How Many Take Cruises Versus Other Land Vacations

Hi,

 

I've taken 3 cruise so far and each time I book a cruise I get excited for that cruise to come.

 

How many people do cruises only versus cruises and land vacations?

 

What drives your decision?

 

Thanks so much for the feedback.

We do both. We (daughter and myself) spent many years just cruising, but last summer spend time in Europe, and have done that again this summer, but ending it with a cruise before flying home. So the best of both worlds. I think it's just you have to decide what you want to do and how you want to spend your time. We're three weeks into a month in Paris, and we have been very busy, but also very lazy, just like you can do on a cruise ship. Except we have a full kitchen here, and there you have to walk to eat ;p

Due to time constraints and my distaste of long drives in short periods of time, we've been doing mostly cruises for the last fifteen years. Also, cruising has gotten us to places we never thought we'd ever get to!

The outside of our poor travel trailer looks terrible from disuse. When hubby retires we will mix it up and do land vacations as well as an occasional cruise, but until then...

There are simply more places in the world that I want to go that a cruise can't take me. My next two vacations are land trips for wildlife viewing. Many/most of my future trip ideas are wildlife based. Have to do all these exotics while I physically can!

But, there is a place for cruising in my life. They require less planning and I simply do less. I usually prefer a more interesting itinerary than a typical Caribbean cruise, but admit that I also cruise for the ship.

We have only done cruises. I have looked at all inclusive land vacations and the cost is much higher and I only get to see one place. This is for us until we get tired of it.

There are simply more places in the world that I want to go that a cruise can't take me. My next two vacations are land trips for wildlife viewing. Many/most of my future trip ideas are wildlife based. Have to do all these exotics while I physically can!

 

But, there is a place for cruising in my life. They require less planning and I simply do less. I usually prefer a more interesting itinerary than a typical Caribbean cruise, but admit that I also cruise for the ship.

Well said. My wife says we need to do land trips while we still have knees and hips :)

We take several vacations a year, a combination of cruises and land.

This year is only land trips. 14 of them ranging from 4 days/3 nights to 17 days/16 nights. Next year (after retirement) we have 2 cruises booked. Hoping to book another for Australia if NCL continues out of there. And we only have 7 land based trips booked so far. The longest one is 5 weeks in Australia. We would love to make a week of that 5 weeks on a cruise.

We also alternate between land and cruise vacations but enjoy both. My job makes it difficult at times to travel as much as I would like but I am fortunate to have a career that involves traveling so I always try to tack on some vacation days to work trips to make the most of them.

The longest one is 5 weeks in Australia. We would love to make a week of that 5 weeks on a cruise.

That sounds like a nice idea - the cruise will take you places where one day may be all you need, but wouldn't otherwise go because it's not convenient any other way.

We do both, in the past year we did 9 days in Jamaica at an ai, 5 days in Puerto Rico, had a cruise in February and two more this year. We like cruising better I think, don't have to worry about transportation to get to other places, don't have to worry where you will eat dinner that night, etc. once you add in the rental car, the expensive food and drinks, the sightseeing costs, cruising is much more affordable but we always go a few days early so we get our land vacation too!

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We have done 15 ocean cruises in the past 7 years. With each one we have done an extensive land trip either pre or post cruise. For example our Alaska 7 day cruise was between a 12 day pre cruise land trip and a 3 day post cruise land trip.

Also, we have done four trips that involved a combination of land tours and river cruises. Example, 21 day China tour of which 4 days was a river cruise, or Russia, 7 day river cruise and total of 15 day land trip.

I might add that I lived in SW Asia for five years and Germany for four years, then doing a lot of land trips.

Land trips are best for places that need more intensive stays, like Rome, Paris or London. Also, to see places inland that you cannot see from a port.

Cruises are great to visit ports that are amenable to one day tours.

In the past 3 years, my "big" vacations have been cruises. Going on my 4th on Saturday. Since my first cruise I've been on a few shorter land vacations. 3-4 day trips to Vegas and Florida. We prefer cruising by far!

We do both. We love to camp so those are our "land" trips (also kind of makes the cruise cabins seem luxurious😁). Cruises are our "big" vacation and our favorite. There is no traveling or additional cost (i.e. dinners, movies) involved once you are on the ship, you can drink any time, and we do shore excursions to scope out a possible future AI trip.

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We do cruises to see new places that we want to do a full trip to. Cruises are good to me, but land vacations are so much better.

About 65 cruises and 50 land trips.

Going forward, though, those numbers will likely meet and then go to the land side. We find cruising more and more expensive for what you get, and less and less what we used to cruise for. Just isn't the same experience. The value is gone.

Land trips we are much more in control of our "destiny." Usually do self-catering apartments, visit local markets and the such. Working better for us going forward.

We love doing both. There are so many places we want to go and cruise ships can't take us to all of them.

