What is an educational reason to go on a cruise with my class?

Question

My class would like to go on a cruise, but we need an educational reason to go.

Do you know of any activites where we are learning while on the boat that would be a better experience than in the classroom?

Answer 1

Your best educational cruises would be a Mediterranian cruise which has port stops in Florence/Pisa, Italy where you can see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the works of Michaelangelo; a stop in Rome where you can tour the Vatican city and see the Sistene Chapel, and also see the Roman Colosseum; a stop in Naples, Italy to see Pompeii; a stop in Athens, Greece to see the Acropolis, and a stop in Kusedari, Turkey to visit the Biblical city of Ephesus; and/or a stop in Alexandria, Egypt to see the pyramids.  Just about any cruise to the Mediterranian will have many historical sights to see.

Closer to the US a cruise to the Pamana Canal would be very educational because you can watch your cruise ship go through the locks and see first hand how its done.  A cruise to New England and Canada (we did that one last year) would also provide some history lessons about the US and Canada.

Answer 2

Marine life;

on shore excursions such as the Mayan Ruins; or

Icebergs

Answer 3

There is a company called "Festivals At Sea" that brings kids choirs/bands/dance groups/etc. onboard ships to perform usually on shorter weekend cruises but still a cruise.

Answer 4

There are a lot of ways that you can make a cruise educational.  It all depends on where you are going and what your ports of call would be.

Since you live in Seattle I would suspect that your classmates would most likely be exploring an Alaska cruise since you can take that right out of your home port.  Alaska and Canada have a lot of cultural heritage to explore.  So that would be a good direction to go into.

At each port you can plan a walking tour of that area.  before the cruise you can decide what you would like to learn about for that port.  

For example, Almost every Alaska cruise ship stops at Ketchikan which has the Totem Bight State Historical Park which is a great place to learn about totem poles and their history.

Victoria, BC is a wonderful city and while a lot of what happens there is similar you can see the influence of the UK everywhere.

Juneau is the Alaska State Capitol, where else to learn more of the history of the state.

Don't forget the glaciers, there is so much you can study regarding them that you could spend a week there alone.  Going from their effect on the environment to wether Global Warming is real and affecting them.

Basically you can go on and on.  Just make plans that every port day includes some specific topic that you can explore.

Before your cruise have your travel agent contact the cruise line and have locations set aside that you can use for classes, they will most likely have you use a closed restaurant and they will probably even provide some snacks, the cruise lines should be more then glad to do this and you can use the time to discuss what you had learned.

If you do not already have a travel agent to help you with this find one or you are welcome to call on us, we are a husband and wife team that would be more then glad to help you set this fully up.

Answer 5

Hmm... thats hard.

Marine life, land forms (glaciers?), career exploration (dining room staff member, captain, etc.), geographical locations, speaking English, calculating tips for the staff.

What kind of cruise is this?