Transatlantic Cruise from Barcelona to Miami

So, we decided to “sail” instead of “fly” to return from Europe this Fall. Yes, we know cruising is 3 times the carbon impact as flying. I can accept that my lifestyle might not be the best for the earth, and I can pay carbon offsets. Yes, we know that the ships are registered in countries without many labor regulations. That didn’t seem to be a problem with all the crew members we talked to. They seemed happy with their jobs and contracts and I believe most are OK with their pay. So… then the question is…. How did we like it??? Will we cruise again???

First… why did we do it? Crossing oceans is going to take some effort no matter how you do it. We play the points and miles game to try and find business class or at least Premium economy airline seats using points. It is getting harder and harder to do that. There are more people “playing the game” and the airlines are releasing less award seats. Long flights are tough and as we get older they seem to be getting tougher. Our 50-something bodies don’t like economy seats for over 10 hours and jet lag seems to be getting even more difficult. Cruising on a repositioning ship eliminates the jet lag problems and doesn’t ever make you squish your 6 foot body into the seat in front of you.

The second reason to cruise across an ocean is cost. When you compare the cost of a repositioning transatlantic cruise with a flight, it can be really competitive for us retired nomads. If you add up 14 days of Airbnb’s/hotels and 14 days of meals, it is about the same as the cruise cost for 2 people. Our Virgin Voyages cruise included free food and internet and we also had some credits for our alcohol consumption. I am still not sure how this works on all cruises. We really want a balcony, internet and the complete booze package so I it doesn’t always pencil out. If we stayed in an inside room, ate all meals at the buffet/dining room and did a 2 week detox then it would definitely be cheaper to cruise. Somehow we always keep saying “Die with Zero” when we talk about doing this again…. We will continue to crunch the numbers :>).

Now… How did we like it? We were really concerned we were going to get bored. We had 3 port stops during the first 6 days but then we had 8 “sea days” in a row. We were really into the cruise ship entertainment during the first few days and saw a lot of live music and their information/educational talks. We also saw their dance/singing/acrobatic type shows in the ship auditorium. Everything was produced really well and was high quality. We liked that they were all about an hour in length and we also liked that they were all free. Entertainment is included your cruise price. We did get a bit tired of the ships entertainment and realized we were really just interested in reading our books, watching movies and doing our own thing. Meg really enjoyed the sea days and was content to sit on the deck and read a book. We never really got bored. There were tons of activities to get involved with but we mostly fine playing cribbage with each other and waiting for the next meal. We did really like the 2 person karaoke rooms. Karaoke is much more enjoyable when nobody is watching. :>)

Food is one of the advantages of doing a Virgin Voyages cruise. You can eat in the cafeteria style room for all meals but you can also make reservations at one of their 6 fancier restaurants for dinners. We ended up making reservations for almost every night and it was so fun – appetizers, small plates, entrees and then dessert and all of that was included. It is going to be tough when we have to go back to waiting for a bill at the end of the meal. The food was all pretty good although you can tell that everything is still a bit mass produced. We really enjoyed the dinner restaurants, but also liked many of the other mini restaurants around the ship that we would eat our lunches and snacks. It was not a week to go on a diet.

There was a gym onboard and Meg did a great job of continual rehab on her knee. There was a small pool and some hot tubs that we never tried. We are heading for the beach for the next couple of weeks and kept thinking of a bigger pool where nobody would be watching you… I did spend some time watching European soccer in the Game room but it really wasn’t a good game room , and it wasn’t a good sports bar. We had one sports channel we could watch. Our favorite spot was “The Dock” on the rear of the ship. It was a great spot to hang out and read and eat their Mediterranean snacks all afternoon.

Repositioning cruises are very popular with our nomad friends so we were not surprised to have about a dozen other retired nomads onboard with us. We had fun discussing our travels and have a few dinners and other get togethers with them. It was really nice not being all “alone” on the boat and we hope we see many of those people again in our travels. We were surprised at how easy it was to make new friends on the boat. Everyone seemed super friendly and happy, and started up conversations when we are at meals or hanging out on deck. We met some really interesting people that we normally wouldn’t strike up a conversation with. Lots of different travel styles, political views, and different lives from all over the world. That is good for us.

We prefer Airbnb’s to hotels because we like room to hang out with a couch and a kitchen. We were really worried we were going to be cramped in a small cruise ship room. While it wasn’t super big, we did have a balcony and 1 extra chair so we didn’t feel too claustrophobic. But it also wasn’t a super comfortable place to hang out. There are a lot of other lounges and seating all over the boat so it took us a while to find our favorite spots to sit and read. We were disappointed how many of the seating spaces were just a little uncomfortable. There is so much relaxing time that it really stands out when the places to relax aren’t the best. The other thing that kind of bothered us was the lines getting on and off the boat. When you travel independently like we normally do, you have so much control. It is hard to give up control and follow someone else’s schedule.

Will we do it again? I have said for many years that I won’t rule out cruising, but we weren’t ready for it. I thought it is something we can do when we can no longer easy travel physically to see new countries. I now think that is the wrong attitude. Yes, I dislike when cruises come into the small towns that I am staying and totally disrupt the vibe. It is so much better to stay a night or week in a city to really understand it. But I have to admit that I really liked getting a “taste” of a destination in the 3 port stops we did have. After seeing a couple of afternoons in the Canary Islands, it is definitely going on our list for a longer stay. Casablanca gave us a taste of Morocco which wasn’t so great, but we still want to give it another try some day. I don’t really crave going on a cruise to see ports for just one day. I like the idea of using cruising and transportation across the ocean. Yet, I’m still not ready to rule out some specialty cruises in countries that are expensive or difficult to see. A Norway/Scandinavian cruise might be intriguing to us…. We understand there are ethical problems in cruising, but there are ethical choices in all forms of travel. We will consider everything.

We are coming back to Europe next fall but we have not booked a way home yet. We are considering another cruise but we really need to find the right one. If we end up finding some awesome points deal on a business class flight then we will probably jump on it. But if we end up having to pay cash to sit in the cattle class at the back of the plane, then we might try other repositioning cruise. We will see what the internet deal searches give us :>)

For now, we are headed to another new country for us- Dominican Republic!!! I’m hoping to run into Julio Rodriguez during his off season :>)