Before we left for vacation I had intentions about exercise. I was going to attend the onboard pilates classes, use the gym regularly and move, move, move. Reality turned out to be very different. I have a good excuse for some of it. One of our suitcases didn’t make it to the ship and of course, that was the suitcase with my athletic shoes and all my socks. It’s really not safe to use weights and other equipment in flip flops.
But pilates and yoga don’t require shoes and they had at least one class a day; usually two! Although reality didn’t live up to my pre-cruise fantasy we did do some things right.
1. Take the Stairs – Until the day we got off the ship I can count the number of times I set foot on one of the ship’s elevators on one hand. Yep, for 15 days we marched up and down the stairs many times a day. It wasn’t just one flight to food and all the activities. It was four flights down for the dining room and most activities and three flights up for the buffet and swimming pools.
2. Swimming – We took a snorkeling tour in Kona and it was fantastic! The next day, I knew there was a lot of activity because I had sore arm and leg muscles from swimming for so long. We also went to the beach on Maui for several hours but most of that time was spent in beach chairs. 🙂
Our last water excursion was Tubing the Ditch on Kauai. It was a lot of fun but not too active since I didn’t fall out of my tube and have to swim!
3. Walking – Besides the stairs, walking the ship was a lot of steps. The ship is 965 feet and our room was at the very back (aft balcony) and many of the activities we went to every day were at the very front including the comedy club, main showroom and internet cafe. Unfortunately, I don’t know how many steps we took because my fitbit charger was in the suitcase left behind.
In ports we tried to get in some walking when possible. In Honolulu we walked from the ship to the Iolani Palace and explored downtown a bit before walking back. In Hilo we walked the Thurston Lava Tube and at every stop during the tour tried to get out and walk. One time the van was literally moving about 100 yards so we just walked over.
Even though my exercise wasn’t as much as I had planned before leaving I’m happy with what we did do. The last cruise we took in September 2011, I could probably reverse the stairs statement and say I could count the number of times I took the stairs on one hand! Improvement is improvement.
I’m going to take what happened this time and work to improve on it on the next vacation. How do you keep moving on vacation?
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