One thing that would make you give up Cruising???

Dan · June 19, 2006

I haven't stopped doing land vacations. We just do different type of land vacations now, but with the kids, I'm sure there will be weeks spent at Disney in our future.

But I agree with the above about value or health concerns causing us to drop cruises as a vacation choice.

BoatrideLover · June 19, 2006

Prices...and they already have changed us. We LOVE the water, the ocean, etc., We live 20 miles from Daytona and love to go to the beach one weekend every month, just for a one-night getaway. We also take a 3-night vacation in May to the beach, and a 4-night vacation in October to St. Pete Beach. We decided to look into a cruise for May, 2007, to celebrate our son's graduation from high school. We could only cruise for 4 nights, because my mom lives with us, and we wouldn't want to leave her for longer than 4 nights at a time. When we cruise, it is imperative that we have a cabin with a balcony; we spend loads of time on it!! In doing researching, I found that a 4-night cruise on Carnival, with a private balcony, for May, 2007, would have cost us $2,400.00!! Adding to that the fact that we would charge between $300.00 and $500.00 on drinks, souvenirs, gift shop, etc., I felt a 4-night vacation for close to $3,000.00 was absolutely absurd. We cruise for the "cruise experience" itself; we very rarely get off at any of the ports because that's not why we cruise. So we scrapped the cruise idea. Instead, we have booked a great gulf-front hotel in Fort Myers, with a gulf-front room and private balcony for next May, 2007 for only $800.00 for the 4-night stay. Even going out to eat every day for dinner won't bring us anywhere near the cost of the cruise!! So...we gave up the cruise and are very excited about our trip to the Fort Myers/Sanibel area next May!!

Dawn

DaCruzNut · June 19, 2006

Only one thing will make me give up cruising, and everything else: Dying!

TheSkipper · June 19, 2006

I'm with Jeff. Dying would be my number one reason for giving up cruising! Other than that I'll be cruising as long as I can make it up the gangway.

sailingrose · June 19, 2006

LOL Jeff! I'm with you! When my cell phone turns on it says......

"Cruising is Life"

Joanandjoe · June 19, 2006

We wish we could agree with Jeff, but we don't. We're having increasing difficulty finding cruises that fit within our likes and dislikes, budget, and very narrow time frame. We had thought we'd skip cruising for 2006, but ended up signing up for two cruises, both of them compromises. In May, we sailed on the Zenith to Bermuda, dispite misgivings about rough seas and insufficient time in Bermuda. Our conclusion: the trip was disappointing, and we'll fly if we want to go to Bermuda again.

Our November 25 cruise to the Caribbean on the Noordam is another compromise. We don't really want a ship that large, but couldn't find a desirable cruise, at any price, on the small ships. Most of the small ships were either still in Europe (where Joe has been about 40 times) or doing transatlantics. Joe also has qualms about a hot weather cruise: he hates heat, and has been miserable the past four days, with temperatures near or above 90. Even the 11/25 date was a compromise: we really wanted to sail two weeks earlier, but couldn't find anything we liked. (Three weeks earlier, on 11/4, the Noordam had the same cruise as 11/25, but that wasn't within our time range. For 11/11, which we wanted, nada.)

If we love both aspects of the Noordam cruise, large ship and hot weather itinerary, we may be cruising a lot in the four or five years before Joe retires. If we like either the weather or the ship size, but not both, we may be doing a limited amount of cruising. If we dislike both, we'll probably have very few cruises before retirement. As of now, NOTHING looks promising for 2007.

The two conditions we mentioned in our prior post are very close to reality for us.

boba · June 20, 2006

:smiley: I'm with Joey and the others, VALUE. I can't believe the value you get on most cruises. Oh yeah, and that dying thing might slow me down some, also. :wink:

frostyboy64 · June 20, 2006

never i have the fever and will allways be cruising

Dan · June 20, 2006

joanandjoe, if you're main dislike of larger ships is the number of people, I think you will be happy with HAL. For as much larger as they are, the Vista ships don't have proportionately more people than say, the Statendam or Rotterdam class ships. I beleive the double occupancy is 1848 off the top of my head. You take a similar sized ship like the Radiance Of The Seas, which carries about 4-500 more people, and I think that would be noticed. Not to mention HAL ships in general have fewer third/fourth bunks filled.