Curious - how do you decide where you go next?

So I am pondering where I'll go in 2015. It got me to wondering - how does everyone else decide where they are going?

Do you do the same cruise every year?

Do you like to stay in the same general area?

Do you go at the same time each year?

Do you like to avoid flying?

Etc.

I'm finding myself at a loss as to what to zone in on. I have a list of places I'd like to go - but - I'm always open to suggestions :-)

For me - I do prefer the S Class ships (sorry Ms!). That said, my next cruise is on the Summit so, that doesn't totally drive my choice lol.

I do like to go where the weather is nice for whatever time of year it happens to be (most of my cruising has been in the fall).

So I just thought it would be fun to hear how everyone else decides on their next one. Is it completely on a whim? Is it because others are posting about certain places and your interest was piqued? Is it based on the current promotions?

I imagine I'm going to get many varied responses here, and I look forward to hearing each!

(That said my eye is currently on a Norwegian Fjords cruise or maybe Alaska but....who knows! lol).

How about you guys?!?!

Do you do the same cruise every year? No

Do you like to stay in the same general area? No

Do you go at the same time each year? No

Do you like to avoid flying? No

 

I'm sure you will get lots of differing responses.

We sail first for itinerary, second for price. Ship is of no consequence as long as food/entertainment/facilities are decent. Never would cruise with the same cruise line constantly (we are closing in on 60 cruises on 8 lines).

Can only tell you to hone in on the destination(s) in which you have an interest, do some research and then go for it. That has always been our philosophy and we've cruised to all 7 continents with specific goals (not "bucket list" oriented in any way). 2 you mention (Norwegian fjords and Alaska) are both awesome. Anywhere in Europe. SE Asia. OZ and NZ. The world is waiting for you!

Mr Sloop and I only stared cruising in 2012.

It began as a fascination, and a new way to take our annual Winter Getaway (we live in Canada... So just about everyone is a snowbird at heart... If even for just a week in our worse weather months)

We have done a lot of different types of Winter Getaways over the years...

Christmas Holidays with the Kids at Disney

Spring Break in Florida

And after the kids left home... Mostly Couples-tye Getaways (some to AIs)

So it was time for a change

Thought a cruise would be some what like an AI but only have to unpack once, and wake up every day in a new Destination. Very intriguing.

Well we loved our first Celebrity Cruise (Eastern Caribbean on The Solstice) cause of all that and more... In truth it was the relaxed pampering on the ship that sold us on cruising

In 2013 we booked another Caribbean Getaway Cruise... Different Itinerary (time to see some new islands) and a different ship (Southern Caribbean on The Summit)

For 2014 we are doing another Caribbean Getaway Cruise... Again different Itinerary and another ship (Gulf of Mexico on The Constellation)

In 2015, we right now have a Spring Cruise Booked... So something completely different for us (Bermuda on The Summit)

Not sure what happens after that.

But expect we could very well cruise in the Winter (late 2015 or early 2016) as there are still a lot of warm & sunny places still to see for a Getaway Cruise. Could be Celebrity... Or we might try RCCL (altho I admit we are now a tad apprehensive to switch as we like Celebrity so much / a good fit for us)

And we have thought that Europe might be in our plans in 2016... We have never been. So among all the options for a European Adventure we have begun to casually contemplate cruises (see my signature block below). Mr Sloop is a Wine Lover... He would like to see France, Italy, Germany & Austria in particular. Fortunately all of them offer cruise options (ocean or river).

How it all comes together is yet to be seen... So much of life could happen between now & then

But we do enjoy a harmless bit of daydreaming about future travels... We find the Celebrity Travel Brochures (order on line or by phone) to be very inspirational, lol

Cheers!

I'm sure you will get lots of differing responses.

 

We sail first for itinerary, second for price. Ship is of no consequence as long as food/entertainment/facilities are decent. Never would cruise with the same cruise line constantly (we are closing in on 60 cruises on 8 lines).

 

Can only tell you to hone in on the destination(s) in which you have an interest, do some research and then go for it. That has always been our philosophy and we've cruised to all 7 continents with specific goals (not "bucket list" oriented in any way). 2 you mention (Norwegian fjords and Alaska) are both awesome. Anywhere in Europe. SE Asia. OZ and NZ. The world is waiting for you!

Oh I know. I'm more asking out of a fun(ish) topic than anything else.

