To cruise or not to cruise?
Most travelers have strong opinions about cruising, and can be easily divided into two factions: the cruise-lovers and the never-cruisers. But what is travel for if not to park your biases and open your mind a little? Is it possible that a never-cruiser could actually (gasp!) enjoy a cruise?
On Episode 569: To Cruise or Not to Cruise?, Katy describes how she was roped into going on a cruise with her sisters, in order to participate in their annual sisters’ trip “Sisterfest,” an unmissable event in Katy’s year.
And you know what? She didn’t hate it.
Despite being someone who savors slow travel, likes to go back to the same places over and over, and aims to get to know a place deeply over the course weeks or months, Katy found something to appreciate in cruise travel.
She talks about the good, the bad, and the hilarious when it comes to cruising, and why—as many veteran cruisers probably know—it’s not about where you go, it’s about what’s going on on the ship.
You can listen to the episode right here, or find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.
Related Episodes:
Episode 522: The Case Against Travel, Part 2
Episode 520: The Case Against Travel
Episode 422: Solo Travel—Is It For You?
Episode 411: A Sisterly Quest to Midnight Madness
Five key takeaways from the episode:
- Katy went on her first cruise despite initial reservations about environmental impacts and superficial tourism, and found some aspects enjoyable, like the mix of people and activities on board.Â
- The cruise experience focused more on life on the ship rather than destinations, with entertainment, formal nights, and a cruise director (Joey) playing a central role in creating a fun atmosphere.Â
- The cruise staff comes from diverse international backgrounds and works long contracts away from home, presenting both opportunities and challenges.Â
- While cruises have drawbacks like environmental concerns, they can be good for family reunions and accommodating different ages and mobility levels.Â
- Katy concluded that approaching new experiences with an open mind is valuable, as it allows for unexpected enjoyment and learning, even if the activity initially seems unappealing.
Full Episode Transcript:
Katy
Welcome to Rome. This is the Bittersweet Life with Katy Sewell and Tiffany Parks. Hello. This is the Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewell.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Tiffany in Rome. Katy in Seattle. Here we are in January. And January, if you’re me, means that you go on your annual sister trip. SisterFest is what we call it. I have two older sisters. I don’t have nearly the amount of sisters that Tiffany has, which is coming in at a whopping, what, five?
Tiffany
Well, I mean now four, unfortunately, because we lost my sister Tia, but only one full blooded sister that I actually grew up with in the house. My oldest four are half sisters, so.
Katy
Right. So one full. Four half. And I have two full. Both older than me, Sarah and Dana, who have appeared on this show multiple times. So every year SisterFest goes to a different location and does a different thing. If you’ve listened to this show since the very beginning, you’ve heard about some of those adventures that we’ve done in the past. One thing I probably haven’t mentioned on the show is that for years they have been asking me to go on a cruise for Sister Fest. Like on a big ship cruise, like.
Tiffany
A real cruise, not like a river cruise.
Katy
Yeah, not like a ferry boat to…
Tiffany
Alaska, like a private boat up to Alaska.
Katy
A real cruise. A real cruise. Like we’re talking Carnival Cruise Line, like the full. The full thing. Water slides on the top. Basically a floating hotel or a city, however you want to think about it, really. Floating city. And I have staunchly refused to do it. I have allowed them to make me go to Vegas, which I also don’t love, but. But no, I’ve staunchly refused to go on a Cruise. This year, 2025, we were trying to come up with an idea of what sisterfish was gonna be this year. And let me tell you, the price on this one cruise they found was right. Like it was so affordable. And at first I said, no, no, we have to come up with something else. And they’re like, you don’t even know. Like you’ve never even been on one. Just, let’s just do it this year. It’s a great price. It’s leaving from Long Beach, California, so it’s easy for everyone to get there. You know, it’s a short cruise. You know, it wasn’t like a week way down into Mexico. It was basically a four night thing. And I agreed. I agreed. Now, before I kind of lay out what I want us to talk about, you know, many of the reasons I object to cruises as many of the reasons that other people object to cruises, especially if you, you know, do a show like ours where you’re constantly hearing about the tourism impact of the cruise ships or, you know, the environmental impact of the cruise ships. We’ve talked about on the show how cruise ships coming into Venice were actually raising the water level and causing enough water displacement to cause destruction. So then they were like, the cruise ships can’t park this close to Venice. And. Or we’ve heard from our. I believe it was Linda, our friend who runs the Beehive Hostel in Rome, you know, who said, like, part of the problem with a cruise ship is that. And I could be wrong that. Linda, if it’s not you, I’m sorry. But part of the problem with a cruise ship is that people aren’t. They are giving to the local economy to a certain degree, but they’re…
Tiffany
But they’re not a small degree.
