For those of you who cruise several times a year...

Yes. We get very tired of the food. It all starts to taste the same after a while. We are doing fewer cruises in favour of independent land trips. We also get tired of the cabin. Very antiseptic and Marriott like. May as well be on a business trip.

We like cruising, but now we use it as a break from land travel. We looked long and hard at an Asia cruise but decided on a land trip instead. So glad that we did. We saw so much more plus the Asia ports on the itinerary were either not the primo places or our time in port was too short, or we would have been docked miles away from the attractions.

We have been discussing a trip to D.C. to see all the Smithsonian Museums (DH has been to some; I've been to none). So I start looking for a place to stay. I can get a place on Airbnb in Maryland near the metro line for about $600 for 6 nights. This is a room with a bed, coffee pot, small fridge & microwave. Then we have to pay to ride the metro every day and pay for all our meals. We could eat fast food every meal to keep the price down, but who wants to do that?

We have a daughter in DC so we travel there a lot. There is always more to see and most of the museums are free. You can also reach out to your congressman to see about a tour of the Capital Building. If we drive, the first place we look to stay is the Holiday Inn at the Key Bridge in Rosslyn. It's right across the Potomac from DC and has FREE parking - the car stays right there for our entire stay. The metro stop is a block away. Pick up a metro pass and you're on your way. When we fly to the city, we usually stay in the Crystal City area because it's close to the airport. DC has lots of expensive restaurants but it also has lots and lots of wonderful family owned places with very reasonable prices.

Sorry, I know this is all off-topic but I thought I could help.

Do you ever get sick of it? Like, the food, the entertainment, the ports, the announcements to buy jewelry, etc?

 

Do you all live near the port, this not needing to fly? It feels like this would be necessary in order to take more than 2-3 cruises per year.

 

Do you do other kinds of vacations as well, or mostly just stick to cruising? for example, would you fly to England and tour the city on your own for several weeks at a time? Or does cruising satisfy all your travel needs?

Nope, never get sick of it, if I do I'll stop.

I live about a 2 1/2 hour drive to port.

Yep do some road trips, but can't sit in the car for too long and Mrs Gut isn't permitted to fly, so cruising is pretty much perfect for us.

Don't get sick of it, but then we don't do many Caribbean cruises. Obviously haven't taken as many as some on these boards, but we've not retired (and have to sail in the school holidays) so I'm looking forward to being able to take some of the unusual itineraries when we do in a couple of decades :D. Nearly always add on a land portion to the cruise, lengthens both our stays and experiences of the area ;). Live nowhere near a port so quicker for us to fly to mainland Europe.

Food is subjective; even at home you can get bored of the same dishes week after week. It's the part where I don't have to cook or clear away that's the highlight - a vacation on it's own :D.

Our kids have sailed on all our cruises and love it!

Do you ever get sick of it? Like, the food, the entertainment, the ports, the announcements to buy jewelry, etc?

 

No. We only usually manage one cruise a year, but if we had the resources we would definitely do more. We find it so relaxing and port days are a treat

 

Do you all live near the port, this not needing to fly? It feels like this would be necessary in order to take more than 2-3 cruises per year.

 

5 hours drive to our main port. There are a couple nearer to us, but only the much smaller ships dock there

 

Do you do other kinds of vacations as well, or mostly just stick to cruising? for example, would you fly to England and tour the city on your own for several weeks at a time? Or does cruising satisfy all your travel needs?

Yes. We still find time for land based holidays. For example we've done Australia quite extensively which is something we couldn't do from a cruise.

Do you ever get sick of it? Like, the food, the entertainment, the ports, the announcements to buy jewelry, etc?

 

Do you all live near the port, this not needing to fly? It feels like this would be necessary in order to take more than 2-3 cruises per year.

 

Do you do other kinds of vacations as well, or mostly just stick to cruising? for example, would you fly to England and tour the city on your own for several weeks at a time? Or does cruising satisfy all your travel needs?

There was a time when we did 4 - 5 cruises a year -- nothing less than 14 days -- most at least 21 days. We do not live near a cruise port. And we didn't limit ourselves to just the Caribbean. And now we no longer have direct flights.

