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Why cruises are better than land vacations


sweetlove13
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For us land travel is not a choice between a cruise and a guided tour. If we want to spend three days in a particular city we do. No need to wake up at 6AM or be back at the ship by 4PM. We can get up at 10AM if we wish and stay out past midnight!

 

The attraction for us is that we go where we want, stay as long as we want, and truly get to sample the local cuisine and hospitality.

 

We enjoy cruising, but these are two very different animals.

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For us land travel is not a choice between a cruise and a guided tour. If we want to spend three days in a particular city we do. No need to wake up at 6AM or be back at the ship by 4PM. We can get up at 10AM if we wish and stay out past midnight!

 

The attraction for us is that we go where we want, stay as long as we want, and truly get to sample the local cuisine and hospitality.

 

We enjoy cruising, but these are two very different animals.

 

100% agree. Lately we have found that land travel is a better value, but that might be due to the countries we've been visiting.

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Our experience has been the same. Independent land trips have been considerably less expensive than cruises. Both Asia and Europe. We may spend the same amount of money but the duration is much longer and we often travel further. It really comes down to one's travel preferences.

 

This is not the reason that we select land tours but we have noticed this change over the past few years.

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100% agree. Lately we have found that land travel is a better value, but that might be due to the countries we've been visiting.

 

I will third it. I could not believe how cheap it was to eat in Greece earlier this year. We have a villa booked for a week next year in Crete with a private pool, two bedrooms, amazing view for $1,500 Cdn. for a week.

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We have done 3 Med cruises and an Adriatic cruise. We have also done numerous independent trips throughout Greece, Greek Islands, Turkey, Croatia, italy etc. Our experience is that we can do a land trip for just under half of what a cruise will currently cost. Sometimes less. That includes everything, rental cars, ferries etc.

 

We did several of the Med cruises when the economy was poor and the cruise lines had too many cabins and not enough customers. Not the case today. Cruise prices have increased substantially from our previous target price of $100 per diem for a balcony cabin, the value of our currency has decreased vis a vis the USD. We have had the same experience in Spain/Portugal. The price delta between independent land travel and cruising in SE Asia has been, for us, even more dramatic over the past four years.

 

We still like cruising and will continue to cruise. We have simply found that over the past four or five years the relative costs have changed. Not certain how anyone could say that one mode is better than the other. It really comes down to personal preference.

Edited by iancal
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We have done guided tours, but they are mainly stay in one location and be guided to various places in that city.

 

No, I would not want to do one of the "If it is Tuesday, this must be Belgium" type trips.

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Please realize there are other types of land vacations other than organized bus tours..Yuck. I'm sure a villa in Tuscany or Provence would have been a little more relaxing.

 

SO true! Did one bus trip in England with my daughter's choir more than 20 years ago and that was the first and last of those kind of trips for us. No sleeping in late or lingering over a meal, it was breakfast at 7:00 in order to be on the bus by 8:00, etc. - my husband and I called it a boot camp.

 

Land trips can be pricey as can cruises. Cruise food, never good to start with, gets tiresome quite quickly.

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Love both land and sea! A lot about why we like cruising has been mentioned except for the fact that I love being out in the middle of the ocean(a lethal environment if on your own) on a luxury liner.

I always go out the first sea day and find a place where I can look 365 degrees and see nothing but water-it's actually kind of amazing considering where we were as a species just 150 yrs ago.

Have seen many dolphins following along and jumping through the water and the dark blue color of the deep caribbean water is probably my favorite color. The air seems cleaner and easier to breathe and the morning sunrise is as beautiful as you will ever see coming over the horizon. Those are the things I probably enjoy the most about cruising although I admit to seeing fewer and fewer people enjoy a cruise in this fashion.

OMG! Get outta my head! :p This perfectly sums up my love for cruising!

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SO true! Did one bus trip in England with my daughter's choir more than 20 years ago and that was the first and last of those kind of trips for us. No sleeping in late or lingering over a meal, it was breakfast at 7:00 in order to be on the bus by 8:00, etc. - my husband and I called it a boot camp.

 

Land trips can be pricey as can cruises. Cruise food, never good to start with, gets tiresome quite quickly.

 

This is how cruises feel to us. Excursion leaves at 8AM... show at 2:30PM, dinner at 6:00PM, show at 8:30PM, Kids camp over at 12Noon, drop off again at 2PM... etc. etc. Everything is on a schedule unless you decide to do nothing. And if doing nothing, I have no interest in a cruise. A nice resort is better (for us) in almost every way if we want to sit around and do nothing all day on our own schedule.

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We have been cruise lovers for forty years and still manage to cruise 70-100 days a year. However, we are also travel lovers and would not put our love of cruising ahead of our love of travel. Both land and sea have their pros and cons....and we actually think a combination of the two is ideal. We have often used repositioning cruises (or exotic itineraries) as a way to get to or from (or both) to a part of the world where we then spend some time (usually weeks) doing land travel (often with a rental car).