Katy
Yeah, but they’re not, because they’re not staying overnight. They’re oftentimes trying not to eat on land because they get free food on board. You know, and as a result, a lot of what crops up around where cruise ship parks are people who are selling tchotchkes that say Mazatlan or something. And, you know, so that you can say, ah, I went to Mazatlan, or I went to Venice, you know, when really you spent a few hours in Venice. And so it’s not supporting the deeper aspects of a place. That’s another common complaint that you hear. Anyway, so I did look it up because we’re like, well, environmental impact wise, we also know that flying is not the best thing to do. Flying. I do want to kind of get into a little bit about how humans are like a walking contradiction, because we here on this show love travel, definitely appreciate the value. The value of travel. And yet we know that, like, having thousands and thousands of planes zipping across the sky and the globe every day is bad for the environment. I did look it up, the environmental impact of a cruise ship versus a flight. And it did say that the. At least according to the most recent figures, I could find that the carbon dioxide output is worse than flying per person, per passenger is worse on a cruise ship than is in a plane. And that a cruise cruise ship sitting in port, that its exhaust admissions in that city where it’s docked would be equivalent to 12,000 automobiles every single day of it just sitting there running. You know, then there’s like, the noise and air pollution, the oil spills, you know, the reports of sewage dumping, you know, all that stuff and the belief that cruise ships are ruining the world with over tourism. And I certainly, I guess my objection to doing it was largely based on all of those things and, you know, the fact that if you’ve listened to the show for a long time, you know, I took a very small boat, a 1965 touring yacht, to Alaska twice, and you know, that experience was like, the boat’s right in the water, the creatures are right beside you. You’re in this very quiet, nature filled separation from the world feeling.
Tiffany
How many of you were there, by the way? How many passengers?
Katy
- And that includes the crew?
Tiffany
That includes the crew. So not 12 passengers?
Katy
Yeah, 12. 12 total. At least on 12 people total. I did it twice. The most recent one, it was 12. I can’t remember what number it was prior to that. I think it was a little more the other time.
Tiffany
But if it was 12, I mean, you’ve got to have what, at least four crew members? Oh, yeah, I would think at least four crew members. So like, you were like eight, the eight of you. I mean, compare that to how many people are on a cruise.
Katy
Over 4,000.
Tiffany
4,000. I was, I was trying to be like, is it going to be 800 or is it going to be 8,000? And I’m thinking, can’t be 8,000.
Katy
Well, on the one we went on, so many. Yeah, on the one we went on, it was over 4000 and there were over 1200 staff members. So it is basically the size of a small city. It is, yeah. And so when I was on that little boat with 12 of us, we would occasionally see a cruise ship passing or in the distance, and it seemed like an absolute abomination. You know, you’re like, here we are out in the middle of nature. Why is a skyscraper going past us right now? All of that said. And yet, and yet, I come from a journalistic background. Generally speaking, in life, I try to go into things with an open mind. You know, I try to not go into things just from a place of judgment because, you know, I think if you approach things with judgment, you miss a lot that’s going on. You’re too in your own camp to experience, like, what’s happening.
Tiffany
It’s easy to be hypocritical.
