Ahhhh. Sea days. For me, they’re forced relaxation and days filled with nothing on an otherwise packed cruise itinerary. For others, they are days of boredom or packed with ship’s activities.
On port-intensive cruise itineraries like Europe, South America, Asia, Oceania (basically anywhere but the Caribbean) sea days are a respite from the go-go-go pace of waking up early, walking all day in port, getting back on board, eating, sleeping, and repeating the next day.
When I’m taking a land trip, I miss sea days because you often don’t have much downtime on a land tour or when traveling on my own.
I always look at both the number and placement of sea days when I look at a cruise itinerary. I like to have a few ports, then a sea day, then a few ports, then a sea day. I like how it balances things out for me.
A book, magazine, or coloring book is the perfect sea day accessory for me. I love sleeping in and being lazy. Right now, I’m spending this sea day writing and reading.
Others I know wake up early, spend their day going from one ship activity to the next.
One of these people once said to me when I showed up in the buffet at about noon after sleeping until about 10:30 and then being lazy in the cabin for a time after, “Tiffani, you missed the entire morning!” My response was, “I missed nothing. I was doing exactly what I wanted.”
The joy of a sea day.
What do you like to do on sea days?