BN Final Thoughts
As far as our vacation went, this was a blast. Bare Necessities added additional events such as a talks on nudist history, meet ups for groups, a talent show, etc. They also worked with Carnival Cruise Line to create some clothing optional excursions. It was interesting to see people of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities come together and having fun!
Everyone rates trips like this differently and people we met had various complaints mostly with the cruise line. The real problem I saw was that there was never enough deck lounges available. I’m told by a frequent textile cruiser that it’s normally a problem but add the fact that probably 80% of the people on this cruise want to catch rays on a regular basis and it gets worse. We had to get to the deck at 6am to get two chairs. The cruise line tried to help by putting stickers on towels on the chairs but people wised up and just took them off when they saw them. We actually used ours until 11am and gave them to friends to use at that point.
Not many people gambled in the casino. I’m sure the cruise company was disappointed about that. The games we played seemed not to be paying well.
The other place Carnival could lighten up the cost a bit is on internet access. They charge $10-$25/day per device for access. This depends on whether you want basic social media access or full (excluding streaming) access. It wasn’t very good service as well. They have their own app called the Carnival Hub which has a chat app built in but they charge separately, per device for it. This actually costs them nothing to run on the ship so they could use it as a way to keep you in the app (and advertise to you) if they made it free but they clearly are missing the mark. You could also access pictures that were taken of you from the app but to buy a digital download of the pictures was $15 per picture (and they were compressed).
The food on the ship was good, I wouldn’t go to great because the portions in the dining room were small and sometimes incomplete. You can order as much as you like and they would bring it but you never knew how much would be on the plate when it came. The buffet was good some days and worse on others. The last day on the ship was clearly the end of the supply with many items missing from the buffet.
The staff was always pleasant and helpful despite the fact that most people were nude. I’m sure that some of them were uncomfortable with this.
The Bare Necessities staff were doing what they could to make it an exceptional trip and put out a daily briefings on the TV to let you know what was happening. They probably went a little overboard on promoting the 2019 cruise.
Disembarkation went smoothly and ran about 1 hour early, which was good considering that people had to get to flights and such. We took the Carnival arranged bus from the port to the airport and it worked quite well. The airport was massive and it was a LONG walk to our terminal.
Would we do it again? Probably but not for a few years. The nudity aspect is 2-3 times as expensive as taking the cruise textile. This was a very expensive trip ($6k-ish for two). Add excursions, ship purchases like drinks, pictures, internet, and shopping and it’s much worse.
I’m only pointing out the negatives so future cruisers know what expect. We were very satisfied and had an awesome time. The memories will be great! Now, back to textile life…