I'm definitely not as far along as you are but I just started on this cruising journey 5 or 6 years ago. I'm not doing too badly, considering :-)

I typically go for itinerary first - BUT - if i want a vacation where it's more sea days/enjoying the ship - then the itinerary might matter less/ship matters more. That said, I've never been bored on any cruise ship on any of the lines I've sailed (currently 4 lines but am pretty loyal to X and 2nd to RCCL).

I'd like to repeat the run I did on the reflection at some point, as our weather was awful. It was still a good time, regardless. (We were on her inaugural out of amsterdam).

So many itineraries, so little time!

I wish my home port had more varied sailings but, NJ isn't close to much :-)

Mr Sloop and I only stared cruising in 2012.

 

It began as a fascination, and a new way to take our annual Winter Getaway (we live in Canada... So just about everyone is a snowbird at heart... If even for just a week in our worse weather months)

 

We have done a lot of different types of Winter Getaways over the years...

 

Christmas Holidays with the Kids at Disney

Spring Break in Florida

And after the kids left home... Mostly Couples-tye Getaways (some to AIs)

 

So it was time for a change

 

Thought a cruise would be some what like an AI but only have to unpack once, and wake up every day in a new Destination. Very intriguing.

 

Well we loved our first Celebrity Cruise (Eastern Caribbean on The Solstice) cause of all that and more... In truth it was the relaxed pampering on the ship that sold us on cruising

 

In 2013 we booked another Caribbean Getaway Cruise... Different Itinerary (time to see some new islands) and a different ship (Southern Caribbean on The Summit)

 

For 2014 we are doing another Caribbean Getaway Cruise... Again different Itinerary and another ship (Gulf of Mexico on The Constellation)

 

In 2015, we right now have a Spring Cruise Booked... So something completely different for us (Bermuda on The Summit)

 

Not sure what happens after that.

 

But expect we could very well cruise in the Winter (late 2015 or early 2016) as there are still a lot of warm & sunny places still to see for a Getaway Cruise. Could be Celebrity... Or we might try RCCL (altho I admit we are now a tad apprehensive to switch as we like Celebrity so much / a good fit for us)

 

And we have thought that Europe might be in our plans in 2016... We have never been. So among all the options for a European Adventure we have begun to casually contemplate cruises (see my signature block below). Mr Sloop is a Wine Lover... He would like to see France, Italy, Germany & Austria in particular. Fortunately all of them offer cruise options (ocean or river).

 

How it all comes together is yet to be seen... So much of life could happen between now & then

 

But we do enjoy a harmless bit of daydreaming about future travels... We find the Celebrity Travel Brochures (order on line or by phone) to be very inspirational, lol

 

Cheers!

I'd never have thought you'd only been cruising a few years, given your participation here!

My draw to cruising was the unpack once/see a lot of places in a shorter amount of time thing - but as i'm doing it - the longer I want to be sailing LOL. I look at 7 night itineraries and I'm like "that's so short" LOL!

I do want to do a B2B someday because I love the idea of not being sad on the night everyone else is sad LOL. Wrong, I know - but i've been sad on that night every time so far! Of course I'll get the opp to be doubly sad come the 2nd trip LOL.

I used to be limited to taking vacations basically in October due to my pet sitters schedule (it was my mom she'd live here) but now that I dont have her do that - we are free to come and go whenever and can consider all sorts of itineraries all times of the year! Ha. I thankfully found a great pet sitter who comes and takes care of my diabetic cat while we are gone. I used her for 3 weeks this past May. I was scared but, my baby girl did just fine (considering!). Being away 3 weeks was great but - it ate away all my time at work, so i'm thinking maybe doing a week here/there will space it out better and let me take more sailings.

At this rate, I'll be elite in 2015...I hope!

My last choice was to say 'Farewell' to Century, Dubai to Rome.

However Celebrity had other ideas and redeployed the ship back to Singapore.

Although I really love Singapore, India has never appealed to me; visas & medical considerations!

I also wouldn't cruise into areas of unrest and there are plenty of those in the Middle East at the moment, so it was actually a relief when Century was redeployed- it saved me having to cancel and so loose my deposit (I live in the UK)

As a retiree, I need to look after the pennies, so must have value for money.

My next 2 cruises cover that:

a)Eclipse- no flying

b)Reflection a TA repositioning which are cheaper.

I still would like to cruise Canada/ New England, which is on my bucket list. In fact I asked the question on a Roll Call last year, 'do the prices ever come down?'

Today, I had an email from Cruise Critic asking me to write a review!!!:eek:

I would gladly do it if I had cruised.

