Is a cruise a bad idea for a honeymoon?

Everyone says the first year of marriage is the hardest, but the first week? Could be if you're heading out to sea for your honeymoon. Kendal and Daniel Gill, the young couple stranded on the Carnival Splendor on their honeymoon, didn't bank on spending their first days of wedded bliss on a deck chair eating spam. But the ocean is an unpredictable bedfellow.

For starters, there's the weather. Rough conditions can knock on ports on your itinerary. It can also keep you trapped in your cabin for days with a bad bout of sea-sickness.
A rough ride made for nauseating honeymoon for one blogger. "The pools were losing water left and right (literally!) The ship was a-rockin', but not in a good way. I was terrified, making myself take long naps so I wouldn't have to worry about it," the honeymooner wrote on WeddingBee.com. What's even worse than sea-sickness can be the forced activities crew members come up with to keep passengers preoccupied. "There are only so many days I can withstand trivia games and bean bag tosses."

Even if the weather is nice, some cruise crews are so gung-ho about activities you can hear the megaphone of announcements from your cabin. Kind of a mood killer.

But that's nothing, compared to the norovirus, a bacteria that's so common the warning signs are a staple of most cruise websites. The highly contagious infection caused by contaminated food or water and spread through close cruise quarters, has caused outbreaks on several ships. Basically you spend your honeymoon emptying out your system and praying for an early return to your port of call.

Close quarters also breeds bed bugs. One newlywed couple suffered an infestation in their cabin. Sure hotels have this problem too, but at least you can check out. Once at sea, this poor couple could do was pop Benadryl and give each other lice treatments.

But at least they got on the boat. Becky and David Hovis were denied entry after traveling to the Tampa port from Oregon for their first big trip as a married couple. The couple only brought a photo ID, not a passport, so the ship's crew couldn't allow them to board.

Then there are the true honeymoon tragedies, a missing husband whose disappearance still hasn't been resolved four years on, and an overboard rescue mission turned deadly. Today's ships may feel like giant floating islands, so it's easy to forget you're in the middle of the ocean. With an increase in disappearances in 2005, Congress even launched an investigation into the safety of cruise-ships. Never-mind the pirate problems we've had in the past few years.
That's not to say the deals aren't great, especially for families and large groups. But for your first week of marriage is it worth all the risks?