Katy
Yes, very much so. I think we’re all hypocrites to a certain degree. I mean, you can, you can hate flying. You can be like, you know what? I love the environment so much, I’m never flying again. The minute you’re somebody you love desperately calls you and Says that you need to be there tomorrow, you know, you’re on the plane the next day, you know you’re on that night. So we all have our reasons why we will do things, even if they go against our values. But anyway, so I went in with an open mind and then I was like, okay, I know all the reasons why people don’t like cruise ships. I’m gonna lean into the full experience. Like I’m on a cruise now, I’m here, you know, I paid my money, I’m a part of the, I’m one of the 4,000, 5,000 people. And I have to say there were a lot of things about it that I really liked and I kind of get why people like it. I mean, here. One of the things that I just loved in general was, was the general mix of people. At least on our boat I’ve heard that it depends on what line you’re on, what the mix is of people. But ours was like a jumble of all ages, all races, all backgrounds. It was a complete mix. It wasn’t like everyone’s older, everyone’s younger. It was a full on mix of, you know, if you’re standing in a hall, you’re going to be next to as many 60 year olds as you are like 20 year olds, 15 year olds, 45 year olds. It was like a full on mix of ages and backgrounds. And given that the United States is such a divided country right now, it just washed all of that away. Now you’re just human beings. It was like being in a camp, you know, it was like, it was like a week at camp. Human beings, your sole purpose there is to have a good time with your friends, with your family, with your sisters, whoever you came with. It kind of takes away all of these like barriers and ideologies. And it’s just a bunch of people wanting to have a good time. And then it was also strange because you’d think with like a boat of 4,000 people, how could you ever know anybody? And yet you keep encountering the same people over and over and over and over again. I mean, I think that’s one of the weird things that I guess made it feel like camp. You just keep encountering the same human beings. And so you do like end up making connections, you know, and not just with staff members, but with other people who are on the boat, like other passengers. You know, you might have a conversation with one of them at some point and you never see them again. Other person, you have a small conversation with them and you see them all over the place, you know, that was an unexpected to me. And then, of course, there is also, at least for me and my sisters, like, how many times in your life? And this is why people often say that the problem with cruise ships is it’s about the life on the boat and not the life off the boat. That’s one of the main complaints that you hear about the cruise industry is like, these people aren’t necessarily wanting to go see where they’re going. It’s about what’s happening on the boat itself. And that was certainly true with the cruise we were on. The cruise went to, like, basically nowhere. One day we were just sailing in squares, like out in the ocean, you know, it was called a day at sea. I mean, we were basically doing nothing. Nothing except moving in a circle, you know. And then we went to Ensenada, Mexico, because I guess the cruise was required to do an international port. I mean, half the boat didn’t get off to see what was happening in Ensenada, Mexico, because even the crew was like, I mean, you know, it’s not my favorite Mexican city. My sister had been on this particular cruise before, and she had gotten off to explore Ensenada, Mexico, and she was like, you know, there’s really just not much to see in that case. It’s basically a port. You know, it’s basically somewhere for the cruise ship to dock itself. And a lot of people felt like it wasn’t worth going on shore. But I mean, at the other hand, how many times are you hanging out with your family or your siblings or your friends where it’s like you go out for dinner and then you take in a trivia contest and you go see a comedian, then you go to a live music show, and then you go out dancing. Like, none of us live that life. And yet on a cruise ship, that’s one night, you know. One night.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
And I can see it at a fundamental level. That’s fun to, like, do that many activities with your family. Katy popping in real quick to take you on a little journey for a moment back to when Tiffany and I were exploring the streets of Rome. Take a listen.
Tiffany
Coincidentally, as luck would have it, we have one of Rome’s very best cafes just around the corner. So let’s see if it’s open.
Katy
Okay.
Tiffany
Yeah, this is Cafe Santa Staccio in the piazza of the same name. And I mean, of course there’s going to be some, like, super niche coffee snobs who are going to have their own particular favorite. But I would say the Majority of Romans consider either this cafe or Tazza d’oro to be the best coffee in Roma. I do think the smell of this place is amazing. And when you walk inside it, just if you like the smell of coffee, it’s pretty incredible. Now you can see everybody’s standing up at the counter. I mean, there are some tables outside for the tourists, but the Italians who come here, a lot of business people, people come here during the day on their coffee break. The parliament is just around the corner. So sometimes you’ll see some famous Italian politicians in here. They always stand up at the bar to get their coffee. And as you can see, it’s packed like you can’t really. It’s hard to get up to the front of the line. You have to elbow your way up there. But despite its fame, the coffee is very well priced and espresso is around a euro. So they have not taken advantage of their fame. Pay for what you want and then take your receipt up to the bar. I mean, obviously don’t push in front of people. You wait your turn. But people in Italy don’t really make organized lines. So you just kind of look around, you see who is there before you. And when you feel like those people have been served, you put your arm.
