So, who’s up for a cruise ship vacation (poll)?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Yeah, it is a surprise, especially since the options you provided are weighted towards negative responses.

People who are saying, “I’ve been on a cruise once, didn’t like it. Never again,” are kind of like someone who says “I saw a movie once, didn’t like it. Never again.” As others have pointed out, there are many types of cruises, for many different types of itineraries and travelers.

Yes, at one end there are 6,000-passenger ships crowded with noisy kids and drunken party animals. At the other are 200-pax excursion ships, ultra-luxury ships and around-the-world cruises for six months or more.

Of course, cruising is not for everyone. But one bad experience or a news report about a black swan event (e.g. hantavirus outbreak) is not necessarily a good reason to categorically rule out ever taking a cruise.

To touch on a couple of specific points raised above:

As @rsat3acr mentions below, Viking (and other premium lines) offer smaller, adult-only ships that might be more to your liking.

If you’re thinking of meals with fixed seating times at large tables with other people not of your choosing, those days are long gone. On our four cruises together, my wife and I always had a table for two, except when we were traveling with another couple.

If you and your partner don’t want to interact with other people, you won’t be forced to, except to the extent of walking down hallways, being in public spaces like restaurants, etc. Which is not much different from staying in a hotel.

There is only one ship that cruises between the Hawaiian islands, Norwegian’s Pride of America. My wife and I did the seven-day, four-island cruise a couple of months ago. Here’s what I had to say about it in another thread. TL/DR: except for the fact that it took us to four islands without having to pack and unpack at every stop, we didn’t care for the ship, the food, or the other passengers. That thread also outlines a lot of what my wife and I really like about Viking.

A few lines sail from the West Coast to Hawaii (or vice versa), but only stop at one or two islands, and you fly the other way. So lots of days at sea (which some people like), but if you want to visit any other islands, you’re on your own.

If you have unlimited time, or want to dig deep into two or three cities during a two-week trip, a cruise is probably not right for you. But if you want to cram more places into a short period, cruises are great.

For example, in the summer of 2023, my wife and I took Viking’s Empires of the Mediterranean cruise. We flew to Florence, Italy, spent two days there, two days in Venice, then boarded the ship and visited Slovenia; Zadar in Croatia; Dubrovnik and Kotor in Montenegro; Olympia and Santorini in Greece, and ended with four days in Athens.

So that’s seven ports in seven days. And of course, you could easily spend days exploring and enjoying each one of those lovely cities. But in the real world that kind of time and money isn’t available to most ordinary folks. Jumping off the ship to see the high points is better than not going at all.

And that kind of trip is where good cruise ships shine, because you don’t have to check in and out of hotels and pack and unpack at every stop.

Regardless of where one’s cruise is, ISTM that most of one’s time would be spent on the ship, including a good chunk of one’s waking hours.

Not at all, unless that’s what you want (and some people do). Usually your ship will have docked by the time you wake up, and if you’re only spending one day in that port, you might have to be back on board by 5 or 6 pm. But that leaves almost 12 hours in which to do as much as you want in the area.

The ship will provide excursions (usually over-priced), you can book your own through Viator or some such site, or you can go out and explore on your own, freestyle.

In some ports you stay two days, so you’ll have even more time. On our Hawaii trip, the ship stayed overnight in Kauai. We have friends who live there and were happy to be our tour guides for two days, and let us stay overnight in their house.

In short, there are many reasons for cruising, and many types of cruises, cruise ships, and cruise passengers. Just because one type doesn’t suit you doesn’t mean that some other might not.

Commasense’s large ship history

Crossings:
NY to UK, Cunard QE2, 1971
UK to NY, Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam, 1971

Cruises:
Bahamas, 4 days, Big Red Boat, 1991
Bermuda, 7 days, Celebrity, 2005
Alaska, 7 days, Princess, 2011
Venice to Athens, 10 days, Viking, 2023
Norway/Northern Lights, 12 days, Viking 2025
Egypt/Nile, Viking, 12 days, Dec. 2026.

22

I was tempted! But my husband likes jazz. One of my friends is in one of the bands. Next year they’re having X and The Damned!

To the OP, we’ve been on various cruises and we love it. Unpack once and you’re done. We like reading, relaxing, going to the spa, eating and drinking, and my husband occasionally goes to the casino. I like finding a quiet place to read, and ironically, the larger the ship, the more private spots you can find throughout the ship.

We also love independent travel, but cruises are SO relaxing.

23

ETA: mostly ninja’ed while I was blathering and away from teh page for a few minutes …

This.

For travel / tourism lite, not party boat, cruises are the big easy button.

See a bunch of famous city centers, wander the streets a couple hours, perhaps buy a local meal, then do a different city tomorrow. Having spent zero effort arranging hotels or ground transportation, having no need to pack every morning, schelp luggage, and reverse the process that night. And, on the better cruise lines, have a wide choice of dining, including fine, each day. In conditions no more crowded than you’d find ashore at a good hotel in the height of tourist season.

Wander the town some, reboard, have a nice dinner, have some OK live music, maybe dance a little, go to bed, and do it again tomorrow. After a week or three, stuff your stuff back in your suitcases and head home.

Big easy lazy button. Which for those of us slowly getting older, can be kinda nice.

24

Never been on one and likely never will. We’ve done so much traveling on our own that the idea of being around all those people is off-putting. Quite some time ago we kicked around the idea of river cruises, as friends of ours liked them, but never really engaged with it (although they still inundate us with catalogs). The only one that is of any remote interest at this point would be a cruise up the Inside Passage, but I’m pretty sure that will never happen.