Used to be we cruised only in the Caribbean but a few years ago it became a "been there done that" kind of thing and we realized it just wasn't as much fun anymore AND we wanted to see new things, areas of the world we hadn't been to.....SOOOOO we made a list of all those different places and started taking trips that would take them off the "bucket list." A Med cruise and Rome was at #1, then Istanbul, next up is our first TA mixed in with visits to London & Paris.....after that we will do Alaska and then perhaps another TA(if we like the 1st one)that ends in Barcelona(haven't been there yet) and stay on board and do our 1st b2b (which is also on the list) and wind up in Venice.....

Basically what I'm saying is now it is about seeing new and different parts of the world.....trying hard not to repeat anymore........so more about the itinerary for us than anything...

I'd never have thought you'd only been cruising a few years, given your participation here!

 

Lol... I like to call it being fully engaged in what you do... Passionate about life I guess... Been this way my whole life.

And an avid researcher (job related) & live every moment kind of girl (definitely affects my vacations). When I do something, I do it 200%

I got hooked on CC when I was researching / planning our first Celebrity Cruise. And realized there were some gaps I could fill for others thru my experiences onboard & research (to this day my posts on Celebrity's Wine List & S-Class Storage are still going strong)

Would love to cruise more, but cannot until we both retire... Lol when that happens tho the inevitable happens too

More time off means less Money (vs less time off means more money)

Hopefully tho we'll be working our way along the Captains Club ladder enough so we can cruise cheaper, but get perks too. Could definitely equal more cruises per year (or least longer more exotic ones) in our future

Cheers!

I started cruising with my daughter 15 yrs ago, then girlfriends & sisters, finally convinced dh to go - always 7 days (dh was working) and all caribbean to get out of the Michigan winters.

Retired now and living in Florida - we did our first 14 night cruise this last Feb. on Eclipse - so I can now truly say time to move on from the Caribbean - we've been there and we don't need the warm weather any longer.

Up next for us is 14 night British Isles out of Amsterdam - hitting France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England. After that I'm thinking Alaska, Panama and Galapagos. Then back to land travel for us I think - so much you can't see from a ship. Maybe get a motor home and drive the U.S.

Cruising for us is the total relaxing vacay. We almost always choose Caribbean in the cooler months although we thoroughly enjoyed our TA last year - great way to cross 11 nts only 1 port. We will be doing a WB crossing on the QM2 next year.

I can't even imagine doing a Med cruise - we've been to Europe 8 or 9 times but always by land - we like to take our time and set our own pace - I just know we'd be somewhere and NOT want to go back to the ship! We actually toyed around with idea for part of next years Europe trip but decided against it for that very reason.

We have also done many land vacays to Mexico, Costa Rica, Florida - both southern & Disney and Vegas.

The time of year seems to drive our choices - spring & fall for Europe and winter for cruising. We have been to Paris, Spain, Germany & Italy in the winter and enjoyed them all as well.

We are destination cruisers. Does not matter which cruise line, which ship, although there are some cruise lines that we WILL NOT use

All the places we want to go require that we fly (and I am not talking just to get out of our state) internationally. Just this year we flew from home to England and back, from home to Hanoi, Vietnam and back from Saigon. We have another trip planned for later this year flying into Athens and home from Mumbai, India.

Some other factors do affect our choices. We try to travel when there are the fewest children on the ships, like no long holidays, spring break or when school is out in the summer. Also, we try to sail on ships that have minimal programs so parents are less likely to drag them along, the smaller the ship usually means fewer youngsters.

We rarely ever do the same ports over a second time unless the itinerary includes several new ports for us.

Also, we usually book longer cruises because they normally have a more mature (and I am not just talking age) demographic.

Obviously others will have different ideas of what is important to them. Where ever you sail and when ever you go, we hope you travels are safe and rewarding.

We want the most different itinerary with the best price. We book it. Then fifty percent of the time a better price or itinerary comes up.

Then the fun begins.

No we do not like to fly, but we do.

sometimes we just have to get out of the time zone.

There is a certain feeling I get about places I want to go. Sometimes it is a fun, exciting feeling and sometimes it is a dangerous feeling. I don't bother with places I have no thoughts about.

For the last 10 years we have cruised overseas. Burned out on long fights and hassles. Good weather and close to home suit us now. If X had more on the west coast we would cruise even more.

We choose our cruises for interesting itineraries, and when these involve long flights we try to get the best possible value from the fare. This often means B2B cruises, or cruises linked with a land component. If we go to Europe we spend time in the departure port, and sometimes take the last cruise of the year so we can return on a Transatlantic.

