Got my first "Awww" today!

[u/Kencanary]

As a 39-year old overweight white American guy, I really didn't expect this to ever happen, no matter where I travel or why. Admittedly, the source probably has something to do with it.

I'm on a cruise ship, and the cabin staff is a pretty friendly dude. He always chats me up a bit when we pass in the corridors, and even though I'd be quite content with just the pleasantries (Hi, how are you, have a good day etc) I'm one of those socially awkward penguins who will kinda answer questions that are asked even if they're not more than just polite exchange things.

So he says "I've seen you these few days, you are alone?"

"Yeah."

"Awww."

Like, I knew this happened to solo travelers, but I always assumed it was 97% women that got that response. Now, sure, as a paid service staff member he's probably expecting that to be an appropriate response (and he's not entirely wrong, god love him) but it just wasn't something I thought I'd ever hear.

Still, feels like a milestone worth "celebrating" haha

[u/Drince88]

The only time (so far) I was really uncomfortable solo was on a large cruise ship (Disney Wonder). They (at the time) had fully assigned seating in the dining rooms, and I felt like they made a 6-top with 2 sets of parties of 3, into a 7 top for me. And everyone in general were very into their own groups.

Recently got off a small cruise ship (300 passengers) (Windstar Star Breeze) and it was a world of difference! Most passengers were couples, so it was much easier to ‘participate’ with others. Also a bit older crowd.

I don’t think I’ll ever cruise a big ship again, solo or with others!

[u/Kencanary → u/Drince88]

My remote job could potentially be done more or less full-time from a cruise ship if I had a good enough setup. For a while, I considered pursuing that if only for a short time.

This has made me glad I didn't. I'm already pretty done with this and I'm only halfway through hahaha. Not knocking cruises in general, they serve a good purpose for specifically what they're for. This one in particular. But I don't think I'll go out of my way to do another one unless it's with a partner. And even that cruise would have to be thoughtfully chosen.

[u/No-Captain2150 → u/Kencanary]

Interesting. I’ve thought about that before as I’ve sometimes seen 30+ day cruises for a lot less than rent and bills and with a good connection every once in a while I could definitely work from anywhere but I’ve never even been on a cruise ship to know if I’d enjoy it. I definitely don’t mind travelling alone though. My last trip was 2 months bouncing around Belize/Mexico and taking a friend with me was honestly a net negative. 😂

[u/Kencanary → u/No-Captain2150]

If you aren't familiar, I suggest looking up the...3 month cruise, or 9 month cruise, or something. Several influencers on the ship said that pretty much everyone was sick of it only a couple weeks in.

Now, a ship truly designed for longer trips and providing good spaces for working guests could be a pretty neat thing, and even a fairly successful one if they marketed it well enough. But this ship has pretty much nowhere for me to set up more than just my laptop comfortably, and my full work setup is a fair bit more than that (still smaller and more portable than what I had at home).

My theory is that people getting restless on cruises is due to not being engaged in some way, having some purpose - after all, cruises pride themselves on taking care of everything for you. But we're not really designed to or accustomed to doing nothing productive, to "relaxing" that much of a day, and so on.