Katy
Forward and you get your coffee. If I want to be legit, do I have to stand at the bar?
Tiffany
No, sometimes you want to sit down and have your coffee. There’s nothing wrong with that. I prefer that. I mean, I’m a tea drinker, so of course I prefer sitting down worse than having a pot of tea. Standing up at the bar of a cafe. It’s like, it’s the worst. You know, you don’t drink tea quickly. Tea is a slow. It just. It’s a total nightmare. So I usually just get water these days.
Katy
The one way you are at odds with this country. Well, let’s move on to a place where you’re not at odds. A place that is extremely beautiful. And another, we have had so much fun exploring this historic city. So many wonderful stories, so many beautiful and thrilling sights to see. And we’ve made so many discoveries together. Now imagine being on the streets of Rome with us making those discoveries for yourself as we show you some of Rome’s most delightful secrets. You see them with your own eyes. You smell the smells. We’re leading a week in Rome this October 2025, from the 5th to the 11th. A small group of adventurous and curious listeners. And you could be one of them. Find out more information@thebittersweetlife.net or email us for the details at bittersweetlifepodcastmail.com now back to the.
Tiffany
I have a friend named Natalie who actually has been a guest on this show. She was my, my roommate. She was doing an internship in Rome for the year I think she was 19. And she went on, she’s very smart, very, very talented and went on to become and is a journalist working for the BBC and you know, is going all over the world and was in Ukraine when bombs were falling and she’s seen it all done at all. She’s been everywhere. When she was a young person, and I don’t know, maybe even still today, her grandparents liked to take her and her brother and her parents on cruises. That was their thing. Like they loved cruising and they had the money to take their kids and their grandkids and that’s what they wanted to do. And so pretty much every year they went on a big cruise. Not like a four day cruise, like a ten day cruise.
Katy
Right.
Tiffany
And they always chose some like, different locations. So, you know, maybe one year it was the fjords in Norway and the next year it was Southeast Asia and all different places, the Hawaiian islands, the Greek islands. And you know, she is a very serious person in many respects. Like, she is a serious traveler. She goes to countries and she’ll live there for like, you know, three months or a year or. She’s not a superficial person at all. She’s not the typical person you would think like, oh yeah, three hours in Rome, sure, that’s fine. But on the other hand, she loves the cruises and she, we had a similar conversation to this and I’m like, I get it, you know, it’s your grandparents, it’s time to be with family. I understand that. But like, man, the cruise. And she’s like, you know, you don’t get it. It’s all about the ship. It’s about the ship. It’s not about where you go, you know, and this is coming from someone who adores travel and is a serious traveler. So like you’re saying two things can be true at once, you know, and you can take a person who is an extremely explorative and deep traveler who wants to deeply get to know a place and you can put them on a cruise ship and they can have a great time. So she definitely, she would agree with you that it’s about the ship. Yeah, it’s about what’s going on on that ship.
Katy
You’ve never been on a cruise, right?
Tiffany
I have.
Katy
Okay, you have. I didn’t know.
Tiffany
Okay. But I was 10. So I was taken on a cruise when I was 10. But let me tell you, I remember it in such detail. I’m not going to say it’s the best vacation I ever went on or even the best vacation I ever went on as a child, but it was very memorable. I remember a lot of different aspects of the trip. I remember what our cabin looked like. I remember the things that I wore to dinner. This was the 80s. I mean it was the very, very late 80s, but it was the 80s. And I don’t know how cruises are now because this was the one and only cruise I’ve ever been on. But in the late 80s you dressed for dinner, you dressed up for dinner. And there were even like you dressed up every night. But there were formal nights when you like dressed to the nines. And I had like a taffeta gown that I wore and I had a little handbag. It was 10. My mom got dressed to the nines. And you know, we, you know, we lived it up and I met a couple of girls on the ship and you know, we were fast friends and we did everything together. And there was a hot tub on the very top. And I remember how because it was at the top, it was so wavy and there was a cinema and we played bingo. And I won bingo. I won $450. Well, it does bingo.
