Why do you Cruise?

It may seem like a stupid topic but I'm genuinely curious. I went on my first cruise about 20 years ago and just went on my second cruise last month. Obviously there wasn't social media when I took my first cruise so when I started to use it for my second cruise I was amazed at the frequency of cruises for many on these forums.

So I have to ask, why so many cruises? Is it a vacation or more of a lifestyle? What keeps bringing you back?

Thanks,

3Putt77

We are retired and love to travel. We find cruises a relaxing way to see the world.

I cruise because I love being at sea. It is also a great way to get away from everything back home. We do not use our phone or computers while on a cruise so there are no distractions from work or home for us.

My first answer is always that its a great way to get away from the phones and computers and disconnect for a while. Any other type of vacation and my wife's reps call her non-stop with "Just a quick question". Cruising allows her to step away from that a bit easier.

No stress - it takes most of the stress of driving around from place to place, and we get to see nice places. Rather sit back with a cold beverage and let the captain worry about getting us there.

We enjoy mixing with the staff and other cruisers. Not quite the same with other types of trips where everyone seems to be in their own little personal bubble. Seems many people's attitudes change for the better when they get in that boarding line.

We can do as much or as little as we choose. If we want to relax by the pool or take a nap, so be it. If we want to tour all over a port we visit that works too.

We always come back home relaxed, unlike some types of trips, where we feel we need a vacation after our vacation.

It's a really easy holiday with kids and it means I get to have a break too.

Plus we use our cruises as a way to see many different parts of the world without the hassle of airports and packing and so on of each city.

Because our "hotel room" moves with us to new and interesting places and we don't have to unpack but once. :D

I am more relaxed at sea in the middle of nowhere than I seem to ever be able to be on land. The calm I feel seems sometimes meditative.....I can't explain why.

It's only the sea days that I really love, so I only go on cruises with lots of sea days and very few port days - I prefer to see towns/cities/countries via a land trip. I make use of my embarkation or debarkation ports as a start/end of a land trip.

Because traveling by land, staying in 4+ star hotels and eating in 4+ star restaurants - to see the same number of places as a cruise, would probably cost at least 5 times as much as a cruise, which already has all those accommodations included.

Everything previous posters have said!

If I am cruising during the academic year, I tell my students that the only computer screen I shall look at is the one with the restaurant reservations on it.

When your hotel takes you from A to B to C and feeds you well; cleans your room; cooks all of your meals; makes your drinks for you and entertains you - what's not to like?:D

To feed my cruise addiction.

Value. The price of the cruise can easily be cheaper than the combined hotel, food, and transportation if I tried to DIY a land tour. Plus you're getting top-notch food and you only have to mess with luggage twice. It makes economic and time-management sense.

I've been cruising since I was a young boy with my family aboard the QE2. I have always loved it. I find traveling aboard an ocean liner tremendously invigorating and thrilling.

I love the lifestyle and living on a massive ship, watching the vast sea unfurl before us, seeing new countries and islands morph into view. We have also made some wonderful friends and continue to cruise with them to this day.

We also love all of the planned events on board. It's really a perfect holiday, you can as busy as you like or spend time relaxing. It's the only way to travel.

Jonathan

I have always loved the sea and can sit and watch it for hours. Add in the food, entertainment, interesting ports, and meeting great people and you can't go wrong.

Its a great way to sample some ports / stops without really needing to spend all the time there. And if you like the place enough, then next time, get a hotel and make arrangements to go there. :)

Plus food included in the fare, plus some entertainment and get to enjoy the picturesque ocean views; as well as partaking in my favorite activity of swimming at the beach. As well its a great detox from cell phone / email, and the swaying/moving of the ship really makes for relaxing sleep / naps. :D

for future longer land-based trips.

We started cruising in the Carib. to avoid cold winters. The primary reason was that I worked long hours-often 12 hours a day. When we cruised I left the cell and the laptop at home. It was complete freedom from work. No decisions had to be made about where to stay, etc. It was very easy. We always went down a few days early so that I could unwind and be very relaxed prior to boarding the ship.