This year we are doing one of each. We went on a wonderful 14 day Mediterranean cruise on the Spirit back in May. We also love going to the mountains and renting cabins. In September we will be spending 5 days in the beautiful and remote Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Next year we are also doing both a cruise and land trips. In February we are spending a week in Cabo San Lucas. We absolutely fell in love with Cabo when we had a port stop there last year on our Panama Canal cruise so it will be nice to be there for more than 6 hours! In June we will cruise to Alaska on the new Bliss! In August we will spend a week in a cabin in Idaho near Lake Pend Oreille.

So we really like to mix it up! And cruising does give us opportunities to visit places we would like to spend more time in (like Cabo). And on our cruise back in May in the Mediterranean we decided the next time we go to Santorini we would love to go there not on a cruise. Spend several nights there instead (we've been to Santorini twice now and both times were on cruises).

We think cruises are absolutely wonderful. But so are land trips. They both can provide variety and great experiences.

Only a small part of the world can be seen from cruise ships. Since we love to travel, we have mostly done land trips. Since we love to cruise, we throw those in as well. Lately we have been cruising too much. We need to slow down to do other things. I still get my 3 or 4 weeks in Vegas per year, but I need some more land stuff planned.

I love both and I'm currently in the midst of doing research for this fall, trying to decide which will work best for us. As of now, seems like a cruise might be better as all our favorite resorts are quite booked up.

We do both, but I certainly prefer cruising. For Valentine's day last year, I took my DH to a spa resort for a long weekend. At the end, when I paid the bill, I realized that we could have been cruising over the same period of time and paid the same or less. So, last Nov we took a weekend cruise (because we weren't sure we would be happy with only 3 nights at sea). We enjoyed it more than the spa weekend! So, this Nov, I'm back out to sea. But, I do some short land vacations between my sea faring time!;)

We do both cruises and land vacations. We like to get out of NY in the winter, so we had an Australia/New ZealandCook Islands land vacation for February and March. Next year we'll be in Panama for those 2 months. We have a National Parks tour coming up, a Punta Cana 10 day stay, as well as 4 cruises booked, 2 on brand new ships (Carnival Horizon and MSC Seaside) and the remodeled NCL Dawn in the next 14 months.

Variety is the spice of life....or whatever floats your boat!

We had two all inclusive (got bored the second time, even though it was beautiful resort in DR) before we started cruising. Since 2003 all our vacations were cruises except for two trips to Germany (to visit friends and to visit our son in US Army) and one to Arizona/Uta canyons as you cannot see them via cruise. :)

We are not planning land based resorts anymore. No reason for us. We do plan to add maybe a week to our next European cruise to have some roadtrip from Switzerland or Germany via Alps to Venice.

We lately take about 4 cruises a year... thought about more, but don't want to turn it into routine.

We usually sail from nearby ports Boston/NY/NJ/Baltimore, but 1-2 per year make a car trip to sail from Florida or rarely fly to Europe.

As a short gateways between our trips we do camping around NewEngland where we live or driving to Montreal, Quebec City or other large cities.

We have only done land based trips until March of this year. We took our first cruise out of NOLA and fell in love with cruising! We just booked our next cruise, but it's not until March 2019. We usually take a couple of weeks of land based vacations a year and several weekend getaways through the year. We have a 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son, so for now we'll have to spread our cruises out. Cruises are like our indulgence as a couple I've decided. This years cruise was our first vacation beyond a simple weekend without the kids. It was for our 10 year anniversary, and it was so peaceful. I decided then and there it will be good for us to have an adult vacation every couple of years at least!

We have only done land based trips until March of this year. We took our first cruise out of NOLA and fell in love with cruising! We just booked our next cruise, but it's not until March 2019. We usually take a couple of weeks of land based vacations a year and several weekend getaways through the year. We have a 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son, so for now we'll have to spread our cruises out. Cruises are like our indulgence as a couple I've decided. This years cruise was our first vacation beyond a simple weekend without the kids. It was for our 10 year anniversary, and it was so peaceful. I decided then and there it will be good for us to have an adult vacation every couple of years at least!

Don't miss the opportunity to cruise with the kids! Cruises have been some of our best family memories! They kids have always enjoyed the kids programs and Mom and Dad got to have time alone while they were having fun at "camp". Make sure you take pictures; some of our best are from the cruise photography staff!

We started out having a balcony room for the adults and an inside across from us for the kids. (yes, you have to book it with an adult in each room, but you don't have to sleep that way!) More recently, (and once the "kids" got bigger) we have booked the HAVEN 2 bedroom suite. More expensive, but 2 bathrooms allowed us to stay peacefully together!

I am looking forward to this experience with the grandkids......when and if they arrive!

We try to plan two cruises and one land vacation a year. Cruising is our relaxation outlet. Land vacations allow us to embrace the local culture. Next year, I'll be doing a combo land/Med cruise to get the best of both travel choices.

We have done both, but prefer the cruises because you only need to pack and unpack once. The cruises are by far more relaxing.