Reflections on Cruising 21st May 2023

We thought we should look back on our first cruise experience which has just come to an end after 30 days at sea aboard the Celebrity Eclipse.  It was a repositioning cruise from its southern hemisphere season to its northern hemisphere one which meant that there were not that many ports of call and instead there were many days at sea.  We thought we should mention the good and the not so good, and our feelings in general about the experience.

It achieved our main aim of crossing the Pacific without flying and thereby having a sense of the distance travelled.  The sea days developed their own rhythm.  The mornings were spent in the fitness centre for Paul so that he could complete two to three hours yoga practice.  Balancing poses were a challenge with the rolling of the ship but he soon learnt to use the wall or a column for support.  Sue would start her mornings (after breakfast) by having an hour or so on a sunlounger out on deck with a book and listening to the Captain's daily announcement. His name was Captain Zisis but his strong accent sounded as though he was introducing himself as Captain Scissors and this title stuck when we spoke about him.  He would share daily navigational information as to the exact co-ordinates of the ship, the speed and course of the ship, and the depth of water beneath - usually the depth was around 5000 metres but sailing from Vancouver Island up to Vancouver on mainland Canada, this decreased to 170 metres which worried Sue who was expecting to feel the ship scrape along the seabed at any moment.  She would then join Paul in the fitness centre and made use of the cardio and resistance machines.  Using the treadmills on a less than smooth sailing day could be challenging and gripping the hand-holds was necessary as you could feel a little drunk trying to maintain a central line on the moving belt.  Afternoons were generally spent relaxing in one of the lounges, the coffee shop or watching a film in the cinema.

The days in port were often a little unsatisfying as we only had time to get a flavour of the place in the few hours that we were ashore.  Many of the locations were beautiful and we would like to have had longer exploring, as would be our usual way of travelling.  Also we would normally meet many local people and our fellow travellers with whom we would have a lot in common; however, the other passengers were committed cruisers and conversations tended to centre around their previous cruises and comparing the food, drink and entertainment on board.

The Celebrity Eclipse has a policy of providing live music which is to be applauded, but trying to please everyone means that the choice of material and presentation becomes very middle of the road.  Most evenings, if it looked appealing, we would visit the theatre for the show which could be hit or miss as to what we'd see.  We were lucky enough to have an excellent concert pianist one evening, a violinist another evening and the crew cast of singers, dancers and acrobats/aerialists put on several performances which were outstanding.  Although one evening we went along to see a multi-instrumentalist who thought that a rendition of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven on the panpipes was a good idea!  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

For us, a cruise vacation would not be a consideration, but as a means of transportation it was a good and comfortable way to travel.