25

I’ve been on over 20. You learn how to choose them, become discerning about the itineraries and excursions, and learn your options for company and entertainment vs. doing your own thing.

Best cruise with partner: Celebrity, Galápagos.

Best solo cruise: Hurtigruten, Antarctica.

Best river cruise: Tauck, southern Danube.

We often arrange birding tours on our own, a wonderful alternative to beach/drinking, which neither of us enjoy.

26

I’m interested in this, because we did this one too, in Feb-Mar 2025, and were disappointed that weather kept us from getting to any of the ports on the original itinerary, for which we had planned for months. We found some interesting things in the other ports we did end up visiting. But I still wouldn’t have considered it “deathly boring.” We did see the aurora twice, from the ship.

And Viking gave everyone a substantial credit for a future trip, which is making our December Nile River cruise a bit more affordable.

What was so bad about your Northern Lights cruise?

27

Cruises are not something I would like.

I travel with cousins to destinations where we can explore the locale for the duration of the trip.

I am also not comfortable around huge crowds of people.

Never been on one but I was in the Navy :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

28

I was USAF but spent 3 years co-assigned to the US Army.

My comment then was “The Army is the only organization I know that can ruin camping.” I expect you could add “The Navy is the only organization that could ruin cruising.” :zany_face:

29

There’s also this recent thread about cruising:

30

@LSLGuy

So accurate!

31

I loved the crossing. Heartily recommend it.

Just know it is ALL sea days. 100% There are no excursions. So, for some this might suck.

To each their own. I loved it.

Also, this is the only ocean liner in existence.Different than a cruise ship (which there are many, many of). There is a difference.

32

I voted “never been, do not want”. For me, cruise ships just represent a concentrated collection of most of the things I dislike all in one small place – crowds, socializing and social events, noise, expense, and, unless you opt for even more expense, potentially cramped quarters. I’d much rather be on a quiet camping trip in the wilderness, with a canoe as transportation and a tent for accommodation and the peaceful cry of the loon at sunset for entertainment.

For those who wish to be dissuaded from going on a cruise, I recommend Day Four, by Sarah Lotz. It concerns what happens when an older cruise ship run by a less than stellar cruise line runs into problems. A brief extract from the review linked above:

as it begins listing to one side, which is just one result of a major power failure that leaves the ship as dead as Julius Caesar in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, with mal- and non-functioning toilets, showers and kitchens.

Yes, Lotz really knows how to kill a mood here (I was going to call her a party-pooper, but that would’ve been in poor taste, considering what occurs on the Dreamer), as she creates a horrifyingly accurate extrapolation of what happens when a boatload of already irritating people are all isolated together as creature comforts go out the window and several floors of cruise ship go third-world all at once.

33

Well, I wasn’t trying to weight the poll negatively, just cover the bases: yes, liked it; yes, it was just ok; yes, didn’t like it; no, but want to; no, and no interest. I am genuinely curious to get real feedback, not just the answer I want to see.

34

One issue with the itinerary that you suggest, is that cruise lines are required to make a stop in a foreign port. Any cruise that went from California to Hawaii and back will probably also stop in Ensenada, Mexico.

35

Or you can start in British Columbia.

36

To start. No Northern Lights. Turns out the height of the Aurora season coincides with the cloudiest nights off the coast of Norway. This was our second trip to Bergen so we had exhausted most of what that town had to offer and the rest of the stops north of there weren’t exactly pleasant in March nor were they full of cultural or Historical interest (save the Nazi occupation). Once you have seen one Arctic Norwegian town, you’ve seen them all. No complaints about the amenities aboard ship, but for two weeks the most interesting diversions were found on the Kindle I brought with me.

37

My wife and I have been watching cruise videos for the last couple of years, and have a route picked out - 15 days on one of the Norwegian mail boat cruise ships, Hurtigruten or Havila. It makes 34 stops, I think? And most of them are long enough to get off the boat and wander around and see some things. Plus, at the midpoint we’ll get to visit Svalbard, a town that I suspect is actually less interesting than it seems from the outside, but I do still want to see it.

For us the issue is, we’re not sure how to leave my 90YO mom essentially unattended that long…she lives alone and is mostly able to take care of herself, but there have been emergencies.

Anyway, I’m interested, but haven’t done one yet.

38

Despite the many activity options both onboard and at ports of call cruise ship vacations aren’t my cup of tea. I get bored too easily. Whenever this topic comes up I can’t help thinking of the David Foster Wallace. His answer to the poll came in the form of a long-form essay: A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

39

I voted liked, would do again but that’s only half true. We did one big Caribbean cruise about 15 years ago. I would NOT do that again. The crowds made it impossible to enjoy. But we are going on our dream trip late this summer, an AMA Waterways Danube river cruise with stays in Budapest and Prague on either end. This will be almost $20K all in for 12 days, and for us that’s a huge lift. But we’re celebrating our 30th anniversary and hub’s 70th birthday, so it seemed worth the spend.

I love being on the water and have always wanted to cruise more. If this is as great as we hope it’ll be, it might be just the start…

40

This is the second time I’ve seen this referenced this week, and as I did the last time, I’ll say that my wife and I still use this titular phrase occasionally when something we do goes off the rails unexpectedly.

Anyway, that whole collection of essays is great fun.