Ideal length of a cruise?

Our cruise got moved forward two legs because our son told us he was getting married in Cancun. So we left home for Mexico, stayed 6 days, and flew back only as far as Ft. Lauderdale for 2 days. Then we sailed 20 days. It was available as BTB 10 days with different itineraries. So we were gone 28 days total. It was wonderful.

Excellent advise!

I do hope you continue to cruise as long as you are able.

I have enjoyed your posts through the years here on CC.

 

And I too need two day pre cruise and at least one day post cruise.

And a 12-14 day cruise is perfect. I like the rotation of one or two port days followed by a sea day.The full transit of the Panama Canal was perfect in this regard.

Thank you. :)

I haven't found the strength to sail HAL without yet but have a cruise on another cruise line booked. I am hoping that will help me ease back to cruising again seeing I'll be on a ship where I have no memories, know no one but for the friends with whom I am sailing and won't see crew we've known for years. After 80+ cruises on HAL, it's hard to return there.... yet. :) Hopefully soon.

To the OP: You can do back to back cruises on the same ship - by that I mean, usually these ships that do 7 day itineraries do alternating itineraries as well, so you can sail on the same ship for 14 days and get to see different islands. This way, you are not just stuck with ships that only do 12 or 14 day cruises. Also, with all the ships going out of Florida, it is easy to go on one cruise on one ship and the next week, switch ships if you want. What with you flying all the way from the UK, you ought to consider these various ways of cruising. It will allow you to enjoy different ships and even 2 or more ships on one vacation.

For those who say they will wait until they retire for their 'real' travel, if possible, please don't do that. Not everyone actually survives in good enough health to travel or for that matter to retire. Travel as soon as you can, as much as you can. My DH and I made travel a priority from early in our married life, as soon as we were able, and I am so grateful now we did that. We were both extremely healthy and hearty and active, and then DH was not.

Don't get me wrong...we travel as much as our schedules allow us. We just can't do over 7 - 10 days at one time like many of you here can. Longer vacations just can't happen until retirement comes. That doesn't mean we don't travel as often as we can :D. DH and I are in our late 40's. We fell in love with traveling together on our honeymoon. We made it a priority to travel on a week + trip at least once a year with as many smaller weekend or long weekend trips we could fit in. Sometimes it was just camping for the weekend and sometimes it was a longer trip across the country. Sometimes like this coming week will be a trip to Toledo for my DD's very last Dance Nationals with a stop in Detroit for a Tigers game. But travel was always a priority to go even after the kids came. Then we tried fitting in both family and adult vacations throughout the year. Now we are getting to the point where our kids are becoming adults (18 and 21) and vacationing with them is becoming a whole different experience. Vacations have changed over the course of our lives and I imagine they will after retirement too...but the priority to vacation never has.

Just like any holiday my ideal length is in double digits. If I am travelling far like the states or Asia or Oz it would have to be a holiday that was 2 weeks at least including stays.

I know people say that first cruisers should be 7 days or less but our first was 12 days and our second was 13 days...great lengths in my view and often you get enough sea days and port days.

Our next two cruises are a 13 day then a 12 day and we are lucky that we are both in education so we have 6 weeks in the summer to be flexible with dates. We have thought about cruises in the Easter Holidays (2 weeks in April) but never really got round to it.

We prefer 30 to 50 days. Usually we have to take several cruises b2b to reach that.

Hi oleb84! Welcome to Cruise Critic! :D

We often are on Princess cruises to the Caribbean with lots of folks from the UK.

Because of the airfare, it is very unusual for any of them to take less than a 14 day cruise.

LuLu

Hi,

 

New here, from the UK. Sailed 2 cruises both with Royal Caribbean, 2014 Serenade Barcelona round trip and Anthem Southampton round trip. Both amazing experiences and already dreaming of the next one.

 

Let's face it though, cruising is not cheap. For the last 2 years it has been our main holiday. Both cruises I've been on have been 11nt and 12nt respectively.

 

Browsing through RCs ships and a lot of them based in the Caribbean only do 7nt sailings or even shorter. Typically the most interesting sailing next year (12nt San Juan round trip) is on the

Serenade, I want to try a different ship!

 

There is obviously a lot of demand for shorter sailings so my question is simple; what is your ideal length of a cruise and why?

For us the ideal length of a cruise is about 30 days or more, most are b2b with each segment having a different itinerary.

We prefer longer cruises partly because flying is such a hassle that we want as long a cruise as possible, with at least one port new to us.

We also love longer cruises because I don't have to cook or clean, and hubby can meet lots of new people.

We would not consider anything less than 10 nights, as it is not worth the expense and the hassle to get to the start of the cruise, and back home again. In NZ we live so far away from so many places! Prefer 15+ nights. The longer the better, as long as it is port intensive. We have a B2B booked for December 2016 which is 26 nights – looking forward to it!

Strongly agree with an earlier poster about not leaving it too late to travel. We still run a business (which helps pay for all the travel we do!), but it very much limits how long we can be away from home for. This is particularly the case in our winter, the northern hemisphere summer, when we see so many great itineraries in Europe, but we just can’t do them. Not at this point anyway. However, we still try to get away overseas as much as we can every year. You never know what is around the corner, and we are trying to make the most of being fit and able, travelling as much as possible while we can.

