Woman who has been on 62 cruises says there is one type that she won't ever go on
A woman who has been taking cruise ship holidays since she was just 11 years old has revealed the one kind of cruise she'd never take.
At the age of 29, Emma Le Teace has taken up 62 cruise ship holidays in the 18 years since taking to the open seas for the very first time.
Running the popular YouTube channel Emma Cruises, she regularly posts content to her 327,000 subscribers, racking up millions of views.
But for the cruise enthusiast there's one kind of holiday she wouldn't touch when it comes to spending her hard-earned cash.
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"In an average year 20 million people take a cruise and tens of thousands of them book a trip that is over 90 days long," Emma says.
"These world cruises range all the way up to almost a year in length and even though I've been cruising since I was a child, I work on board and I cruise multiple times a year, I don't want to take a world cruise for a few reasons.
"Price isn't one of the reasons either; if you gave me a world cruise budget I have another idea about what I'd do with it."
World cruises went viral on social media this year thanks to TikToker Marc Sebastian, who board Royal Caribbean's 22-year-old ship, the Serenade of the Seas, for its Ultimate World Cruise.
Lasting for 274 days and sailing the entire planet, Marc joined the boat for the 18-night South America-Antarctica leg, leaving people shocked at one of the 'bonkers' rules on board.
But for Emma, it would be a hard pass to such an opportunity. And her reasons are plentiful.
The ships themselves
Emma says: "One thing that they all seem to have in common is that they always use their oldest and smallest ships for these itineraries. I say small they still usually hold multiple thousands of people but I think for me I would miss the excitement of the newer bigger ships.
"I've cruised on plenty of small ships - the smallest I've sailed on had just 19 passengers - but there's something so fun for me about going on a big cruise ship and going go carting, skydiving, or surfing.
"I love watching the big Broadway shows, going to the aqua theatre, going ice skating. The world cruise ships just don't have those things.
"I suppose nobody really needs to try the surfing simulator every day for nine months but just think how good you would be by the end of the cruise."
Itinerary over vessel
Emma admits that world cruises really are more about the itinerary, which she says 'look fantastic'.
And a reason smaller ships are often used for these global excursions is because they can then fit into smaller ports easier.
Too many sea days
The world is massive and if you're heading on a world cruise, you're going to be crossing large swathes of ocean with nowhere to stop off.
If you were to head from Los Angeles in the USA to Auckland in New Zealand it's more than 20 days, for example.
"I'd love to cruise to each of [the places world cruises go to] but because world cruises quite literally go around the world that means that they have some big expanses of ocean to cross," Emma says.
"On some of these world cruises you'll have five or six sea days in a row multiple times over. And I do love a good sea day but usually one or two it's a great chance to relax, to spend time doing things on the ship that are fun, eating, swimming. But the more time you spend at sea the higher chance you have of bad weather and seasickness.
"I only get seasick if I'm stuck in a storm or if I'm cruising somewhere like the Arctic Circle but still, it really isn't pleasant and I wouldn't want to be at sea for a long time if the seas were rough.
"There really is no way to predict the weather that far in advance and although cruise lines will adjust the itinerary as much as they can you would get some bad weather on a world cruise just statistically speaking."
Too many port days
For Emma, the opposite can also happen.
Whereas some have huge stays at sea for days on end, you can find yourself stopping off at ports for 'up to, 18, 19 days in a row'.
"Personally, I would be exhausted," she says.
"Some itineraries do have overnight stays but even still I would definitely wear myself out trying to see and do everything every single day."
Prolonged poor Wi-Fi and costs
The topic of Wi-Fi on cruise ships is not a new one, with the likes of Royal Caribbean defending its packages after complaints about its apparent 'crazy' price.
"Sometimes the internet on cruise ships can be fantastic but other times it's really slow or it doesn't work at all. It's getting much better, sometimes I can sit and I can watch Bake Off no problem but other times I can't even send a simple text or email.
"It does usually cost money for internet on cruises too so even though the price of a world cruise at the beginning might not look that expensive, things like internet and laundry can rack it up fast."
Cabin fever
Emma usually cruises on an inside cabin, which is roughly one third of all rooms on a cruise ship. They're significantly cheaper because they don't have windows.
And that for Emma is the reason she couldn't dream of cruising on a world tour.
"I do bring a daylight alarm clock so I know when to wake up or I could just sleep forever, there's no way to know if it's 3am or 3pm," she says.
"There are of course lots of cabins with windows or balconies, some suites, and multiple decks - some have huge slides - but my goodness you would have to be absolutely minted to stay in a cabin like that for long."
Bad guests
Not everyone is nice, sadly. And the longer you're cruising for, the higher your odds of bumping into people who do not pass the vibe check.
"Don't get me wrong most people who cruise are absolutely lovely but if you're sharing a space with 2,000 other people some of them aren't going to be that nice and you have a lot more chance to find out about it," she says.
"I took a cruise recently where a man wanted to reserve two seats in the ice skating ring so he just took off his two socks and placed one on each chair.
"He was of course known to me for the rest of the cruise as 'Sockman' but if I was on that cruise for a long time I might have run into Sockman again.
"Nothing annoys me more than when I see passengers being rude to crew. To an extent I can ignore it; I can bite my lip for a bit. But I think for nine months I would get very annoyed."
Topics: Cruise Ship, Travel, Holiday, World News, UK News, US News, YouTube
Tom Earnshaw