The New York Times has an article about easyCruises and they sound appealing, like what I think a cruise ship should be: transportation from one island to another. Their website says to think of them as a floating hotel. The cabins are cheap with no frills, not even room service. But you don’t spend much time there – you have from 9:30 in the morning until 3am the next morning to explore the islands! If you search for "easyCruise" on Flickr, all the pictures are of places – France, Carribean islands, etc – not the cruise ships. That says a lot! (That said, there were things to do onboard like swimming pools and hot tubs, happy hour and gyms. It sounded like happy hour was pretty popular.)
- It’s cheap. I picked a random week and it was $50-70/night for two people.
- It’s not a set time period. You can get on or off on any given day – you should have to arrange your transportation to and from the boat.
- It’s smaller than a typical cruise ship.
- Less is included. No free room service, no free food, no free drinks.
- People tend to do their own thing more and participate less in the arranged shore activities.
- The crowd is younger than the typical cruiseship.
- There were even some locals on the cruise ship using it as transportation from one island to another. (Remember you can book for just one night!)
The cruise line, easyCruise, was created by the same company as JetBlue.
Warning: The New York Times article said there was a lot of flirting, sex and topless swimming, so if that’s not your thing, this probably isn’t the cruise for you.
Photo by Rockies.