 

Some cruisers do not really think about the fact that much of the world is not really accessible on a cruise trip. As a very basic example, our favorite city in New Zealand is the picturesque town of Queenstown....which is located pretty far south on South Island. You can cruise around South Island the rest of your life...but will unlikely never see Queenstown or lots of other fantastic places on South Island. Or one can drive up the Eastern side of France...through the French Alps and eventually up to the Alsace/Lorraine region....and spend days in territory that cannot be visited from a cruise ship (or river boat.

 

Hank

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This forum is supposed to be comparing cruises to land vacations - not "land cruises". A bus tour giving you a different city every day might compare with a ship hitting different ports - but I would not call it a vacation - I think "torment" might be a more descriptive term.

 

It is certainly my idea of hell :)

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I don't think cruises are better than land vacations, they are just one of the options. I care more about where I'm going and how to best experience that place than I do about one form of vacation over another.

 

Most for us the best experience isn't being herded on a big bus tour of someplace. I've only done those a couple of times - both of which were chosen because it was organized by a local group I belonged to and the agenda of the trip appealed to me. One was okay, one got to be tiresome and I'm not eager to ever do one again. Even then it wasn't a Tuesday/Belgium kind of tour - it spent 2 or 3 nights most places.

 

Mostly, we have done DIY land tours including road trips, deep dives staying in one city and trains (once in Canada and a couple of times major cities in Europe staying 2-3 nights in each city). A few times we have done small group land tours.

 

For cruises, we have often done a cruise with land stays on each end. For example, last Spring we stayed 4 nights in Lisbon, cruised on Windstar from Lisbon to Barcelona and then 4 nights in Barcelona and last summer we did a night each in Victoria and Vancouver before boarding an Alaska cruise and then did a week on land by car in Alaska. (A lot of vacation in one year with me still working but we hadn't taken any vacations the two years before.)

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It depends on what part of the world we're visiting. I guess it really depends on if you're going for the cruise experience or to see/do/experience in greater depth where you're going. For us the ONLY way to go is a cruise if we're going to the Caribbean, Bermuda or Alaska. Not so much to other parts of the world. For Europe/Asia Pacific we prefer river cruises in Europe,second choice would be a land tour, and land tours to Asia and Australia .We've done 2 "oceanliner" cruises to Europe and won't again. Just don't have enough time in any port, only visit coastal cities, rarely any opportunity for nightlife in any ports, and sometimes major cities they say you'll be visiting are actually a port city that sometimes is an hour or more away. Not to mention on some of those, tours and excursions can cost as much as the cruise.

 

Cruises in Europe can be great. For example, port days are just about the right amount of time in the Greek islands and some of the smaller coastal towns.

 

By choosing a smaller ship (Windstar Star Legend, one that I don't think of as an "oceanliner" though it is capable of ocean crossings), we sailed into Seville and docked walking distance from the old town rather than being over an hour away in Cadiz. On another cruise, a small ship let us visit some of the smaller islands that a bigger ship wouldn't.

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SO true! Did one bus trip in England with my daughter's choir more than 20 years ago and that was the first and last of those kind of trips for us. No sleeping in late or lingering over a meal, it was breakfast at 7:00 in order to be on the bus by 8:00, etc. - my husband and I called it a boot camp.

 

Land trips can be pricey as can cruises. Cruise food, never good to start with, gets tiresome quite quickly.

 

There are cruises that have great food. For me, the common denominator is that a large group experience is almost never as good as smaller groups. I hate being herded, being in lines, waiting for everyone to board. We do a lot of DIY on land, but there are times when a cruise is the best way to see a destination. We have also been on some great small group (say 15 people or fewer) tours.

 

For Australia and New Zealand, we took a National Geographic small group trip. It was wonderful - we got to see so much more in 3 weeks than we could have seen on our own because of their access. It was nice to not have to make all the travel arrangements too and the trip leader was great. It was a pretty heavily programmed tour with only one kind of restful day, not sure I'd be up to do that again now that we are older. It was also pretty expensive. But a fantastic once in a lifetime experience.

 

For China, I took a chance on Intrepid Travel. One problem with liking small group trips is that there often aren't very many reviews. It was wonderful. Multiple nights in each city so we could explore. There were 7 in our group plus the trip leader. When we got to each city, we would do a short orientation walk with the trip leader. There were a reasonable number of included major site visits and meals[ The trip leader would give advice on places to eat and would help us arrange for any additional things we needed help with. The trip also included a couple of night Threee Gorges cruise gorges. It was also very economical though we never wanted for anything on the trip and had lots of excellent Chinese food.

 

We did a small bus tour through Yellowstone National Park on a restored 1930's tour bus with a retractable top (Yellowstone Association which looks like it is now renamed Yellowstone Forever Institute). It was great to be able to enjoy the scenery during the drives. The instructor was informative. Per night cost was about the same as a Windstar Cruise.

