Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I can drive to the port in less than an hour; no hassles with flights.
I get waited on hand and foot.
Somebody straightens up my cabin every day and brings fresh towels.
Somebody shops for, prepares, serves my meals and cleans up afterwards. Win-win.
Entertainment.....on the stage and just people watching.
Sitting in a deck chair somewhere quiet and watching the sea....sublime.
Unpack once, repack once.
Meeting interesting people from all over the world.
Literally having no decisions to make except for "well, what am I going to eat next and am I going to the 7 p.m. show or the 9 p.m. show?"
Much, much cheaper per day than almost any other vacation when you figure in travel expenses, meals, entertainment, etc.
Friendly, helpful ship personnel.
Be as casual or as fancy as you want to be.
I like all kinds of travel, especially cruising.
You summed it up wonderfully! We only like the trans-Atlantic cruise for all the days at sea. I am not a huge fan of getting off/on the ship and the frenzied time constraints of exploring off-shore. Thought I would not like group tours the ship offered but I have to say, they turned out to be great. But in our case, we were spending a few months at the destination of the ship, so it wasn't just the cruise itself..
Now if I could afford the Alaskan or River cruises I'd do those in a heartbeat.
If we're talking 3,000 to 5,000 passenger ships, I wholeheartedly agree.
We have limited our cruising to the mid-size ships.
I look at it as having the best of both worlds. We have about 20 Carnival cruises under our belt. We don't partake in the Lido deck shenanigan's or many of the onboard activities geared toward the masses.
We do prefer to do our own thing on the ship... We exercise at 5:30AM, then clean-up before having breakfast in the MDR. Then we'll wander a little bit and just leisurely enjoy the ship. For the most part, we'll sit on our extended aft balcony and read (her) or listen to music (me) as we watch the world go by.
After awhile, we go to lunch in the MDR and then spend the afternoon in port or back in the room/balcony.
We'll have early dinner and then enjoy music in the promenade area. Sometimes she'll drag me to one of the shows ("happy wife - happy life" theory at work). Then we'll go back to the room and hang out before retiring for the evening.
No lido buffet, no standing in lines to get off at ports, no rush or agita. We just found a way to have a peaceful and relaxing cruise while enjoying the low cost of the mass market cruise line.
Can't wait for things to get back to normal so we can cruise again. We just cancelled our upcoming cruise on the new Mardi Gras as we're just not ready to join thousands of strangers in public just yet.
We took a cruise across the Pacific in 2019. From LA to Singapore. Not a traditional itinerary by any means. We used it to move to Asia from the US, so we arrived with no jet lag. It was pretty great! Not sure I'd enjoy a 'normal' cruise though. They're too busy. I like my downtime. :-)
You summed it up wonderfully! We only like the trans-Atlantic cruise for all the days at sea. I am not a huge fan of getting off/on the ship and the frenzied time constraints of exploring off-shore. Thought I would not like group tours the ship offered but I have to say, they turned out to be great. But in our case, we were spending a few months at the destination of the ship, so it wasn't just the cruise itself..
Now if I could afford the Alaskan or River cruises I'd do those in a heartbeat.
I think one thing to consider with some river cruises is that they are all inclusive or they include a lot of options not included by regular cruises like wine/beer, all or most of the shore excursions and meals in port. I have seen some European itineraries where the shore excursions range from $200-500 a pop with something like 8 ports. In some locations, you may not even be able to get to anywhere interesting without the shore excursion, so you can expect to pay at least $1K a person for excursions, if not more if they don’t cover stuff like meals while at port. I went on one river cruise and it literally covered EVERYTHING. I had one day where I didn’t want to do the available shore excursions and preferred to check out a museum adjacent to the one on the tour and they actually gave me cash to cover admission. I also had a single with no single supplement.
Now that I have been on that company’s tour once, I can get a free night stay before or after any additional trips. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to take advantage of that since I’ve had 2 trips I had to cancel due to the pandemic. Hopefully at some point in the future, I can schedule something again.
I never understood, pay lots of money to hang out on a boat for several days? Why I could do that without the boat or water.
I don't understand the appeal can anybody explain?