Also we used to take many trips to London just for a get-away of about 10 days. Before we started cruising a lot we did many land tours -- all over Europe and other places.

Glad we did everything when we did as now health issues are even limiting us to 1 or 2 cruises a year and only to the Caribbean. Yes we are getting tired of the same food and shows, etc.

We are more interested in the ports than the ship. The Caribbean islands all blur together for us and we rarely go there. I love traveling to Europe and Alaskan cruises but am now starting to have more of a desire to go back out west in my own country.

We have an active retirement life back home and frequent vacations make us feel out of touch when we are gone too frequently. Living a balanced life is our goal.

We find that we miss so much when we cruise-especially in Europe. On one of our cruises we stopped in Catania (Sicily) and Malta.

We decided to return on a land trip. We spend 8 days in Malta and 20 days touring Sicily. Enjoyed it far more than our cruise. We saw and experienced so much more. We still do cruises but we are not as enthusiastic about them as we once were.

B efore my DH passed, we traveled many times to Europe, many U.S cities,Canada, los of resorts etc in Cairbbean ,then Eueope cruises and a great many cairbbean and Canada/ aLL TOaled, we probsab ly had a bout 98 or so cruises. noDFH did not tire ofboarding those blue hulled beautiful ships.. He, too, was a sole practioner and those crui se breaks, a num b er of times a year, were great for him.:)

While we love our beach trips to the SC coast, cruising meets our needs for going to "far away places". :)

Good question and I've enjoyed reading the answers.

Do you ever get sick of it? Like, the food, the entertainment, the ports, the announcements to buy jewelry, etc?

We haven't gotten "sick of it" yet. :)

When doing consecutive cruises, after we have seen the shows the first round sometimes we go to the same show again, sometimes not.

Food isn't a big deal for me.

If we have already been to a particular port that doesn't mean we have seen or done everything there. A repeat port is the option to do or see something we didn't get to last time there.

Announcements aren't that bad.

Do you all live near the port, this not needing to fly? It feels like this would be necessary in order to take more than 2-3 cruises per year.

We do not live near a port that offers cruises we would take, so yes fly to port.

Do you do other kinds of vacations as well, or mostly just stick to cruising? for example, would you fly to England and tour the city on your own for several weeks at a time? Or does cruising satisfy all your travel needs?

We always combine the cruises with land/rail travel before and/or after the cruises.

Most recent cruises we spent 3 weeks on land travel.

We cruise two or three times a year. With three cruise terminals within a ten to thirty minute cab ride away it's very easy for us. From New York and New Jersey we cruise to the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Canada/New England and Transatlantic.

It never gets old, we adore being on board a ship. All the stresses of everyday life seem to melt away once you step aboard into that happy, pristine, sparkling cocoon.

We take land vacations on occasion, but, cruising is so easy for us and so wildly enjoyable too.

Jonathan

We cruise frequently, but change cruise lines a lot, so it doesn't really get boring and also we do lots of land based trips as well.

Do you ever get sick of it? Like, the food, the entertainment, the ports, the announcements to buy jewelry, etc?

 

Do you all live near the port, this not needing to fly? It feels like this would be necessary in order to take more than 2-3 cruises per year.

 

Do you do other kinds of vacations as well, or mostly just stick to cruising? for example, would you fly to England and tour the city on your own for several weeks at a time? Or does cruising satisfy all your travel needs?

We've taken three cruises in the last year for a total of 28 days . We also like to go to Las Vegas and have done so three times in the last year. We own two weeks at a Cocoa Beach time share, so have enjoyed that as well.

After 43 cruises, I may be growing weary of it, but mostly because of cutbacks. The shows used to be longer and better. I loathe the retina blasting LED screens. Menus have been downgraded as have even the place settings.

We a migrating toward more Las Vegas trips simply so we can book the shows based on our preferences and reviews. Entertainment was our priority when cruising and we can plan everything else around our shows in Las Vegas.

We live in Florida during winter (when we prefer cruising) and Maine in the summer. Ideal time for Las Vegas is spring and Veteran's Day (we're both veterans.) Sometimes we can drive to our vacation but often we do fly.