Cruises

I recently took my wife on a cruise.  I had not been on a cruise ship in almost 20 years.  I was quite excited to go.  We sailed out of San Diego California and had 5 nights aboard the Carnival Spirit.  One of the things that really struck me about a cruise is how much stuff they try to sell you. 
They offer presentations on various aspects of cruise life.  For example they had one presentation on shore excursions, the cruise ship director told us that the only safe excursions were the ones booked through Carnival, and that we shouldn't take any water taxi's.  I of course looked at the excursions but they were horribly over priced.  How did I know this?  We had several e-mails from our booking website with shore excursions we could purchase through them.  The most expensive excursion offered through the booking website was less than the cheapest one on board the ship.  So moral of the story buy your excursions once you get there.  Trust me there will be plenty of locals more than willing to take your money for an excursion.  In addition I was able to negotiate a cheaper price with every excursion we took part in. 
Another presentation was about how to find the best places to shop.  I was excited to go to this one because I love to find a good deal.  I like walking through the open air markets where the locals try to sell all kinds of stuff.  I went to the presentation and all he talked about were the jewelery stores that would be in Cabo.  Not a single tip on the type of shopping I wanted to do.  Then I looked at the small print on the map he handed out and every store he mentioned pays Carnival money to talk about them.  LAME!!!  Needless to say that was the last presentation I attended.  I am not sure what I expected, I know they need to make money and that is really their ultimate goal.  I enjoyed my time on our cruise and almost ate myself into a coma (SO MUCH FOOD).  Some more advice, don't cruise if you or anyone in your party gets very motion sick.  That is all.