Why Choose a Cruise Holiday?

We chose our first cruise to test the waters (excuse the pun!) We wanted to see if onboard life was suited to us, a family of two adults and two pre- teens at the time.

During that first cruise of the South Pacific, we literally had a ball!

We dined in restaurants and cafes, participated in engaging trivia competitions and paper plane challenges, watched enthralling theatre shows, magicians and comedy acts. If all that wasn't enough, we played table tennis, endless swimming in the pool and hanging out with new friends on the pool decks.

Then there were the ports. On this particular cruise there were five ports of call in the idyllic South Pacific region - Noumea, Vila and Lifou, all waiting to be discovered.

We enjoyed going ashore and exploring new places and then being able to return to what we felt was our floating paradise, the ship. By that point on, we were hooked!

We find cruise holidays offer a holiday away from it all. Sometimes even a holiday from a holiday!

Even though cruises offer a number of activities, we can also do nothing if we want to as well! To us, cruises offer the chance for our family to choose how we spend our valuable holiday time.

To us, the benefits of cruises are

• the included dining (usually the Main Dining Room and Windjammer Cafe),
• The included activities and entertainment,
• The chance for everyone in the family to have a holiday and find something they enjoy,
• The convenience of travelling by ship to ports of call all while relaxing,
• Only having to unpack once whilst on holidays and being able to visit multiple destinations,
• Meeting fellow passengers and
• Spending valuable time with our family and travelling companions.

The first step we took to book our first cruise was to research the topic and discover the available cruises from our home city to decide which cruises would be suitable. We decided to keep costs down by travelling from our home city so that no flights were required.

We read ship reviews, talked to travel agents and cruise lines before choosing a cruise of only seven niights to see how we would enjoy it.

The criteria we used to decide which cruise would suit our needs best were:

• Where the cruise departed from,
• How many nights duration,
• The ports of call,
• The demographic of the ship's passengers, ie families,
• The ship size and number of passengers,
• Cruise fares per person.

After that first cruise, were confident to book a longer cruise of fourteen nights for a later holiday and enjoyed the second cruise as much as the first! Now, we consider cruising to be a really fun way to travel and have become more adventurous in terms of ships and new itineraries!