Our next cruise is the Century Singapore to Dubai, but we added a round trip Singapore to Vietnam and Philippines to see more of that part of the world while we are there.

We prefer Celebrity, but if the itinerary is better we switch to Princess. We rarely cruise the Caribbean, but a really good price may tempt us away from the Canadian winter for a week or ten days. The itineraries there do not excite us, but the sunshine does if we don't have a more interesting cruise lined up.

Now we are retired, we realize that our travelling days are limited so we want to see as much of the world as possible while we can travel easily.

Sheila

For us...it's a little more of an art than a science. I actually have an Excel spreadsheet with the places I want to go eventually (which are many!!) and a yearly budget. I mix and match more expensive vacations with cheaper ones...adding in family beach trips and a few fall get away weekends and see how I can get the most bang for my buck.

We were given free airfare by a cousin once and that got me looking at a Transatlantic...I must say it was fabulous and I ended up seeing a few ports in Spain that I never would have picked out on my own.

I try not to repeat too many, but I have a few favorite places that I really love, so we head back there from time to time and have not been disappointed. Though we have been to the Caribbean many times...the relaxation on the ship, the low cost, and the ability to easily get away from the cold keep calling to us - so we mix them in with more exotic locations!

We like to go places we have never been, although the next one is a repeat of all the ports except Tenerife. Dh would like a South America cruise, me not so much. We would repeat Australia/NZ in a heartbeat. Still haven't done Norwegian Fjords, doing the Baltics next summer.

 

We were given free airfare by a cousin once and that got me looking at a Transatlantic...I must say it was fabulous and I ended up seeing a few ports in Spain that I never would have picked out on my own.

 

For some reason, your post sparked a memory of someone we ate dinner with a few cruises ago, I want to say on the Reflection. They told us that they'd buy 1 round trip airfare and incorporate it with 2 transatlantics. How awesome is that???

So for example they'd take a transatlantic in April to say Rome, then fly home, then in October fly out to somewhere, say Barcelona, and then TA back home. So for 1 airfare they'd get 2 trips out of it. Potentially more if they did a B2B while doing the ship portion.

I thought it was a pretty good option - if you have that kind of time to travel. Definitely a lot less than taking the 4 flights it would have been in total had there not been TAs involved (which are generally most cost effective than your average cruise).

On my bucket list is definitely to do a B2B and to do a TA - even better if i one day am able to combine the 2!

Places on the bucket list....Hawaii, Alaska, Panama Canal, South America, British Isles, Norwegian Fjords, Baltics, AUSTRALIA (that's not likely until retirement)....heck I could go on and on :-) It's just a matter of deciding what to see next. We need to start seeing some different places but with the world as it's been are learning currently to staying a bit closer to home without the lengthy international flights. We'll see how long that lasts for us though. At some point i might want to try a river cruise over in Paris.

I just keep playing the lottery, and praying for the ability to go on permanent vacation :-)

We both have fairly long travel bucket lists. We are retired. We usually combine a cruise with an extended land trip. Most often we are booking within the cruise cancellation window.

We select based on what attractive offers there are, on whether we can combine trips, the strength of our currency vis a vis the place where we are planning to travel. We planned to go South Africa for a month a few years ago. By delaying that trip by a year we saved about 20 percent because their currency was falling in value. Now we are avoiding the UK but are planning a land trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We are on a land trip now. Snagged a cruise in the final payment window that was attractive to us so we re-arranged our land tour. But, we are both very flexible travellers so this approach works for us.

Our currency has dropped from 105 to 90 cents to the USD and is expected to fall to 80 cents. This will probably mean fewer trips to the US and fewer cruises where the purchase price is based in USD. We still have some money in our USD account so there will be at least one more cruise on the horizon.

We both have fairly long travel bucket lists. We are retired. We usually combine a cruise with an extended land trip. Most often we are booking within the cruise cancellation window.

 

We select based on what attractive offers there are, on whether we can combine trips, the strength of our currency vis a vis the place where we are planning to travel. We planned to go South Africa for a month a few years ago. By delaying that trip by a year we saved about 20 percent because their currency was falling in value. Now we are avoiding the UK but are planning a land trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We are on a land trip now. Snagged a cruise in the final payment window that was attractive to us so we re-arranged our land tour. But, we are both very flexible travellers so this approach works for us.

 

Our currency has dropped from 105 to 90 cents to the USD and is expected to fall to 80 cents. This will probably mean fewer trips to the US and fewer cruises where the purchase price is based in USD. We still have some money in our USD account so there will be at least one more cruise on the horizon.