Proximity/Ease-I think another poster mentioned this, but, I can drive 35 minutes to Tampa, get on, and then there are no further quandaries. In fact, we had a friend drive us to a hotel up there that night, we took the streetcar to get to the port, and then we were good to go. No further planning (which I admittedly like), flights or waiting in security, etc. Even if I wanted a significant number more options, and likely better cost, I could get to the cruise ship capital of the world (Miami) 3.5 hrs.). I could leave the morning of my trip, and come back the day I get off, meaning no additional hotels or flights would be needed.
Food/Entertainment-as other have mentioned-food any time you want it pretty much and in at least some cases pretty good quality too, live theatre shows every night, anywhere from 3-6 swimming pools, a jogging track with changing scenery depending on where the boat is, a piano bar/dancing clubs, trivia, guided talks about the places one is traveling to, a casino, a youth program (where I made lasting friendships and a lot of social development from my teenage years), athletic courts of varying qualities, yada yada.
Destinations/Cost: For instance, for our honeymoon, we went to Roatan Island in Honduras, Belize City, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. Having looked at airfare prices recently (and FWIW, our trip cost around $500 each), good luck finding airfare or other travel between those places, if it exists, for that price point, and I think that is true for a number of destinations around the world. There's something that can be pretty cool about waking up one day in one city or country, the next day another, and so on. I think that something like the Northern European route can be especially travel-friendly to someone who hasn't done a lot of abroad traveling, as it takes the need for an expensive visa out of visiting say, Russia, and gives you a taste of 6 related and close but yet vastly different cities in a certain region, sort of a sampler if you will, and you can always if you really like one or two, revisit them for longer independently, but if you hadn't visited them all, how would you really know? Cruising is a good way to destination sample, for sure.
Charm-There is a class, and a certain type of old school and romantic ambiance about being on a cruise line, and those that are particularly nerdy can engage a lot in this part, with navigational logs, all the technical terms you learn about on board (nautical miles, aft, port, etc.). Also, there's a really cool feeling in taking a walk around deck and seeing distant water in all directions, and I think this is actually especially true on a particularly windy night (that feel of being out at sea, and you are a million miles from anywhere. It makes you feel calm, puts things in perspective, and reminds you how small daily life really is (the world is 75% ocean, so if you are only staying on land, you are missing a lot of it from a physical sense.)
Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone. It CAN be cheap, if you are able to book at the right times: However, if you book at peak times (because you are only able to get off then, or otherwise), and you have more than 1 drink per day, excursions (if you either prefer the security of them, or can't figure out how to navigate a place for yourself, are VERY expensive), and I'll agree, in some ways, it perhaps isn't the most authentic way to really get to know a place in detail.
At the same time though, I think you CAN avert those things by paying attention to when and where you book, planning out your own exploration of a place vs. booking the ship excursions whenever possible, and just doing the freebies (avoiding premium dining and drinks and blowing a bunch of money in the casino), you can really have a pretty scale friendly vacation on cost, esp. since 3rd and 4th occupants in a room, often children, are cheaper as opposed to being the same rate. To combine the more authentic exploration also, maybe adding in, exploring for as long as possible when you are in port, and, perhaps booking a night or two at a hotel either where you cruise disembarks or embarks (if they are not the same).
Oh no I love a good journey I like to go hiking I like to go on road trips.
I just don't get the appeal to being on a boat for multiple days. Sounds a lot like just hanging out at a hotel.
This is me also, I just never got it despite thinking I would like it before my first cruise. It was just claustraphobic feeling being on this vessel all the time with mass feedings & crowded venues. Several days into it I couldn't wait until it was over, I was glad I brought a few books & wasn't an alcoholic.
I will say that applies to the Carribean cruises & the like. I took a several day cruise (on a large ferry actually) through the Inland Passage up to Alaska & could imagine how that, or perhaps a cruise through the fjords, with constant scenery & nature & lectures about what was going on around us could be quite enjoyable. Perhaps even a couple of days on a European river cruise with nice amenities would be fun.
But to just be days on open water with meal buffets, bingo, truncated musical theatre revues, crowds... and then spending a very limited amount of time on shore avoiding the touts and souvenir stalls wasn't appealing. And with novovirus common on the budget cruises & now covid... Less than zero appeal.
Nothing better than traveling to new places ! As Mark Twain said ; " “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
Yep.
Quote:
To me, part of the fun of travel is not knowing exactly what will happen.
Same here.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
