I Rented a Beach House and Wish I had Gone on a Cruise Instead: A Consultant’s POV
This summer, our family rented our usual house on Folly Beach, which is near Charleston, SC. We have been coming here for the past 10 years and there is a lot about Folly and the surrounding area that we truly enjoy. In the past couple of years, however, we have been cruising more and more and this week at the beach has confirmed for us why cruising is the best way for our family to vacation.
An obvious negative to renting (or buying for that matter) a beach house is that there is no Guest Services that we can call to take care of any issues. Even with cruise lines struggling to staff cruise ships, just like with many other businesses, the services are much better than what are offered to us on the beach. In the case that something in the house isn’t working, we must first contact the rental agency and then wait around for them to come and fix it, when we could be soaking up the sun out on the beach. While we have heard horror stories and other unfortunate circumstances occurring on cruise ships in regards to maintenance issues, our overall experience with Guest Services has been positive and our issues have been dealt with quickly and efficiently. We can’t say the same about the maintenance services offered in regards to our beach rental.
When you rent a beach house (or at least in our case), it is your own responsibility to go grocery shopping, purchase the booze, make the meals, start up the blender or drive to a local restaurant where the wait could be up to an hour. On a cruise ship, the biggest stress might be making reservations for those meals and/or waiting in line to order those frosty beverages. And, while some have argued that, in recent times, food on cruises has gone downhill, we have found our experiences in the Main Dining Room, Specialty Restaurants, and bars to be well above what we were willing to put the time into to achieve on our own.
Our two boys are currently 10 and 12-years-old. This means that if they aren’t in front of a screen then they need to be constantly entertained. We love our boys and we love hanging out with them, but we also love sending them to the kids’ club or to the teen club so they can participate in activities with kids their own age. This is not something that we have when renting a beach house. There is no Solarium on the beach and when your wife (a preschool teacher looking to be away from little ones) gets surprised by a little one putting some sand all over her arm, an adults only area seems especially inviting.
When you are on a cruise, you can choose what excursions you would like to take part in. You can set it up ahead of time, and make sure that everything is arranged so that as soon as you exit the ship that you are whisked away to a fun adventure. When renting a beach house, you will need to pack up all of your beach chairs, umbrella, cooler and lug them inside. Then, you will need to get dressed in decent clothes and drive yourself to the chosen excursion. Additionally, as previously mentioned: there is no kids’ club to leave your kids at while you are on your excursion. Planning your own excursions on land is not as fun as you might imagine, and there is no Port Day, for that matter, for you to stay on the ship with fewer crowds. Cruising provides a better experience when it comes to excursions or additional activities, for a variety of reasons.
Finally, and most importantly, as a consultant managing multiple teams delivering across multiple programs, I spend the majority of my day in zoom meetings or on phone calls. I always try to set my teams up for success in my absence, providing lists of inflight initiatives and goals to achieve by my return, however, there are often questions that arise or changes in direction to which my teams need to react. I have yet to find a beach in America that lacks cell service, however, when cruising, I can say that I am unavailable from the moment I board, as I can’t be reliably reached the majority of time, both on and off the ship (at international ports). Even with the improved internet packages now offered on many cruise ships, it is difficult to find quiet areas with good signal that would be appropriate for attending meetings or fielding phone calls (especially given the sensitive nature of my business). This allows me to truly disconnect from work and fully enjoy my vacation which makes the expenses of cruising all the more worth it.
We love going to the beach with my wife’s family and hope that this is something that will continue for many more years. But, when deciding where we are going to spend our own vacations, we will time and time again opt for a cruise over a beach rental. There are a lot of reasons our family loves cruising, but our most recent trip to the beach has only confirmed for us that cruising is the preferential way for our family to get away.
