If you were to save up for a "cruise of a lifetime", that you are an experience that will "exceed your expectations", and which is "like no vacation on earth", aren't you being set up for disappointment?

Nowadays, the advertising that cruise lines use sets us up expectations for perfection......or at least suggest that everything we think a cruise should be will be realized. On the other side of the coin is the reality. Very often cruisers have been served food with shards of glass, been in a cabin next to a member of the casino staff who would blare the tv at 3AM, been given air tickets that return them to a different city than from where they leave. Its really bad service.

Have you been on a cruise with minimal air conditioning, had a company forget to provide the transportation from a precruise package to the ship. In each of these cases, sometimes the companies involved have not responded to these problems in appropriate ways. If you change your attitude, will the bus that doesn't show up all of a sudden appear? We certainly think not.

While one's expectations need to be realistic, many cruisers have appear to be willing to accept things that some would find intolerable -- cold food is not an attitude problem; poached eggs that have been cooked-refrigerated-then dumped in hot water before serving (a common practice on cruise ships -- it explains why the eggs on eggs benedict are hard) are no better when one has a "fun" attitude; insulting comments by cruise staff because one doesn't want to play their games is not the fault of the passengers; and a company taking the robes from a cabin the last night of the cruise (ostensibly so they can be cleaned, though we all know it is because they don't want them stolen) does not change because of a difference in attitude.

If a company says they will exceed my expectations I am sure you want your expectations to be exceeded... Isn't this truth in advertising? Would you buy any other product that makes promises that you know will not be realized and walk away happy -- after all, it is just your attitude' We truly wonder........