I've always been a cruise hater. I took one anyway and it was…fine?

I realized the cruise may have been a mistake on the second night of my voyage. I asked a bartender what time the rooftop jacuzzis closed, and he matter-of-factly told me it was whenever the first person of the night threw up in one. I'd noticed the tubs were drained that morning, which I trustingly imagined was part of some daily cleaning regimen, not the result of one of my fellow passengers tossing their cookies in our shared amenities. I wondered if I should tell my boyfriend or leave him blissfully unaware. The truth can't really set you free when you're trapped on a 90,000-ton boat with 2,000 strangers. Ultimately, I fessed up anyway. If I had to sit with this nauseating piece of information, so did he.

I'd honestly thought my boyfriend was joking when he said he'd won a free cruise by playing Tetris on his phone. I would later come to realize, after sharing the information with friends and coworkers, that that was a typical response. But he did, thanks to approximately four years of an hourlong New York City subway commute. Turns out the Tetris app is tied to some casino app, and the more you play, the more points you accumulate for various prizes, because that's how they get you these days.

I have long been a hater with regard to cruises. It's always struck me as a floating petri dish of yuck, and I do not desire to be part of a headline about a cruise-ship norovirus outbreak or mystery disappearance. I'm perfectly mobile and can generally manage my own travel without a literal or figurative cruise director to guide me around.

However, I also like free things, which this cruise purported to be, so we booked.

Of course, the cruise wasn't actually free. On top of surprise fees and taxes, we splurged on a cabin with a window — $51 each — and an unlimited drinks package, which is the reason I am putting off my annual physical. My body will almost certainly reveal to my doctor that, for a week straight, the first decision I made each morning was whether I wanted to set the tone for the day with a mimosa or something harder.

One thing we did not splurge on was the WiFi, meaning that, with the exception of the two days we were allowed off the vessel, we had a total of 75 minutes of internet access. My therapist told me this would be forced relaxation. I told myself it would be an opportunity to completely disconnect. A friend told me she thought there was no way I'd make it, which I took as a bet. I assured my mother that she didn't need to worry if she didn't hear from me, because if something really bad happened on the cruise, it would make the news.

I decided to approach our famously unadventurous adventure with cautious optimism. How I learned to stop worrying, and love X is an overdone trope in writing, but maybe my conversion story could break some new ground.

I didn't love the cruise. I didn't hate it, either. It just … was. And in an era where there's pressure to have some Big Take about everything and declare that every experience was either the best or worst of our lives, it feels somewhat strange and unsatisfying to admit it was … decent enough.

At least this mediocre time all came quickly enough as we hurled (or crept? It's hard to tell with giant boats) to the Mexican Riviera.

It's all-aboard, and I am the "this is fine" meme, except there's no fire in the backdrop, just the Port of San Diego and a voice over a loudspeaker reminding us to check in at the safety station we're to report to in case of emergency, which I am much too turned around to remember. I have an internal debate about whether to suck in the last moments of precious mindless scrolling on my phone or to explore the boat. I choose the latter, determined to dive into the experience — and get in my steps, because one of the main things I know about cruises is they're a fast way to get a little bit fat. My first stop is the ship's Irish pub, undermining the steps thing, and I pick up a gin and tonic for the road. I walk through the casino, which I will frequent multiple times across the trip, and the gym, which I will never set foot in again.

I spot someone with a printed-out daily schedule that my boyfriend and I will dub "the newspaper" and, in our internet-free existence, will become the center of our day. It's a nice simple guide for what to do and also what to avoid — I quickly learn that the boat's two cover bands, SoundBeat and Muzik Jam, are not my jam.

When we go to bed the first night, I wonder if not only am I a Cruise Person, but I am the Queen of the Cruise People. Sure, I'm still kind of sad we didn't spring for a balcony, and there's a sewer-like smell in some parts of the hallway that I'm hoping I'll get used to. And yes, I realize that our queen bed is just two twins shoved together. But I am extra smug because my roughly 30 minutes of consuming cruise packing hacks online seem to have paid off. I know all about Dramamine and a hanging toiletries bag and extension cords," I congratulate myself as I drift off to the sounds of the kitschy cruise-made TV channels in a room that's quite a bit bigger than I thought it would be. For now, this is fine.

The novelty of the situation propels me through part of Day 2, but as time progresses, I can feel the frustrations creep in. The pools are smaller than I thought they'd be, and most of the lounge chairs are reserved by abandoned towels. The basketball court has been taken over by pickleball, and I can see where those angry tennis players are coming from.

Day 3 is our first excursion day, but the excitement of getting off the boat is stifled by the struggle to get off the boat. I didn't get in line early enough to get a good tender (cruise-speak for a small boat that takes you off the big boat), and so we wait.

Eventually, we arrive in Cabo San Lucas, which a Mexican friend disparagingly but correctly warns me is full of gringos. After some wrangling, we get a water taxi to see the Arch, a natural rock formation where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific. As we take in what's supposed to be a beautiful escape, we ask our captain casually: What's his deal? He's Mexican, but he's got the accent of a surfer bro from California. He tells us that, until a couple of months ago, he was living in Arizona, having been brought to the United States as a young child. He was recently swept up in an ICE raid and dropped off across the border. He's rebuilding a life away from his wife and daughters and is hopeful that after a January court date, he'll have a chance to be let back in. None of us knows how to feel about it, let alone what to say. My cruise conundrum feels small and insignificant. The real world has a way of sneaking up on you, no matter how far away you go.