Katy
It doesn’t sound all that different than today. I mean, they did have the same thing where you had one night that was particularly formal where the whole boat was dressed up, which was probably the most fun night of the whole thing. I mean, there were a couple things. One, there was a cruise director, which just is a mind baffling job to me. You know, where they are basically the person who comes on in the morning and is doing the morning announcements. But they’re also basically at least un carnival. They’re responsible for the you having a good time. They are considered the most fun person on board. I guess. I guess that’s how you get that job. They’re the most fun. And then they have a group of fun, other fun people around them called like the fun Crew or something that also try to get the fun going. But I’ll tell you, ours was a guy named Joey. And if Joey was around, like if Joey was at an event, he could be dancing around the bar in the center of the ship or he could be like leading a game show in the theater. Whatever he’s doing, wherever he is, that’s where people are having the most Fun. And I’m just like, who in the world is this guy? Like, he can pass the responsibility off to somebody else, one of his fun crew. And that person can, like, run a game show, but that person’s not gonna be half as fun, and that game show is not gonna be half as fun. If Joey enters the room, it’s like the crowd goes crazy. I mean, I’m not kidding you. I, of course, got some audio of this, which I could insert. But we had one night, this formal night. I was the only one to witness this because my sisters were off doing something else. And I wandered away because I heard the crowd screaming and yelling. And I was like, I’m gonna go find out what’s happening over there. What was happening over there? It was Joey, of course. Joey was dancing around on the bar. He’s getting everybody singing. All generations, all races, all backgrounds. They’re all, like, singing songs together. Which, by the way, also music. The general unifier. I feel after watching a cruise ship, if people all know the same song, it just brings everybody together. So he’s leading them in something. I walk into it during the whole. I forget what song that they were singing. I don’t remember. But during it all, someone actually got on their knee and proposed, started proposing to another person. And he just stopped the show. Just stop the show. He’s like, hold on, hold on. Are we seriously doing this right now? You know? And so he get. Jumps off the bar. He hands the mic to this guy. He says, will you marry me? The woman says, yes. Joey says, they said yes, and makes it into an even bigger party. I do have the audio from after the Fact, so I’ll play some of it right here. But the thing that was the most delightful about watching it all was because I was standing on a balcony up above, looking down on everything, was there was a little girl just like Tiffany, dressed up in her fancy tattoo at a gown on formal night. She just happens to be standing right next to this couple. When the guy goes in to propose and the woman says yes, this little girl just bursts in tears. Bursts in tears. It was so cute, you know, she just overwhelmed by the joy and majesty of it all, I guess. I don’t know, but that was, like, the mood of the whole thing. You say, what can make me feel this way? My girl, my girl, my girl. Talking about my girl, my girl. And I think, without a doubt, that point goes to this team. Congratulations. You too. That’s magical. All right, so to win the. But another thing I wanted to point out was it’s also the crew. And I had heard that forever. The crew is from all over the world. You know, you and I have done a lot of traveling. I remember from when I used to visit Vietnam all the time. Oftentimes, if I met someone who really spoke English well and who was, you know, not low income, high income, but, like, kind of moderate, like what we would consider the lower middle class, almost always. They had worked on a cruise ship at some point in their lives, and that’s why their English was as good as it was. And the whole staff is, like, completely worldwide. And I think that their whole existence in life is just also fascinating, at least to me. We would get in conversations with them and, you know, they would be assigned to a particular boat for nine months. And then at nine months, they get to go home to go see the family that they’ve been away from their country that they’ve been away from for the last nine months. They have a certain break. One woman said the break was only six weeks long. Like, can you imagine being gone for nine months and then having six weeks off and then you have to deploy to another ship again anyway, and that. So they get this break to go home, and then they get reassigned to a new boat. So it’s like you’re also working with the same people for six to nine months, and then you go home, which you’re super excited about. But it’s also so bittersweet because you’ve also been working with these people for the last six to nine months, you know, so presumably some of these people are your friends. They’re the people you’ve been spending all of your life with. And you have a roommate, so you’ve been living with one of them this whole time.