Ideally I would like a 3-4 week cruise; I don't think I'd be comfortable being away from my home for more than a month at this stage of my life. Too long and I think I'd get tired of always eating in a restaurant (even room service) as I like to cook - I think I'd miss it.

I would say go for broke a couple months ought to give a feel for cruising:)

We were waitlisted for 75 night Circle Pacific, but when it became obvious we weren't going to get a cabin the suited us we booked a 34 nighter.

So you might say we prefer shorter cruises.

Our last was 42 nights our next is 38, so for me the answer would be as long as possible at the time.

Have you considered a Transatlantic?

Hi,

 

New here, from the UK. Sailed 2 cruises both with Royal Caribbean, 2014 Serenade Barcelona round trip and Anthem Southampton round trip. Both amazing experiences and already dreaming of the next one.

 

Let's face it though, cruising is not cheap. For the last 2 years it has been our main holiday. Both cruises I've been on have been 11nt and 12nt respectively.

 

Browsing through RCs ships and a lot of them based in the Caribbean only do 7nt sailings or even shorter. Typically the most interesting sailing next year (12nt San Juan round trip) is on the

Serenade, I want to try a different ship!

 

There is obviously a lot of demand for shorter sailings so my question is simple; what is your ideal length of a cruise and why?

Ours have been 7nt, 14nt, and 14nt. Booked we have 15nt, and two 7nt back-to-back. For me I suspect the ideal would be 28-30 days. Including travel time to/from embarkation/debarkation, that is about 5 weeks away from home, need to get back and pay bills and tend the lawn and garden and pet the cats and otherwise tend to responsibilities...

Stan

For those who say they will wait until they retire for their 'real' travel, if possible, please don't do that. Not everyone actually survives in good enough health to travel or for that matter to retire. Travel as soon as you can, as much as you can. My DH and I made travel a priority from early in our married life, as soon as we were able, and I am so grateful now we did that. We were both extremely healthy and hearty and active, and then DH was not.

Whole heartedly agree. I know for some people it's not an option, but if you can manage it, do it! I'd only been overseas once, but when my 54yo mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year before she was planning on retiring and her and Dad never got to do all the retirement travelling they had planned, I started making travel a priority.

We prefer at least 14 nights, due to the hassle of flying and because 7 nights just goes by so quickly. We'd do longer except for issues with an elderly parent that makes it difficult for us to be gone a month or more. Our longest cruise has been 17 nights.

We'd only do 7 nights if taking family who can't miss more school or work, or maybe for some amazing deal. The 7 nighters are popular because it just works out better for people who have limited vacation time or perhaps haven't cruised much before, and of course the cost is less. (usually)

the longer the better.

We took a 24-day Med cruise last year. Until the 21st day, I never once thought that one day I would be getting off. It was a lifestyle, not a cruise. What a great feeling.

This year we are taking a 14-day. That feels about right.

Haven't had one that is too long yet! So far the longest has been 20 days and really was not ready to head home.

We have been on 7 and 8 day cruises, but they're not really long enough to get the feel of the ship....we will continue to take some shorter cruises for a specific itinerary, such as the Scottish Isles, but really 11 days+ is our minimum.

Our next booked cruise is 28 days, sailing UK to the Caribbean, 9 islands then back. This gives husband his snorkelling fix, and me, who's not a Carib fan, two weeks at sea with just two ports. ;)

We started out taking 7 day cruises and we were fine with that. Then we took a 12 day repo cruise that was just grand. That was to be followed by another 7 day cruise 10 months later. I had a feeling that the 7 day just by itself wouldn't be enough, so we opted to fly out to the port city 2 days before and explore the area and that helped. It'll be a while until our next cruise, which is a 10 day, and I imagine we'll either be flying out early again and/or staying over a few days afterwards. I definitely see 14+ day cruises in my future.

My word of advice; if you are happy now with 7 (or less) day cruises, be wary of scheduling a longer cruise because you may find that those perfectly acceptable 7 (or less) day cruises may not satisfy as completely as they did before you took that leap.

Our favorite cruises have been 10 days. We prefer port days and have been

on 10 day cruises with 6 ports. We also like to stay (in Florida) a few days before and after a cruise to enjoy land activities.

We did a 30 day cruise from San Diego to Lima and back and we loved it because of all the port days.

We did a 21 day transatlantic. There were 8 sea days in the first 9 days of the cruise that we could have done without.

Our ideal trip would be a long land vacation with a 10 to 14 day cruise somewhere in the middle of the land days.

We like 14 nights.

I went from doing 7 days only, to a 22 night cruise. Loved it. Did it again a year later, and would like to actually do a little longer, but 3 weeks felt good.:)

3-4 weeks is my ideal length of cruise. It takes the first week to fully unwind from work and everyday life I find. If I could afford it I'd take even longer cruises.

I am with you, for land trips over seas, i.e. Europe and the MIddle East we always went for 3-4 weeks, generally found for us 21 days was the ideal. Agree if one has an active work life... it takes a week to unwind, I also like to have a week back home before returning to work, get my home life organized.

I am now semi retired, would love to take longer cruises if I could afford it. Most we do is 16 day TA, with a few days pre and post cruise.