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I’ve been sitting at a bar at this resort during happy hour for about an hour and not one person has approached me and struck up a conversation. If this were a cruise I would have at least three new best friends by now. Cruisers are just so friendly! I’m here for a few days turning an out of state job interview into a vacation, but this just proves to me that cruising is the best way to vacation and that cruisers are the friendliest people around. Can’t wait until my next cruise!!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

That is exactly why my husband will not again do a land resort. The people stay in their friend/family groups. My husband tried socializing and was not successful. On a ship it is very easy to socialize.

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Cruises in Europe can be great. For example, port days are just about the right amount of time in the Greek islands and some of the smaller coastal towns.

 

I don't agree. We spent a week on Mykonos, and that allowed time to wander and explore. A day to go to Delos. Rented a car and drove all over the island.

 

Discovered a great restaurant and ate there several times, becoming part of the local crowd.

 

There are lots of things to do on the Greek Islands, that you will never experience with one day.

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This forum is supposed to be comparing cruises to land vacations - not "land cruises". A bus tour giving you a different city every day might compare with a ship hitting different ports - but I would not call it a vacation - I think "torment" might be a more descriptive term.

 

Actually the original premiss of this thread was that cruises are better than land vacations because cruisers are friendlier. Remember post # 1 below?

 

I’ve been sitting at a bar at this resort during happy hour for about an hour and not one person has approached me and struck up a conversation. If this were a cruise I would have at least three new best friends by now. Cruisers are just so friendly! I’m here for a few days turning an out of state job interview into a vacation, but this just proves to me that cruising is the best way to vacation and that cruisers are the friendliest people around. Can’t wait until my next cruise!!!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

So, are cruisers the friendliest people around and is this why cruises are better than land vacations? Or "land cruises"?

 

Or, are cruisers just better at striking up conversations at a bar?:D

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I don't agree. We spent a week on Mykonos, and that allowed time to wander and explore. A day to go to Delos. Rented a car and drove all over the island.

 

Discovered a great restaurant and ate there several times, becoming part of the local crowd.

 

There are lots of things to do on the Greek Islands, that you will never experience with one day.

 

Completely agree with you. We had 7 days on Crete this past May and are going back for 10 days next year. The evenings out at family restaurants just can't be beat. A very special atmosphere not seen on a cruise.

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The thread is getting interesting :). We often wonder why folks want to argue that one cruise line is better then another, that one country is better then another, or why cruises are better then land. In many cases it does not have to be either...or....but both! When somebody posts that a cruise day is just right for a Greek Island, I would suggest they try driving around Crete (you cannot do it in a day or even several days). While visiting Santorini on a ship is special, you can trust me that waking up in Oia,,,,and looking out your window.....is quite special. And there is actually night life on Santorini. We recently met some fellow cruiser, who when she found out DW's favorite city is Paris said something like, "I have been to Paris on a cruise ship tour and saw all the attractions." Suffice it to say that we have spent months in and around Paris and have barely dented the place. And then there is Florence, a favorite city of many cruisers. We were pretty luke warm on Florence until one year, while driving through that part of Italy, we decided to spend a few days (and nights) in Florence. We fell in love with the city, which is a lot nicer late in the day when many of the day tourists (including cruisers) are long gone. And then there is San Gimignano which is one of my favorite places in Tuscany. But not when its packed with day tourists during the day.....but late at night when the streets are empty, the street lights cast eerie shadows, and one can imagine that the city has not really changed that much in the past few hundred years.

 

As to land tours vs DIY....this really depends on the individual, their "travel sense," and spirit of adventure. We have done tours and enjoyed the experience. And we have spent months and months just doing things on our own...and enjoyed it even more. When you are on a small group tour you might make some good friends with some of the group. But when we drive around Europe or Asia in our own car....we often make friends with the locals (and restaurant owners). We have actually met several of the European posters (here on CC) in real life (not just here on CC) and they are fascinating folks. But this only happens when you are on your own, can make arrangements to meet folks over drinks, lunch or dinner....etc. And from those friendships we have learned more about their countries....which helps us plan future trips.

 

So our advice is to cast aside your biases...open your minds.....and try something new whether it be a different cruise line, different part of the world, or different mode of travel.

 

Hank

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Depends where your're going and what you want to see. This summer we did a National Parks tour. Grand Canyon, Brice, Zion, Canyonland, Arches, Yosemite, Salt Lake City, Lake Tahoe, Lake Meade, Hoover Dam ...it was breathtaking and as folks said, "this is God's architecture"...couldn't have done that trip via a cruise! There's a LOT of places you can't get to by cruise ship.

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I have met a lot of great people on land also.

 

As I have stated, land and cruise are different, and one is not better than the other. To me, they have different appeals.

 

I agree that the land cruises, on and off the bus, are not my cup of tea. But then, I see no appeal of many of the Med cruises with a different port every day, and almost no sea days.

 

Paris in a day? REALLY???? I don't particularly like Paris, but that is absurd. :D

 

Two of my favorite European cities are Edinburgh and Budapest. I have spent multiple weeks in each one, and there are still a lot of stuff to do.

 

Last trip to Edinburgh, we were part of this -

 

Amazing fun. We are WAY back in the crowd of torches. But you don't get to do things like this on a cruise.

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