Tiffany
It’s kind of like being in the Navy, almost.
Katy
Yeah. And then you get sent to a different area and you might get to be like, oh, well, I’ve been stuck going to Ensenada, Mex, Mexico for the last nine months, and now I get to go to the Caribbean. You know, that’s cool, but I just thought, gosh, what a roller coaster ride to. To have that be your lifestyle. To, like, have it be so stable and then so changeable also.
Tiffany
Well, you know, we could reach out to one of my close friends who has been a cruise director.
Katy
Well, but is it Joey?
Tiffany
It’s not Joey. It’s my friend Ryan.
Katy
Okay.
Tiffany
He was a cruise director on Viking Cruises, which they do River, I believe. And please correct me if I’m wrong, people listening, but I believe it’s river cruises in Europe. It’s like high end. It’s not a tiny boat like the cruising yacht that you went on, but it’s still nothing compared to the carnival cruises. It’s like a riverboat that goes up the Rhine or on the Rhone or the Loire. But he had basically that. That job. But I think that the, like, it’s a different atmosphere when it’s a smaller boat. I don’t think. I’m sure they do have entertainment. I know they have entertainment, but I don’t think it’s like the riotous, like, YMCA party, party, party sort of atmosphere. I think it’s a little bit more subdued. But I know that he did that job for a very finite amount of time. Like, he did it for maybe a year or two and he was like, okay, basta. Like, I can’t. Like, I can’t do this anymore.
Katy
It’s.
Tiffany
It’s exhausting.
Katy
I mean, I believe it.
Tiffany
Absolutely exhausting.
Katy
I believe it. I’d see Joey like the night before at like 1 in the morning, and then, you know, first thing, 8am he’s like, hello, travelers. Like, on the thing, I’m like, I told my sister at one point, I’m like, I really hope he has that mic next to his bed so he can just like roll over and be like, hello, travelers, good morning. Today we dock at Ensenada, you know.
Tiffany
But I’ll see if Ryan will talk to us. Maybe we can. We can hear from him, like, what it was like.
Katy
Yeah, I mean, because I was fascinated by what it would be like to be a crew member on one of those boats. And I know it has perks. Like, if you’re. If your room and board are paid for, you store up a lot of money to bring home. But also, like, having to be away from home for so long all the time. You know, some of the people I talked to had little kids, like little tiny kids. They hadn’t seen their little kid for nine months. I mean, that would be so hard. So heartbreaking. I do have to say, though, as a final thought, I love that the crew, though, is that diverse, because I think there are a lot of people who all they do is cruise and they never, I don’t know, go anywhere. I guess if it’s just about the boat, they’re going places. But if it’s about the boat, you’re mostly on the boat. Right. But it is a way to be exposed to so many different cultures. And I met so many different people who worked on the boat that were from Zimbabwe And I met people who were from other places, too. But the unifying factor of all the Zimbabwe people is, like, if you said, ah, you’re going, you’re from Zimbabwe, if you mentioned where they were from, they would immediately say something about, like, how it’s the most beautiful country, how you have to, like, see this, see that, they can’t wait to get back there. And all of them went on and on about Zimbabwe so much. I was like, you know, I guess I got to put it on my list. I mean, this seems to be a unifying thing. Every single one of them is like, oh, it’s the most beautiful country. I can’t wait to get home. The wildlife, the waterfalls, you know, I’d never really considered going to Zimbabwe before. And now I’m like, all right, I’m writing Zimbabwe down on my. On my list because it’s gotten rave reviews, like, across the entire cruise ship. Rave reviews.
Tiffany
The locals, no less.
Katy
Exactly, exactly. Anyway, so. All right, well, so am I a convert?
Tiffany
Here’s the question. Would you go on a cruise again? And if so, what would be the conditions to get you back on a cruise ship?
Katy
Well, it was very fun to be on it with my sisters. I will say that. I think that if you have the right people with you, even if you’re kind of against the notion of it, you’ll. You’re probably gonna have a good time. If you enter it with a open mind and try to not think about the environmental degradation and impacts really hard. Really hard. Try not to think about it. I mean, my sisters really want to.
Tiffany
Do this is people.
