Cruising with Technology

There was a time in the past when going on a cruise meant that you were far removed from everyone including your work. No phones, no follow up, just time to sit back and enjoy your vacation. These days we have the luxury of not only going online in our ship’s internet cafe or kiosk, but we can use the ship’s wifi and even our smartphones. I was reading a post on the Focus on Fun blog about this very topic.

In one of my earlier blog posts, I gave instructions on how to turn 3G off on your phone to save money. If you need to have your phone on, consider leaving it on for emergency calls or even texts, but skip surfing the web altogether unless you like those hefty phone bills. We always try to find an internet cafe in port and spend a little time there checking email and anything else we need to do for a few dollars instead of several dollars per minute. I do try and stay away from the internet whilst on vacation, but some things just need my attention. These internet statistics and data trends present just how many people use the internet with every passing year and month, and I bet that most of these people weren’t on vacation. Why do I say that? Because the numbers are just so high. If they were on vacation, they must’ve had access to some pretty good internet. Either that or they were able to afford it. I know the cruise lines offer “great” deals on internet packages, but I can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on the internet for a slow connection when I am on vacation. Can you?

If you absolutely must use the internet while onboard, consider typing out your emails in a word processing program first and then cut and paste into your email to save both time and money. The money you save on using the internet you can use to buy a drink or go shopping. Work with me on this one!

For those that feel they need to bring their smartphone, laptop, iPad, and other gadgets and devices, this is for you. Really consider why you are bringing all your tech devices with you. Are you really using all of them to stay up on your job or are you bringing them to avoid relaxing or worse yet, spending time with those with whom you you are on vacation? Although this phrase is so overused, life really is too short to waste on silly things like avoidance of having fun or enjoying being with the one your with. Your job will always be there, but your loved ones won’t so do you really need to check your emails 100 times per day when on vacation? I think not. After all, do you really need to fill your bags up with all that stuff that makes it so heavy and well, not fun? Next time you’re on a cruise and your spouse, partner, friend, etc. starts giving you a hard time about all the technology you brought along when all they wanted was “to spend time with you,” just remember…I told you so.