Where are you from, iancal?

Most of our cruises are for the itinerary....I don't think we have ever booked because of the ship. We look for deals but of course most deals aren't...they are just repackaged offers that cost the same. We almost always try to add a few days before or after the cruise. We have visited some of the islands in the carribbean so often that when we arrive, the sting rays spell out "welcome back gh" under our balcony....so we don't do the Carribbean any more unless they are giving away the cruise and friends want to go. We do try to b2b and really look for cruises where we only need to fly one way. We wouldn't even think about going to Asia for less than 4 weeks...it takes a week to adjust. We've done Melbourne to LA, chicago to Delhi, New York to Hong Kong...I think we've run out of our tolerance for long flights...but we still want to see south africa, so maybe just one more long flight (but not a cruise).

OK...now I've probably summarized about 1/2 the folks on this board, We're not that atypical although we have traveled extensively.

So we look for real deals, we currently try to go through London to visit my daughter and family on business assignment....so it's time to see Iceland and Norway (booked on Holland America). South America B2B booked for 2016 and we'll fill in around those cruises.

For what it's worth...best cruise: Celebrity Xpedition in the Galapagos; Worst Cruise: Celebrity Century cancelled one day into the cruise in France. Most boring cruises: transatlantics; Most relaxing cruises: transatlantics :)

ariawoman, we are from Canada.

For us, we generally see what's available when we want to travel. We rarely book cruises more than a month in advance. While this limits our options, it reduces the time we have to wait until we can get the heck outta dodge and on that ship [emoji3]

We are not completely against repeating an itinerary. But we have several places we want to go including Hawaii, Australia, British Isles and the Baltic including St Petersburg.

So many places to go.......[emoji568]

I choose my cruises for the itinerary first but there are a few other topics to consider:

1) places I´d like to go to; I don´t go to places that have unrest (like Middle East) (itinerary)

2) available cruises during my holiday time

3) available solo cabins with single supplement I can afford or friends wanting to join me

4) airfare cost (best if the cruise starts right at my door in Northern Germany with only 1 hr train ride :p)

5) if there are different cruise lines matching the criteria above then I have a look at the cruise lines

And yes, I tend to do pretty much the same itinerary almost every winter: Canary Islands! I love my winter break in their lovely climate. As different cruise lines go there I can still put some variety into my itinerary. And airfare is not too expensive as it is a popular holiday spot for Northern Europeans during the winter.

We cruise for the itinerary but do tend to look for the itinerary on our favorite cruise line and ship first. However we have booked a cruise for 2015 on Celebrity for the first time. They have the itinerary we want at the time of year we want. A chance to see Japan and Taiwan.

Luckily we are retired so can go on longer trips. Our next one is 30 days and we leave in under 2 months from Dubai to Cape Town. Never wanted to go to India but always want to go to the Taj Mahal. Pretty hard to do one without doing the other. This trip has 5 days in India and we are taking advantage of a side trip to the Taj Mahal. I have wanted to go to Africa but unsure of doing so but this trip gives us the opportunity to do a 4 day safari at the end plus 6 days in African ports.

I have been cruising for over 30 years off and on and it is definitely my favorite way to travel especially to exotic places. Seeing many places but only packing and unpacking once makes for the ideal trip for me.

I generally don't worry about whether there is unrest in places near where I am going. I have total faith that no cruise line I will cruise on will allow it's passengers to be anywhere unsafe. We went to Egypt when there was some unrest and never felt in danger even when we did a cruise sponsored 3 day land package. Fantastic trip.

I hope to take a cruise that goes from the Med up to London or Amsterdam with stops in Spain, Portugal and France. I would also like to do one that goes around Norway up into the Arctic circle. The one place I really want to go to is Paris so hope to combine that trip with a cruise.

So many places, a lot of time but somewhat limited money.

There are some places that I have been that I like to return to. St. Martin is my favorite....more than 20 times staying for at least a week each time. Missed staying there last year due to the mosquito borne virus. There are some that are one time is enough....and a few places that even once is too much. We all make mistakes. I don't have a bucket list. I am open to suggestions. Those glossy brochures that fill my mailbox and the constant emails that I get often get me interested in booking a trip. I do not strictly cruise. I also take land tours and travel independently. Being retired helps. I have time and money. I can pack and be off whenever I want. When something looks good, I book. I am happy to be able to travel. Where will I go next? I have a few travel brochures that are tempting.