Why do some only take cruise vacations???`

[valtandc]

Something interesting I learned during last 4 months as I took 2 cruises on Carnival. One 8 nighter in June and one 2 nighter recently. I only took 2 nighter cause I had to use a $250 cruise credit or lose it.....I had a fantastic time on each.

 

....Over last maybe 7 years I have: cruised, disney, all inclusive cancun, antigua rented condo and car and on my own, ski vaca, great camping trip......

 

I always go on boards to whichever vacation I am planning cause you guys are so helpful and i appreciate it....

 

......But....unless, say, you live right near a florida port and get those killer deals, why do you only cruise.....or why do some people only do disney.....or only do all inclusives...

 

....I really feel I would be missing something if I only spent my hard earned money on cruises......

 

.....look forward to my next cruise by my next two trips won't be on a ship....variety is the spice of life.....

 

So.....why do you only cruise?

[timetogosoon]

Well, we have to get airfare wherever we go because of our location, and cruises are cheaper than any other vacation that we would want to take, so we cruise. We plan to cruise again and again. Maybe an all inclusive as well if we decide to, but cruising is easy. I can plan EVERYTHING in advance and that is really nice. Plus its so much easier to let other people do the cooking and worry about entertainment.

[elcuchio24]

Something interesting I learned during last 4 months as I took 2 cruises on Carnival. One 8 nighter in June and one 2 nighter recently. I only took 2 nighter cause I had to use a $250 cruise credit or lose it.....I had a fantastic time on each.

 

....Over last maybe 7 years I have: cruised, disney, all inclusive cancun, antigua rented condo and car and on my own, ski vaca, great camping trip......

 

I always go on boards to whichever vacation I am planning cause you guys are so helpful and i appreciate it....

 

......But....unless, say, you live right near a florida port and get those killer deals, why do you only cruise.....or why do some people only do disney.....or only do all inclusives...

 

....I really feel I would be missing something if I only spent my hard earned money on cruises......

 

.....look forward to my next cruise by my next two trips won't be on a ship....variety is the spice of life.....

 

So.....why do you only cruise?

 

I'm totally with you. But I think it's areal personal thing. Cruising is inexpensive, if you know what you're doing, and it's within many people's comfort zone. In the last year we did two cruises, volunteer work for 10 days in Guatemala, climbed a half dozen mountains here in the Northeast, when to Quebec for a week, 5 day AI in Playa Del Carmen, camping a couple weekends. For us, if we just did one of these things every few months, it would get super old. I think, as you said, variety is the spice.

 

I always think it's funny when every week or two someone will post a "When you retire why don't you just live on a ship!" thread. It's always an interesting conversation, but honestly I would go insane after a month or so. Cruising is the best. But it's just one way to see one very small, and often artificial, part of the world.

[papilliontraveler]

I don't and won't unless I get a screaming deal.

 

I am like you, I like to do all-inclusives, cruise, hike, weekend getaways, etc. I get tired of doing the same thing over and over. Though I have been on 9 cruises, I am in no hurry to go on another as for us, if the itinerary isn't a new one, we can get bored as we cruise for the ports and sun.

[LemurCat]

So.....why do you only cruise?

 

I have an exceptionally short attention span and don't want to worry about driving drunk.

[jobell]

We used to only ever do land vacations as we never got the nerve or felt comfortable being on a ship (would we like it? could we afford it?). We decided to take a cruise last year after my sister and bil took theirs and were telling us all about it. We booked the Dream as our first cruise and absolutely fell in love with both the ship and cruising. For us it is now about the biggest bang for our buck and right now, that is with cruising.

 

We recently priced out a 5d/4n air/hotel trip to Vegas as it's a destination we've always wanted to get to. It was equal to a 7 night cruise with airfare.

 

Will we go back to land vacations? Yes, at some point but for now cruising is just more affordable for us and how many vacations can you take where pretty much everything on board is included, you get to see 3 - 5 countries in a week and you don't have to drive for 7 days?!!? ;)

[elcuchio24]

I have an exceptionally short attention span and don't want to worry about driving drunk.

 

Love it, you won't met a more succinct answer than that!:)

[RenoNanaOz]

I have an exceptionally short attention span and don't want to worry about driving drunk.

LOL love it!

[iTouch]

I have an exceptionally short attention span and don't want to worry about driving drunk.

 

LOL! Me too! But the same could be said in many other places too......

[RenoNanaOz]

We love cruising for several reasons, as we have done road trips, amusement parks, beaches etc. Once on board we unpack and we are there for x amount of days. There is no driving which as much as my DH loves to drive he really enjoys not having to. Everything is paid in advance, see several different places in one trip. Lots of things to do or not do. Love the Spa, the DOD, the staff meeting other cruisers. I could go on and on but that's most of the reasons.

