what's on your cruise bucket list?

[SarahGrace92]

For those of you who have a cruise bucket list, what's on that list? Certain regions, specific ports, itineraries, etc? Why are these on your list? Does the expectation of certain activities or experiences factor into whether a certain cruise is on your list and/or how excited you are to cross it off?

 

Of course, if you've already been cruising a while and have crossed some items off your list, please share about those too!

 

(I haven't been on a cruise yet, but I'm hoping I will be able to cruise more than once in my lifetime; i also enjoy planning things before they even become possible, and I love making lists!)

[SarahGrace92]

This is my bucket list so far (some of my paragraphs got out of order, but I think that will only annoy me)

 

**a 7-day to Bermuda. This will be my first one. I want to see the museums, eat the food, and interact with the locals. And, of course, visit one of the pink sand beaches. I'm not a fan of spending an entire day at a beach, so I'd just spend an hour or so just to stroll and take a break from people. Oh, and a Dolphin Encounter is number 1 on my list of experiences!

 

**other itineraries: Alaska, and there's several different ones in Europe aside from the aforementioned Mediterranean ones.

 

**might do some Caribbean ones. I despise the heat, so if the destination is hot year-round, there will need to be some reason for me to want to be there other than the beach.

 

**Canada and new England itinerary. Especially if I book it during autumn's glory. Enough said.

 

**Mediterranean. My reasons for most of these will have to do with nature sights, historical/cultural sights, interacting with people, eating locally-famous food, and a general desire to see and experience cool things.

 

**back to back. If I have reason to believe I'd enjoy being on the ship that long. This would be great for itineraries with one port after another with few or no sea days. I could strategically skip a few ports here and there to rest, and on the second leg with the same (mirrored) itinerary, I can explore those ports I'd skipped on the first leg, and skip the ones I've seen.

 

**transatlantic. Ditto on being able to handle being on a ship that long. Plus, sea days. If I can't handle being on a ship for 14+ days, it won't be due to having several sea days in a row. I know from previous land-based vacations that I have to schedule a day or two of "downtime" if a trip is going to last more than a few days. Multiple sea days simply adds some built-in downtime.

 

[crystalspin]

We don't have a written list, but my husband is always looking for good deals to areas we've under-visited. I was a slow-comer to cruising and originally agreed to go only to places you can't see or experience well except from a ship.

 

We crossed off Alaska (booked for our fourth cruise next June) which we obviously love, and the Panama Canal which was not as interesting as I expected. It and the rest of the itinerary were extremely hot and humid. The trip around Cape Horn aka "the Alaska of South America" was a good one. 

 

Discovered or grew to appreciate the ship as a destination itself. Have done three transatlantics and are booked for a 28-day south pacific cruise. Also booked for a So.Caribbean cruise that visits all three "A-B-C Islands". Working on methods to cope with the heat and humidity of both of those cruises!

 

What haven't we booked that I would consider 'bucket list'? Probably Scandinavia, fjords, and Iceland.

[Aquahound]

A European river cruise.

[ontheweb]

Maybe a river cruise---we once had one booked, and then after final payment it was chartered.

 

Possibly the Panama Canal--the timing has never worked out as DW is a teacher.

 

DW has also mentioned Israel and Asia, though flight times to the latter would be very long.

 

[Flatbush Flyer]

3 hours ago, SarahGrace92 said:

For those of you who have a cruise bucket list, what's on that list? Certain regions, specific ports, itineraries, etc? Why are these on your list? Does the expectation of certain activities or experiences factor into whether a certain cruise is on your list and/or how excited you are to cross it off?

 

Of course, if you've already been cruising a while and have crossed some items off your list, please share about those too!

 

(I haven't been on a cruise yet, but I'm hoping I will be able to cruise more than once in my lifetime; i also enjoy planning things before they even become possible, and I love making lists!)

How anyone might answer that question really depends on how far down their own "bucket list" they've gotten. 