Katy
My sisters really want to do this again with my parents. And now, now that I’ve been on a cruise, I understand the reason why entire families do it, because they are very good at dealing with people with mobility issues. Like, the cruise ship is basically built for people with any kind of ability to have a good time. And so that’s why you can do all ages from age 4 to 95, you know, or 106. Like, if my grandmother was there, they can all be on the ship and get around without too much problem. And there’s going to be different things to do that cater to different kinds of people. So I totally understand the idea of my sisters wanting us all to do a cruise together so that not everybody has to hang out all the time and we can have a family reunion. We’re not. Like, a few people end up cooking the entire time. I totally get that. So they might be able to convince me they wanted to go on A cruise with my parents and, like, the grandkids and all that for a long time. I could get behind it more now than I could before. Am I going to end up cruising every year? I think my environmental belovedness couldn’t get behind that, I don’t think. And quite honestly, I missed, like, that feeling of, like, if you’re gonna be on the water, being really on the water, you know. Yeah.
Tiffany
Because you’re too far away from it.
Katy
You’re so far up in the sky above the water, you can see the water, but you’re kind of squinting. You’re like, what is that in the water? Is that a seal? Is it a dolphin? Like, I can’t quite. There’s something moving around out there, you know, but you’re not, like, right on top of it. And so I definitely prefer that also.
Tiffany
Yeah. The only place that I would really be tempted to take a cruise is, I think, Norway. That’s the place that attracts me. The idea of cruising up the coast of Norway and seeing, you know, just the fjords and the glaciers and just this countryside that would be so difficult to see in any other way. Unless you were on a private boat. It’s really impossible to see. So I think that if I had the opportunity, I would do that. I would.
Katy
I would probably do that resolution for 2026.
Tiffany
No, no, it’s not a resolution, but it’s something that I would. I’m not a cruise person, but I would. I would break that. Not that that’s a hard and fast rule or anything, that I’m not a cruise person, but it’s just not. It’s not something that would. Or, like, would naturally choose, you know, oh, let’s go on a cruise this year. It wouldn’t pop into my head, but I would do it to go there.
Katy
I mean, general takeaway, I think, is. Is, I guess, a reminder to me approach things with an open mind. You can have your opinions about it, but don’t always lead with your opinions because you really do miss so much. And if you don’t follow us on Instagram yet, Tiffany. My sisters and I spent the entire formal night running from one. They had a whole bunch of professional photographers set up all over the ship. And of course, we were not planning to buy any pictures. We were just like, let’s go crazy posing just for fun, and did all sorts of funny, weird posing. Definitely laughed really hard. One of my sisters was laughing so hard at one point that the photographer actually walked away for a while and sat down so that she could. She could get it back together because they kept. They kept making us stand in like, order of age with our hands on each other’s shoulders, which is just so reminiscent of childhood. Ridiculous. But anyway, I have a bunch of those pictures. So if you don’t follow us on Instagram yet, you might consider it because I’ll share them with you, Tiffany, and you can post some of these great photos that we took on the formal night.
Tiffany
I can’t wait to see. Yeah, if you don’t follow us on Instagram yet, what are you waiting for? Yes, because we got a whole new Instagram strategy going on there. Lots of new posts. I’m actually doing reels for the first time in my natural life and.
Katy
Or unnatural life, whatever the case.
Tiffany
I mean, yeah, it’s. We could use some more eyes on the stuff that we’re doing and get some feedback from you guys if you like it. So join us on Instagram if you’re not already.
Katy
Yes. Look for us at the Bittersweet Life podcast. You can also find us on Facebook in that same realm. All right, well, we’ll leave it there. Let us know what you think about cruising. I would be interested to know. I had no interest in it prior and now I’m interested to know. So, you know, that’s that open mind again. You can always send us an email bittersweetlifepodcastmail.com and we’ll leave it there. And until next time, this is the Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewell.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Join us again. Bye. Don’t miss your chance to explore the Rome most tourists never get to see by coming to Rome with us this October 5th to the 11th, 2025. We’ll take you through the history, art and stories of Rome in a way that you will Never forget. Visit thebittersweetlife.net for more information or email us at bittersweetlifepodcastmail.com.
