Should I buy the video put out by the cruise line while aboard?

I write from aboard the Island Princess where I am enjoying myself and thinking about how nice it would be to have a good DVD related to my transit of the Panama Canal. Also, it seems I may end up in one of the videos produced as I ended up a few times on the camera while they were shooting on the ship’s excursion we took today.  These DVDs are somewhat expensive compared to what you would pay for a movie when shopping at Target or Wal-Mart. The DVD typically is a mix of stock video collected over many cruises and updated periodically and lots of events collected on your specific cruise. 

The video is one great way to memorialize the cruise. If you have friends who likely will want to see the cruise it also serves as a great way to show them what you saw and what happened on the ship. Of course unless you are followed constantly by the ship’s videographer all of what you do and see will not be on the video, but given the amount of video you could create think of the editing that you would have to do to make it palatable to the general audience.

Yes, you can shoot all your own video, but the time it takes to edit it all down to one or two reasonable length shows can get lengthy. That said, do you really want to spend hours creating one or two videos that you can show your friends?  Yes when you make it yourself you are able to then go put it on Youtube etc… but unless you plan to post your video out there having a nice DVD from the cruise often is much easier to have.

Prices vary from really not too bad to fairly expensive depending on exactly what you purchase. The longer more involved cruises often have special packages that provide more than one DVD which allows you to tailor your presentation of DVDs to the audience you have watching them.  Overall in most cases if you want a unique and nice souvenir from the cruise, getting the DVD tends to work out to be a nice idea.

Sports and other Competitions aboard the Ships

Cruising is a great way to get away from all the cares of daily life at home. However all aspects of home are not lost while on vacation. Aside from lots of good food, you can participate in many sporting events while on the cruise. Some of these are individual sports while others are team sports. These sporting activities can be just for the fun of it or competitive in tournaments that last just a couple hours or thru the entire cruise.

Often there will be shuffleboard tournaments, mini-golf tournaments, table tennis tournaments, volleyball tournaments, and at times dodge ball tournaments. To some extent what is offered is partly based on the demographics of the passengers aboard the cruise. I find on cruises with younger overall populations the team competitions are more intense and frequent.

On Royal Caribbean in particular I’ve seen competitions for speed climbing the rock wall as well as surfing competitions. Rock walls are aboard all of their ships while the “flow-riders” are only on Freedom Class and larger ships.  Allure and Oasis are equipped with two each allowing one to be just for stand-up riding with the other dedicated to lay down surfing. (I really enjoyed it when I tried it in July 2011.)

Aside from the physically demanding sports competitions you will find other competitions aboard the ships. One where you will often find many are trivia competitions. Often they are a great place to meet other cruisers.  Aside from trivia there may be sign making contests, karaoke contests and many other ways for both individuals and teams to win particular events.  These are all set up to be fun for both the participants and spectators. Karaoke in particular is set up to be entertaining for large gatherings of people, not just the participants.

The competitions are typically all free to enter and often have trinket prices given to the winners.  Thus, it is worth trying one out yourself and seeing if you really enjoy them. When you find one you like, use it as an ice breaker on future cruises to meet someone new.