[repo-cruiser]

Personally we do both. We did disney this last summer, rented a house with a pool , hot tub, did disney everyday( 5 different locations,epcot animal kingdom,ect...) had great food, and we usually cruise. The cruise actually cost more money , food is not great , ports are 3rd world tourist traps even going off the beaten path, but love to be on the ocean.So for us we do both

[BaseballMomof4]

We travel as a family of 5, sometimes 6, and I haven't found any other way to touch it pricewise. We get to see a lot of places very inexpensively and all together.

[LemurCat]

LOL! Me too! But the same could be said in many other places too......

 

Every time I've stayed some place for more than 3 days I end up renting a car to go somewhere else. I don't have that problem with a cruise ship. It goes somewhere else for me.

[grandmato4]

We've found we like taking a vacation to a warm destination in February to get out of our cold winter weather for two weeks. A cruise vacation for this time of year fits what we wish to do perfectly and fits within our budget. We love the relaxation of being on a cruise ship with a variety of things to do and see if we wish to do them OR we can choose to just relax on a lounge chair all day and soak up the sun and do nothing at all. We often add some additonal days in our port city to either or both our precruise or post cruise vacation time. Cruising has allowed us to visit 15 different countires and get to taste a bit of each of them. Several of them we have visted more then once. Without cruising that would never have happened.

 

We still enjoy another kind of vacation at other times of the year occasionally but our cruise vacations are our favorite vacations for our vacation dollars.

[JennLuvs2Cruise]

I live in MA, and I have done the NCL Boston to Bermuda route (not for me), so we fly out to our cruises. We go every year, and we choose to cruise because it's convenient, easy to plan, not too expensive for our family to go, and we get to see multiple places. We don't have to worry about hotels and where we are going to eat every night. Everything we want is in a cruise.. Beautiful ports, warm weather, fun drinks, kids group for DS, great food, great people (for the most part :rolleyes:), and gambling! Cruising just provides something for everyone at any age.

[iTouch]

Every time I've stayed some place for more than 3 days I end up renting a car to go somewhere else. I don't have that problem with a cruise ship. It goes somewhere else for me.

 

Hire Jose to be your driver:p

[Vanessa L]

Something interesting I learned during last 4 months as I took 2 cruises on Carnival. One 8 nighter in June and one 2 nighter recently. I only took 2 nighter cause I had to use a $250 cruise credit or lose it.....I had a fantastic time on each.

 

....Over last maybe 7 years I have: cruised, disney, all inclusive cancun, antigua rented condo and car and on my own, ski vaca, great camping trip......

 

I always go on boards to whichever vacation I am planning cause you guys are so helpful and i appreciate it....

 

......But....unless, say, you live right near a florida port and get those killer deals, why do you only cruise.....or why do some people only do disney.....or only do all inclusives...

 

....I really feel I would be missing something if I only spent my hard earned money on cruises......

 

.....look forward to my next cruise by my next two trips won't be on a ship....variety is the spice of life.....

 

So.....why do you only cruise?

 

We used to alternate cruising with Europe or other land travel every other year. Then the Euro exchange rate got stupid and our house flooded :mad::( So, financially speaking we've only been able to cruise as a result. Given everything we have been through over the last year however, I am very grateful for that. To answer your question, I tend to agree with you--there is so much of the world to see and going anywhere for short stops, especially Europe, on a ship absolutely does not do it justice. OTOH, now having gone to St. Maarten numerous times over the years, DH and I have decided that we are going to retire there in a few years (as soon as the last kid is out of the house--4 years and counting :D). We would not have known that unless we had cruised there a few times and fallen in love with the island and its people.

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

We do AI's, beach vacations and cruises. We prefer cruises. We enjoy the ship atmosphere and being able to see different places. Our last AI got boring. Same atmosphere, same scenery everyday. I don't consider our long weekends to be in the same category as vacations.

[spaden]

For the past two years DW and I have chosen to cruise and for now we love it tremoundously. Cruisin will probably be our main vacation for a long time to come. Why? Because we have down most of the other things on the list and have both come to agree cruising is better than the rest. I like it because I simply like being out on the ocean and not needing to drive, worry about where to eat, where to go for entertainment. Also, from my limited experience cruising is cheaper. We do not go on many excurisions, we do not feel the need and while we enjoy a good drink we never have been hard-core drinkers.

 

About the only other thing we would like to try that we haven't is an all-inclusive. But we also do not limit ourselves to crusing only. We do weekends @ the beach, we are doing a week in a cabin near Williamsburg VA with family. I agree variety in key but if I had to choose one vacation for the rest of my life I would hands-down choose to cruise.

 

As long as I am on a cruise life is good. The rest is just anticipation! :D

[sturderick]

I love waking up every morning to a different place!! I think it's awesome to go to sleep and then waking up to look out of the window to see where we are. I also like the fact that we are traveling to new destinations while I'm enjoying fun things to do on the ship. I don't have to worry about where my teenagers are and what they're doing. It gives them a little freedom from us while still being on the same vacation with us.

