window at every moment. I worked almost ten years at a job where there were no windows in my office or the rooms that bordered it, no prob. On a ship where I could spend however long I wanted outside on a deck or in rooms that do have views? I’d be fine.
However we’ve just had a pretty big lesson that THINGS CAN CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. Suddenly. Dramatically. So what if you set sail on this journey on June 1, 2023 and a new virulent version of Covid takes hold on August 1st? Every country quickly closes borders. So then you’re still committed to spending three years but now all you can do is stare out at shore lines occasionally, and never ending waves all the rest of the time? What would be the point of a round the world trip then? You’d have much the same experience on a ship that looped endlessly around Pitcairn Island? Or even moored at any random spot a mile or two off a random shore.
Realistically, there’s a ton of things that would prevent me from doing this: home ownership, family, need for income, etc.
Theoretically, three years in a 10x13 room with most of your entertainment stuff to do within walking distance, seeing the same people regularly and meals served on a schedule sounds a lot like small-town college dorm life in my experience. I don’t remember that being particularly hellish though I could see where some people wouldn’t want to do it. The FAQ says you can bring your own appliances/electronics for the room so a nice 4k “picture” style TV could even simulate a window if I was worried about that. Ports of call replacing the occasional trip out of college town to more interesting locales. Sure, if I had no other obligations, I’d consider it. Perhaps not on this boat (I’d need to research a lot more before committing) but I wouldn’t Hell-No the idea out of hand.
I know people who might be interested in something like this, but I can’t live my life partying every day and rock and rolling all night. And I have a lot more stuff than will fit in 13, 130, or even 1300 sq. ft…
True. This does seem better suited for people who have no pets; and also no significant ties to their communities, or to any friends/family who might for financial or health reasons be unable to travel to visit them.
I wonder whether you can get off and go visit people and then return to the ship a few days or weeks later.
Yup. You’re missing that the quoted price is for an inside cabin with no windows.
The cruise does offer outside cabins with windows and even with balconies (as well as with more space); but they cost extra.
I don’t think either ‘I don’t want to spend three years with no cats’ or ‘I need to have natural light in my room’ is a “dramatic” reason. Or, for that matter, ‘I don’t want to spend that much time away from friends and family’ or ‘I want to eat my own cooking some of the time’.
‘I’m worried there’ll be too much drama about personal relationships’ might qualify as a “dramatic” reason, I suppose. But it seems to me to be more of an ‘avoid the drama’ reason.
– I’ve been on an ocean cruise; it was indeed fun for a week. (Outside cabin. No balcony, but definitely a window.) So was a week in Florida, where I would purely hate to live for much longer than that. If I had lots of money, I might think a cruise about once a year would be fun, maybe for one to four weeks depending on where it was going. Lots of things are fun for a week or so that wouldn’t be fun for three years.
I am absolutely not qualified for that job. I’d be beating at the walls and screaming in a week. Probably less.
People vary a great deal. Some of us need a lot of natural light, including to wake up by. Others don’t. – my nephew once showed me the office he was spending much of his daytime in; it was a long narrow room with no windows. He was fine with it. Another relative who was at my house looked at my office, which has two large windows with one desk in front of one of them and the computer setup right next to the other, and said ‘I don’t see how you can work in there.’ I said ‘It’s the only way I can work. I need those windows.’
Yes. I completely understand that most people don’t need as much sunlight as i do. But i marginally suffer from seasonal affective disorder, and three years sleeping in a room with no natural light would be deeply unhealthy for me. Your mileage probably varies.
Susan’s two week cruise (in a cabin with a window) sounds delightful. I wouldn’t want to do that for 3 years (pets, family, friends, hobbies, wanting to feel the soil in my hands) but a few weeks a year would be fun.
I apologize for that. FWIW, I’m a strongly introverted person myself who needs his alone time, just ask my family. I just figure that on a really long-term cruise, most people revert from being “‘on’ all the time” to plenty of time by themselves, using whatever means and time slots available.
The OP noted that you can get a tiny interior cabin for a low price. He didn’t say that was your only option. People seemed focused on that, when the larger question is whether you’d want to do this three year cruise. To even consider it, I’d need the largest cabin on board. The three year part doesn’t work for me, but I’m not horrified by the idea. [I have never been on a cruise, and think I’d prefer the small boats]
There certainly will be days like this, but also many days sailing along the coast of interesting places.
Even with the largest cabin on board, I think the various countries we would be stopping at would have a problem with the amount of weed I would need to bring along to keep from going stark raving mad during the voyage.
For people not familiar with cruises, it may take some time adjusting to the rhythm of them. I’ve only been on 3 so IANAE. Before my first cruise I don’t think I’d ever be interested in one. But it was a trip paid for by the parents and it was a good way to travel as a group. You gather for meals, and then during the day excursions you can go together or do your own thing.
One plus is that you travel with your hotel room. So you’re not unpacking the car each night and hauling your things up to the hotel room. Your hotel room travels with you.
After 3 cruises I’m inclined to do more of them and this 3 year trip might be a good way to spend some of my retirement years.
Oh, I didn’t even think about that. Cooking my own food and shopping for ingredients is such a defining part of me that I’ve planned vacations where I could stay at an AirBnB just so I can cook up some local ingredients. Three years of not cooking would be a no-go for me. I tell my wife that you can tell when I’m not quite right if I stop cooking for more than two nights in a row.
It says there’s a place for you to work remotely, but here in the United States, most companies do not allow their employees to work remotely internationally because of regulatory concerns and cybersecurity. My company has a policy forbidding employees from taking their laptops with them when they travel outside the US. (I suspect some employees have violated this policy.)
That, to me, is the major (and almost only) attraction cruise ships have for me. I did find the brief stops helpful in determining which places I’d like to return to for a longer visit and finding out which I never want to visit again. Cruising is like the sampler platter at a restaurant. You don’t get enough of the good stuff, and there is stuff left over that you would never order again.
“A week”? Put me in a submarine like that, and I’d be popping out of that hatch in about a nanosecond, going faster than a Jack-in-the-Box on an overwound spring! Oh, and the chance that I’ll ever visit the wreck of the Titanic in one of those tiny submersibles? Exactly zero!
My mileage agrees with yours. I was pointing out to people who didn’t appear to understand why a lack of window in the bedroom would be a problem that not everybody’s built like them.