Now that we are retired, cruises are typically part of an extended independent land vacation. We will often plan a land trip and then pick up a last minute cruise part way through. We did this in Australia in Feb. and in Italy at the end of Oct last year. We have had enough cruises that the 'bloom' is off a little. We do not cruise for the food, the formal evenings, or the entertainment. Good job too because we have found that over the past few years these attributes have been diminishing in quality.

So for us, cruising is simply one of many competing travel options. If the itinerary, the price, and the ship is right then we book. If not....something else always pops up. Packing tonight to leave for a land trip in Greece. Who knows...we might even pick up a last minute cruise between then and our Oct. flight home.

Three reasons:

1. Cruising is the best value for my vacation dollar. If I were paying for comparable lodging, food, service and entertainment, I would be paying far more.

2. Cruising is relaxing. On a ship, I am "unplugged" and can truly kick back, I don't have to make a single decision. I, personally, have rarely been able to relax like this on land vacations.

3, Cruising is convenient and comfortable. I can explore new places, but return to a comfortable, clean room. I can explore different ports without unpacking and repacking each time

I think I was destined to sail! ;)

My Dad was a sailor.

I was born in a Navy hospital.

My first breath of life was salt air.:D

.

We are relatively newcomers to cruising after many years of traveling.

Our first cruise was 18 nights Sydney-Honolulu. I was hooked before sailaway.

I love the total peace of looking out and as far as I can see there is nothing but the ocean and the sky.

We are still combining land/air travel with cruise travel, but I can see us moving more towards traveling by sea. It is just so much easier, and not nearly as expensive.

We find it the most relaxing way to get away and to see so many places in a relatively short amount of time without having to pack and unpack and repack. There are very few decisions to make such as where will we eat for dinner and we are taken care of on the ship far better than any place on land.

keith

We are retired.

After spending years living out of a suitcase and traveling on planes, buses, cars, trains for up to 3 weeks at a time, I talked my DH into taking a cruise. Now he is sold on them.

It is a great way to see so many places -- unpack -- and relax.

We're retired and working on our "bucket list". Cruising is the BEST way to do that.

Our upcoming cruise will be the first long one with a balcony - I think room service breakfast is going to get used quite a lot. :)

Now that we have more time we find ourselves wanted to spend more time at each locale and we want to stay in small family run hotels or boutique pensions vs the very vanilla flavour cruise ship cabin. Had enough of US style chain hotels when we travelled for business.

We are retracing our steps. Last fall it was 10 days in Malta and three weeks in Sicily. Leaving in a week for a month of touring the Greek Islands on our own by ferry. We travel with carry on and we are very flexible...we may even end up on a last minute cruise for a week or so.

We spend about 50% of our vacations as land trips and 50% of our vacations as cruises. Some of our vacations are a combination land/cruise with pre/post stays at our embarkation port and/or surrounding areas. We have been cruising since our kids were 4 and 7 and found it a great value for family vacationing and our kids loved cruising. Our kids are now 18 and 21 and we have gone on 10 cruises with them and 3 cruises in more recent years without them when they were old enough for us to leave at home and go at times that worked for us since there schedules rarely work together with ours any more for longer vacations. We are looking at a family cruise next May. We tried planning one this year but it just didn't work out with our schedules. DS will be finishing his last year of college and DD will be finishing her first year.

Why do we cruise?

1. Value

2. The Ocean

3. One stop vacationing...see different places, entertainment, food, relaxation, pampering...unpack bags once and enjoy.

4. Being able to reconnect with each other. Hanging out at the pool, exploring an island, going to a show, and eating meals together....things our busy schedules sometimes make impossible at home.

5. Doing things at our own pace. We can make a cruise as relaxing or as adventurous as we want. We've gone both ways...it all depends on who we are with and what we feel like doing.

6. Value....I said it before. Most of the time when researching a vacation, my best values (for what we are looking at) end up being cruises. It usually is a no brainer decision for us.

For most holidays we've been driving either our own or a hire car. We realised that our best moments were on the overnight ferries from Europe to the UK, where we didn't have to decide where to drive nor where to eat- the ship took care of that.

So, it was a small step from ferries to staying on board cruise ships, and having the sights of the world brought to us! :cool: