firstly, thank-you all incredible sailing dudes, this is a very helpful conversation!!
I have three
kids - two four year olds and a seven year old. Going on a
cruise with them would be extremely lame for several reasons:
1) I don't want to go anywhere cruiselines go
2) I would have to go on a "kid-friendly" ship with
kids everything (as in, DisneyCruise - EWWWWWW)
3) I have to pay for five airtickets
When it comes to vacations anyways, I prefer to fly to
Cancun. I fantasize about
boating to Los Cabos but from the Sunshine Coast in BC where we live (a tiny penninsula between mainland
Vancouver and
Vancouver Island) that seems like an expensive, long, insane trip with three kids.
What I mostly see us doing is taking one to four hour trips all around the Gulf islands and the coast.
Another thing is: to get to the nearest city from where we live (Vancouver), you HAVE to take a ferry! You literally can't drive to the mainland, it's all logging roads. It would be fantastic to be able to go back and forth to the city without being limited by the
ferry schedule. It costs about $80 for two to go by BC Ferries anyhow (not including car gas) so trips to the city would account for some increased useage compared to people who do not have to travel by
water regularly in their lives.
My father-in-law had boats for many years and my husband says they used to cruise over to Vancouver on an old
trawler, it takes about an hour. This type of trip is the type we would take most often.
So what I'm saying is: I don't see the boat as a replacement for regular vacations (although I don't see wanting to pay quite as much for them with the mega-boat payments!!). It's not that I want to be on the
water anywhere - it's that we want to take advantage of where we live now.
Does that make sense?