[Warm Breezes]

Right now, our long family vacations always seem to turn into a cruise each year. Why?

 

1. The kids love to cruise (we do too). They are both in HS now (one a Freshman and one a Senior) so I don't know how much longer I can get them to go with us. Because of this I give them a lot of input when it comes to choosing where we will go on a "family" vacation. When the kids were younger (before middle school), we took them on a lot of week long land vacations. But once they got bit by the cruise bug, and we found out how reasonable it could be sailing on lines like CCL, cruising always became one of the options we looked at.

 

2. I can mix a land vacation in the port city along with the cruise. We did a lot of sight seeing in NYC after our Glory cruise last July. The kids had never been there before. We are beginning to plan for next year. We are looking at cruises out of NO or Galveston. None of us have been to either before...so again it would be a mix of land vacation with cruise.

 

3. When I'm searching out the best value, I always seem to come back to a cruise. I asked everyone to come up with vacation ideas so we could price them out. The cruise option always comes out to be the best value and since everyone loves to cruise, that's the way we go.

 

4. It's not always about the best value either. Our first 2 cruises were on Disney and our next one is on the EPIC. There are definately better values out there. But sometimes, especially when planning a vacation, you splurge because it is something that becomes worth the extra cost to you to do. That's what these ships are to us, especially with our kids being younger when we sailed Disney and being teens sailing the EPIC. The perfect ages, IMHO, to get the most value out of these ships when paying a premium price.

 

DH and I also take a mini-vacation at least every other year with just the 2 of us. We normally book a long week-end out west somewhere. A tradition that started with our Honeymoon. We also take many weekend trips with the kids during the year to sporting events (Pistons, Tigers, Red Wings, MIS), camping, Cedar Point/Great America, Dance Nationals for DD, or just spending time with friends in places like Traverse City, Petosky, UP.

 

My point is, for us, it is not always a cruise. But we will have taken 9 cruises in 10 years with our cruise coming up in December. That makes it one of our top vacation destinations in the last decade.

[F22Smitty]

So.....why do you only cruise?

 

Because my wife says so... :rolleyes:

[elcuchio24]

Right now, our long family vacations always seem to turn into a cruise each year. Why?

 

1. The kids love to cruise (we do too). They are both in HS now (one a Freshman and one a Senior) so I don't know how much longer I can get them to go with us. Because of this I give them a lot of input when it comes to choosing where we will go on a "family" vacation. When the kids were younger (before middle school), we took them on a lot of week long land vacations. But once they got bit by the cruise bug, and we found out how reasonable it could be sailing on lines like CCL, cruising always became one of the options we looked at.

 

2. I can mix a land vacation in the port city along with the cruise. We did a lot of sight seeing in NYC after our Glory cruise last July. The kids had never been there before. We are beginning to plan for next year. We are looking at cruises out of NO or Galveston. None of us have been to either before...so again it would be a mix of land vacation with cruise.

 

3. When I'm searching out the best value, I always seem to come back to a cruise. I asked everyone to come up with vacation ideas so we could price them out. The cruise option always comes out to be the best value and since everyone loves to cruise, that's the way we go.

 

4. It's not always about the best value either. Our first 2 cruises were on Disney and our next one is on the EPIC. There are definately better values out there. But sometimes, especially when planning a vacation, you splurge because it is something that becomes worth the extra cost to you to do. That's what these ships are to us, especially with our kids being younger when we sailed Disney and being teens sailing the EPIC. The perfect ages, IMHO, to get the most value out of these ships when paying a premium price.

 

DH and I also take a mini-vacation at least every other year with just the 2 of us. We normally book a long week-end out west somewhere. A tradition that started with our Honeymoon. We also take many weekend trips with the kids during the year to sporting events (Pistons, Tigers, Red Wings, MIS), camping, Cedar Point/Great America, Dance Nationals for DD, or just spending time with friends in places like Traverse City, Petosky, UP.

 

My point is, for us, it is not always a cruise. But we will have taken 9 cruises in 10 years with our cruise coming up in December. That makes it one of our top vacation destinations in the last decade.

 

Plus you don't need to waste money on passports;)

[Redsfan]

we are a family of 5 that do a few Great Wold Lodge type Waterpark trips a year if we can. Also odd trip to Barfalo to Cross Border shop. If fortunate enough to find the money to take an actual Vacation we have found Cruising more affordable than an AI. I love the Pool/Beach so an AI is more ideal for me but with 3 kids it seems a cruise is more affordable for us...

 

Would love to do an AI but in general it will run us a couple grand more I would think....

[Warm Breezes]

Plus you don't need to waste money on passports;)

 

Yep...That and no one has shown any real interest in going to place where a passport is required. I'm not going to spend money going someplace that they really don't want to go to. Not when there are so many places we have yet to see that they do want to go to that don't require a passport.