How long is too long?

[rheins65]

We have been on a good number of 7 night cruises (all Caribbean), thinking we want to try something a good bit longer. What are the thoughts on cruises that are 15-20 nights long?

 

 

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[welikepalms]

I am all for longer cruises. Most we have done is 10 nights. Looking at the 15 Day from West Coast to Hawaii and back.

 

Happy Cruising

[Keith1010]

We love the longer cruises.

 

We transitioned from a 7 day cruise to a 12 day cruise while I was working and when I retired we quickly went to 18 to 24 day cruises before eventually moving to longer ones.

 

It's a great feeling to be on for a longer cruise so that you can relax and enjoy it and not feel you have to do everything over a weeks time frame.

 

Keith

[Hlitner]

When we started cruising (over forty years ago) we also wondered how long is too long. So far, after doing a few cruises over 60 days in length we have yet to find our ideal maximum. But the first time we did more than a 60 day cruise our feeling at the end was that we would have enjoyed another 60 :).

 

Hank

[Flatbush Flyer]

We have been on a good number of 7 night cruises (all Caribbean), thinking we want to try something a good bit longer. What are the thoughts on cruises that are 15-20 nights long?

 

 

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At this point in my life (retired), anything less than two weeks would be a "boat ride." We rarely do cruises that are less than 3 weeks in duration (always including a mix of sea/port days) with start/end in different ports interesting enough to merit land stay extensions. Seldom will we be gone for less than a month and we generally prefer to not repeat ports if possible.* This maximizes the value of the airfare, allows us to scout potential locations for future land travel (e.g., Sicily) and "spend our children's inheritance" [emoji6].

BTW, once you're doing cruises of 2+ weeks, you'll find that the ship as a destination becomes a significant factor. Food quality and service, cabin amenities, passenger demographics all become very important considerations in planning.

*sometimes, repeating ports is inevitable. Our upcoming 38 day transpacific will include previous Polynesian and Hawaiian ports.

 

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[paul929207]

We take cruises that are anywhere from 20 to 50 days. None were too long.

[OCruisers]

An After a While .... Anything less than 14 days is way too short! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Nic6318]

We have been on a good number of 7 night cruises (all Caribbean), thinking we want to try something a good bit longer. What are the thoughts on cruises that are 15-20 nights long?

 

 

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hi

 

The main thing to remember is that if you are cruising across a large expanse of water, you really need to enjoy sea days. If you need to be entertained all the time, you might find yourself being bored.

[cb at sea]

I start getting tired of the food by the 8th night...even with all the choices on most ships, it all seems to take on a "sameness", to me. I don't think I'd do any longer than a 10 nighter....

[mom says]

The longest we've taken to date have been 14 nights, and they were great. We're doubling down on our next cruise- a B2B starting in the UAE and ending in Shanghai, with pre and post cruise stays. Total is around 35 days. I'm not sure how I'll feel about being away from home and family for that long, but can't wait to find out. :p

[champagne123]

Our longest has been 15 days...and we cannot WAIT until retirement next year to do MUCH longer voyages.

[lisiamc]

So far our longest is 35 nights, and we could have easily done many more. We like longer cruises on ships where they bring local foods on board, rather than just what corporate headquarters ships to the them for a standardised menu. If we’d were doing a bunch of 7 night b2bs, I think we’d get pretty tired of the same menu.

[XBGuy]

I start getting tired of the food by the 8th night...even with all the choices on most ships, it all seems to take on a "sameness", to me. I don't think I'd do any longer than a 10 nighter....

 

We have a similar problem, but we seem hit the wall around day 6. Until I had this epiphany I thought that I should not eat meals at port restaurants because I'd already paid for my meals on the ship. Then I realized that it was OK, heck, it was great, to have a few meals on shore, and skip the ship's dinner that night. So, now we look forward to Poke in Honolulu, Fish Tacos in Juneau, Ceviches and Empanadas in San Francisco.

[rdsxgrl28]

I start getting tired of the food by the 8th night...even with all the choices on most ships, it all seems to take on a "sameness", to me. I don't think I'd do any longer than a 10 nighter....

 

Same here, we love cruising but too many sea days can get tiresome. We will take long vacations combine land & sea. Few days before, few days after but 10 is max for us.

 

Maybe it will change after we retire

[GUT2407]

For me 15 days is a bit short.

 

30 is about right so far, but then that’s the longest I’ve done, and still didn’t want to go home.

[SmoothFlying]

We love the longer cruises.

 

We transitioned from a 7 day cruise to a 12 day cruise while I was working and when I retired we quickly went to 18 to 24 day cruises before eventually moving to longer ones.

 

It's a great feeling to be on for a longer cruise so that you can relax and enjoy it and not feel you have to do everything over a weeks time frame.

 

Keith

 

I'd LOVE too do a 10 or 15 day or longer cruise ! BUT..! Till the wife retires ( I did in 2013) it's almost impossible for her to get any vacation longer than a week at one time.:rolleyes: Sooo, IF she's able to retire first of next summer we can start longer cruises. In fact, I'd love to plan either a 10 or 15 day 'surprise retirement cruise' to either Alaska or Hawaii for her. But I'll have too see how the dough-ray-me situation looks like !:eek: As most OLD folks here know who also live on a fixed income other life needs have to come first. But I'm hoping that somehow we can manage that surprise summer cruise. I envy folks where money's no object and can do a B2B eight-ten months out of the year.

 

Mac

[SuiteTraveler]

For us, it's all about the ports so 14-15 nights is good but after that I start missing our dogs and am ready to get home.

[gerelmx]

You can do B2B's to make your vacation longer, we are doing B2B2B on the Eclipse Vancouver-Hawaii-Vancouver-Los Angeles for a total of 28 nights on board the ship.

[EGG]

We prefer 14 night cruises. Just remember if you enjoy the entertainment a back to back on the same ship repeats a lot of the entertainment. We recently did 28 days combining 14 day cruises on 2 entirely different cruiselines. 2 unique experiences and itineraries. (The second cruise was a trans Atlantic that happened to leave the day cruise 1 debarked. A great way for us to get home.)

 

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[GUT2407]

For us, it's all about the ports so 14-15 nights is good but after that I start missing our dogs and am ready to get home.

Funny you should say that, next year we have 35 night Hawaii cruise booked, not sure how I’ll go without my Max by my side. I know I’ll miss him, but I know he will be happy with Miss Gut and her Boof dog and she will send me photos regularly.

[jocap]

I start getting tired of the food by the 8th night...even with all the choices on most ships, it all seems to take on a "sameness", to me. I don't think I'd do any longer than a 10 nighter....

But if it's a cruise longer than a week, the menus usually change during the 2nd week, so it's different- even the speciality ones have menus A and B.

[jocap]

We have done a last minute 7 nighter with a very low price, but the journey to the port and back cost almost as much, so we look for ones around 2 weeks. We are on a 10 night one from a local port because of the itinerary round Iceland, but prefer longer. A month in cold January is our favourite.

[MicCanberra]

I think the optimum length of cruise is 2 weeks due to the way the itineraries generally work, nice amount of sea days and port days, that said, a B2B cruise of a two week and a one week cruise is also very good as long as you don't have the same itineraries.

[MicCanberra]

If it is a cruise doing all different ports than 3-4 weeks would be fine

[Sea Hag]

I don't know what would be too long for me, but I'd surely like to find out.