It seems that at some point you stop thinking of cruising as being a vacation, a treat, a once-a-year respite from work. The whole mindset changes. You bring along your watercolor paints or your cross stitching or your jewelry making or whatever portable hobby you have. Maybe you devote time to read, or stream movies. Maybe you compose a letter a day to an elected official about some issue you care about. Maybe you work on your memoirs. I met one man who was determined to become a better photographer and devoted a lot of time to his iphone shooting pictures, editing, and working on his techniques. You don’t feel that you need to race off the ship to see the sights or go souvenir shopping. And perhaps when you do leave the ship, you take the time to visit an art museum or some lesser-known attraction of the place you are visiting. Since you don’t have to cook or clean, time is freed up for other activities. You try new foods, because the buffet has so many offerings and you can have a bite of this or a bite of that just to see if you like it or not. It’s a very different cruise experience from what it once was when you were new to cruising and felt that you had to hit every beach, every historic fort, every cathedral.