For example, had I never been to the Caribbean, it might be on my list. But, that's not the case and, unless it is a yacht charter to a handful of lesser known isles or a necessary route to get to something interesting (like the Amazon River), you couldn't pay me to take most Caribbean cruises. 

Want exotic/tropical, head to Polynesia or the Indian Ocean. Better still,  do a 30 day transPacific. But make sure it's a smaller ship with excellent food and service (I.e., premium/luxury line).

 

Instead of a bucket list, ours is more a wish list for return or pending cruise ports/itineraries (in no particular order):

SF-NY Panama Canal

Transpacific Sydney to any California port.

Rio-Lima around Cape Horn

Cape Town to Singapore (or beyond)

 

BTW, what ties them all together are longer cruises with ample sea days.

 

But wait! There is one itinerary (as yet undone) that would top our "list": Circumnavigation of Sicily with added nearby islands, perhaps also starting or ending in Rome (unless we tied the cruise to a land trip crisscrossing Sicily). 

[ilikeanswers]

My bucket list of cruising is full of expedition cruises because as I see it I want to them while I can get the most out of them, so while I am still physically able. Some itineraries I want to do are Northwest Passage, the Bering Strait, Kuril Islands, Galapagos, Antarctica especially through the Ross Sea and PNG. I would also love to do Amazon, Nile and Congo river cruises. 

Edited November 13, 2019 by ilikeanswers

[donaldsc]

34 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

My bucket list of cruising is full of expedition cruises because as I see it I want to them while I can get the most out of them, so while I am still physically able. Some itineraries I want to do are Northwest Passage, the Bering Strait, Kuril Islands, Galapagos, Antarctica especially through the Ross Sea and PNG. I would also love to do Amazon, Nile and Congo river cruises. 

 

You should add South Georgia Island to your list.

 

DON

[ilikeanswers]

4 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

You should add South Georgia Island to your list.

 

DON

 

It's there👍. Along with Macquarie Island😜. This is only a small list I could really go on and on but I wouldn't want to bore people with my self indulgent list😆. 

[clo]

Antarctica.  We were there almost two years ago and it was extraordinary.

 

[cruisemom42]

I find that the more I travel, the longer my travel bucket list gets. I've certainly made a number of what I'd consider bucket-list trips, but often one visit isn't enough...

 

Probably my most amazing cruise to date was on a small ship (350 pax), starting in Safaga, Egypt, going through the Suez Canal and stopping in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus. Absolutely fantastic trip.

 

Bucket list cruises in my future: a round Japan trip during cherry-blossom season (coming up in April);  a cruise with stops in Iceland and Greenland (yet to be scheduled); Northern lights in the Norwegian fjords; possibly Antarctica....

[clo]

2 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

Probably my most amazing cruise to date was on a small ship (350 pax), starting in Safaga, Egypt, going through the Suez Canal and stopping in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus. Absolutely fantastic trip.

 

Was this recently?  And safety concerns?  (We're not wienies!)

[cruisemom42]

1 minute ago, clo said:

Was this recently?  And safety concerns?  (We're not wienies!)

 

It was 2010. Right before the Arab Spring. 

 

I stayed in Egypt a few days before the cruise; it was my fourth visit there and I had actually become good friends with a private guide. She told me things were quite tense in Egypt, but tourism was still going strong. Syria was a place where one sensed a lot of repression. But again, did not feel unsafe. We had an overnight at Palmyra. It would never have occurred to me that less than a decade later the site would lie in ruins....

 

The least safe place we visited at that time was probably when we were driving through the Bekaa valley in Beirut to reach Baalbek. (Bekaa was/is a Hezbollah stronghold.)

[clo]

6 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

It was 2010.

Thanks a lot.  I read you regularly and love that you travel to the places you do. Do you just use your gut at the time as far as safety.  We've been to Israel and Turkey and there have certainly been issues but we've never felt at risk.  I've said if you walk up a street and there's a crowd of people in one direction, then go in the other direction.

[wing2003]

Alaska, Panama Canal, Bora Bora and the dream one is Australia.  

