My Client Swore Off Cruises—Here’s What Changed Her Mind

I still remember her voice on the first call — tight with disappointment and that unmistakable exhaustion only a truly frustrating vacation can bring. “I’m done with cruises,” she said flatly. “They just feel like floating malls.”

Let’s call her Anita.

She had just returned from a week-long Caribbean cruise with her husband and two teens. The idea was a breezy family holiday — no planning, no fuss. But what she got instead was loud decks packed with people, repetitive buffet food, excursions that felt more like choreographed shopping stops, and a general sense of missing out on the real culture of the places they visited.

“We barely spent any time actually in Jamaica,” she told me. “Twenty dollars to take a photo with a parrot? That’s not an experience. That’s a trap.”

She had booked that cruise through a big-name agency that promised a “luxury escape.” But what Anita got was more like a pre-programmed conveyor belt of bland entertainment.

So when she called me, she wasn’t just looking for a new vacation. She was looking for a reason to believe that travel could still be personal, meaningful, and exciting.

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A Different Kind of Planning