At night, we hit up the casino and discover a couple of very silly machines we'll each lose about $100 on over the next few days. Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral race, and my boyfriend gives up and gets the WiFi to read the news, meaning I win the bet no one but me knows about, and he wins knowledge of the outside world.

Day 4 begins with us doing a mix of bargaining and begging to be let off the boat in La Paz, Mexico, or rather, to be let out of the government-controlled port we've docked in. I've devised a non-cruise-approved activity, snorkeling on a remote beach. I've also reserved a much cheaper Uber to get there, but we can't connect with the driver because the only transportation allowed into the port are the sanctioned shuttles and taxis that price-gouge tourists. Eventually, two women who work at the port agree to drive us out after overhearing our kerfuffle with some guards. It feels like everyone's in the wrong here, including me, but I'm not sure what would be right.

The entire day is a negotiation. I've mentally categorized this trip as so far removed from a traditional vacation that I haven't even considered buying souvenirs until we stumble on an artisan selling blankets. We attempt to haggle, though I never know how much to barter and engage in these contrived small-stakes standoffs. I'm sorry, but dynamic pricing is not fun in any setting. I just want the price to be the price. I don't get a rush from feeling like I got a "deal" from a roadside seller who's just trying to get by, and I don't want the guilt of feeling like I undercut him, so we end up paying full price, and he does throw in a cheap bead bracelet that I still wear from time to time.

The real wheeling and dealing is the next day at the onboard art auction, which the newspaper promises will be a delight. It is, indeed, the best activity on the boat. But I'm not sure art auctions are supposed to work like this. I haven't heard of any of the artists. The auctioneer often goes down in price, not up. At times, he encourages everyone to put their number cards up all at once, seemingly just for funsies. I watch one man bid $9,000 for a painting of a Fireball bottle with a sexy little personified chile pepper next to it. I clap for him. In the next round, a similar piece by the same artist goes for $200. My stomach turns for him. He stands up and walks out, and I hope there's some sort of return policy for regrets.

The thing about seasickness is that you don't know you have it until you are in it. At first, I think it might be a hangover. After all, multiple days of unlimited alcohol will catch up with you. Alas, it is seasickness. It's too late for Dramamine, let alone for those anti-nausea bracelets I have a hard time believing work.

The boat's entire vibe on the last day is almost intentionally bad. The pool is closed due to the rough seas. Instructions on how to disembark the next day blare over the loudspeaker and television. Even though I am not unhappy about getting off the boat, I do go through the emotions that come at the close of every vacation — I wonder if I should have done more, I dread the return to real life. I also dread the final cruise-ship Caesar salad that, while marketed as different at every restaurant, is exactly the same.

In the evening, my extra-seasick boyfriend goes to an extra-early bed, and I, still extra-determined that this must be a good time, go to a bar for a final martini. I run into a guy we'd met a night or two before, watching the moonrise and sunset at the same time — a genuinely nice experience. He asks if I'm new to cruising, and I say yes. He says he is too… he's been on five. He used to work for the US Forest Service and took a buyout in early 2025 as part of the Trump administration's efforts to slash the federal workforce. He says he sees this as a sort of extended break, and at some point, he'll do some sort of nonprofit work, but I can't help but feel like he seems lost — as much as a stranger can surmise about anyone. Our society prizes 20s-level youth, but he's only in his 50s, which is so young to have your career stopped in its tracks. Doesn't there have to be more to life than a cruise boat? Is he really on a break, or is this his new lifestyle? Plus, who can be mad at the Forest Service?

Leaving the boat for good turns out to be a confoundingly difficult hurdle. I get an extra inspection from customs. My boyfriend's key card doesn't scan at the exit, and for a while, there's a debate as to whether he can get off. We once again walk the wrong way exiting the port, and I'm starting to feel like the poor signage is intentional. In spite of it all, we finally exit, and our long (six-day) national (personal) nightmare (vacation) is over.

The things I know and have accepted about cruises, based on the only one I have been on: The buffet isn't as bad as you'd think. It is really easy to spend a lot more than you'd bargained for, including $70 on a BINGO card. BINGO is more exciting than you remember. The most important workers on the ship are the ones who remind you to wash your hands before eating, who the cruise almost mortifyingly refers to as "washy washies." It's possible there's no ship big enough in the world that one wouldn't be a little bored. The only way out is through leaning in. I bought a captain's hat on the last night, because why not?

Post-cruise, we've done a bit of unacknowledged white-lying to other people, embellishing our level of enjoyment because nobody really wants the completely ambivalent truth. It wasn't a bad time! And I continue to insist that what makes an activity fun is being personally fun, not the activity itself. It also feels weird to be like, "OK, so, I would not recommend it, but also maybe I would, but also I don't know, are cruises your thing?" Vacation isn't just something you do — it's something you perform for other people, on social media and in real life. It feels like you're supposed to come back with reflections, tales of adventures, and tips, garnering varying degrees of interest from your audience. It does feel like we got in under the wire on the Tetris rewards — my boyfriend's not playing anymore, and he doesn't have enough remaining points to do anything.

I did get in the jacuzzi — trusting it was vomit-free post-cleaning — because life requires some hard choices. A choice I will not make again is to get on a cruise. Probably.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

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