[ilikeanswers]

53 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

Bucket list cruises in my future: a round Japan trip during cherry-blossom season (coming up in April)

 

I am going to Japan too but we are going on a land trip and starting in March to also catch the Ume blossoms. Does your cruise circumnavigate Honshu only or will you be going to Okinawa and Hokkaido as well? 

[lenquixote66]

6 hours ago, SarahGrace92 said:

For those of you who have a cruise bucket list, what's on that list? Certain regions, specific ports, itineraries, etc? Why are these on your list? Does the expectation of certain activities or experiences factor into whether a certain cruise is on your list and/or how excited you are to cross it off?

 

Of course, if you've already been cruising a while and have crossed some items off your list, please share about those too!

 

(I haven't been on a cruise yet, but I'm hoping I will be able to cruise more than once in my lifetime; i also enjoy planning things before they even become possible, and I love making lists!)

Due to disabilities I can only cruise from NYC or NJ .On my bucket list is any cruise that does not involve flying.

[ShawninFL]

1 hour ago, cruisemom42 said:

I find that the more I travel, the longer my travel bucket list gets. I've certainly made a number of what I'd consider bucket-list trips, but often one visit isn't enough...+

 

I completely concur.   The more places we visit, the more i want to see.

 

My bucket list includes in not particular order:

 

Norwegian Fjords

New Zealand

Australia

A return Cruise to Japan

Vietnam

India 

South America

Antarctica

South Pacific

[George C]

After 60 plus cruises , now our cruises on more for entertainment and relaxing love music cruises. So only thing I would like that we have not done is transatlantic and a Europe river cruise. 

[crystalspin]

6 hours ago, crystalspin said:

What haven't we booked that I would consider 'bucket list'? Probably Scandinavia, fjords, and Iceland.

I forgot to mention Danube River cruise. We just completed a 12-day (10-nights on the ground) central Europe escorted bus trip and it was exhausting. My aunt left a week later on a Viking River Cruise Amsterdam to Budapest. By the time we got to Budapest (the halfway point of our trip), the river-cruise-ships docked on the Danube were looking very good!

[navybankerteacher]

Most of my travel hopes are now land based - I’d like to finish what I started in the Middle East a number of years ago - before things “went south” - the Crusader fortifications in Syria and Jordan, a return to Petra - and a longer stay in Constantinople (as a traditionalist, I resist saying Istanbul).  

 

But I would like to arrange a couple of trans-Pacifics - with a number of island stops, a few weeks to explore Australia and New Zealand and them a return by ship - I dread the idea of flying both ways (while missing the islands).

[cruisemom42]

52 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I am going to Japan too but we are going on a land trip and starting in March to also catch the Ume blossoms. Does your cruise circumnavigate Honshu only or will you be going to Okinawa and Hokkaido as well? 

 

We do not go as far south as Okinawa, but have stops in Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku in addition to Honshu.

[clo]

50 minutes ago, George C said:

After 60 plus cruises , now our cruises on more for entertainment and relaxing love music cruises. So only thing I would like that we have not done is transatlantic and a Europe river cruise. 

Have you been to Antarctica?  If not, I'd encourage you to take a smaller ship that can actually disembark.

[cruisemom42]

1 hour ago, clo said:

Thanks a lot.  I read you regularly and love that you travel to the places you do. Do you just use your gut at the time as far as safety.  We've been to Israel and Turkey and there have certainly been issues but we've never felt at risk.  I've said if you walk up a street and there's a crowd of people in one direction, then go in the other direction.

 

I research my destinations. So far my experience has been that unless one is traveling to an active war zone, the risks of anything bad happening to one particular individual (that could not be prevented by prudent travel habits) are exceedingly low. I find the advice/warnings given on the British government website to be much more targeted and specific (and less influenced by political considerations) than the US equivalent.

 

 

[clo]

1 minute ago, cruisemom42 said:

I find the advice/warnings given on the British government website to be much more targeted and specific (and less influenced by political considerations) than the US equivalent.

Thanks a lot for that.  I'll check it out.  PS:You're a great asset to this site )