Question for past long (35+ day) cruisers: Why do you go on long cruises?

[hurleyjp13]

I've been on 15+ cruises and loved them.  Many were on Princess.  All the cruises I've  been on were 7-15 days, and  I'm  thinking about "graduating" to longer cruises.  I'm looking at Princess's Circle South America or a cruise from Singapore to Southampton.

 

If you've been on one of these longer cruises, I have some questions: 

• Why do you like longer cruises?  Anything you don’t like?
• How are long cruises different from shorter 7-14 day cruises?
• Is there a social community that forms onboard when you spend so much time together?
• Does Princess do anything special on longer cruises?
• Any tips when considering your first long cruise?

 

Thank you for your help!

[beg3yrs]

We take fewer but longer cruises. With our horses and other pets, the preparation required to go away is quite a bit. As such, we want to get the most for our preparation and go on longer cruises.

 

We love the longer cruises as well. The crew gets to know you and you know them as well as the other passengers. After a while it starts to feel like family. You start calling your cabin, "home".

 

Yes, you will meet "birds of a feather" who you gel with. You find their habitual schedules match with yours and you end up meeting often on board.

 

Except for World Cruises, I haven't noted Princess doing anything "special" for the longer cruises. While we haven't yet done the World Cruises, we've been told the entertainment and lecturers tend to be upgraded.

 

Be sure to be connected over the Internet so you can make sure your bills are paid and so on. We upgrade our phone calling plans to make international calling less expensive when on shore. Our carrier (AT&T) doesn't have any special deal with Princess for onboard calling.

[Cruise2End]

You actually can relax more on a longer cruise.    We’ve done about 30 day cruises on both larger and smaller ships.   The smaller ships are more intimate but can also seem more confining if you have rough sea days.    I am assuming you have Elite status.   Most long cruises are sold as one cruise or 2 or more segments.    The good thing is you will obtain more internet minutes on each “segment “, and if elite, another mini bar (or whatever you’re choosing in its place).  However, keep in mind, people will be disembarking and others embarking at the end of each segment, possibly new table mates, and also possible repeats of menus and entertainment shows.    

[mexicobob]

I am also interested in what people think of longer cruises.  Thanks for future information.

[Waynetor]

My wife and I do 2 types of longer cruises.  First is multiple B2B adding up to a couple months just to get away from winter.  Second is the grand voyage type you are looking at.

 

We enjoy grand voyages as you can see a lot of an area without having to do multiple flights to cover the same area.  The cost per day for the flight is lower when spread out over a longer trip.  A downside of when you start getting over 60 days is the ports can start to blend in and it is easy to forget just what you did and where you did it. Grand voyages tend to have a higher percent sea days than shorter voyages so you have to enjoy them.

 

Grand voyages tend to have more mature travelers as they have more time available and a high percent will be elite passengers.  There will be very few children and not a lot of first timers.

 

Roll calls for grand voyages tend to be a lot more active than on shorter voyages.  If the roll call does several private tours, participants tend to bond more even a when on the ship.  If you are a social butterfly there is lots of opportunity to make new friend but if you prefer to spend time on your balcony and have a table for 2 every night that is also fine.  The smaller the ship, the more likely there will be social bonding.  You also get to know some of the crew better which some people like. 

 

We did 48 days on the Ocean Princess where there was only fixed time dining.  We were lucky that we had great tablemates but I would not want to do fixed time if it can be avoided due to possible table mates issues - if bad enough you can ask to be reassigned.

 

There are a lot less Princess production shows on a grand voyage. - each show is done once per segment but the dancer groups only have so many shows they can do.  

 

While Oceania has several events just for those doing a full world cruise I have not seen anything special on a grand voyage on Princess.

 

One tip is don't over pack - determine the type of weather to expect and plan for that.  We get by with 2 weeks of outfits and use the free laundry we get.  Another tip is if you are going to an area you are unlikely to get back to, investigate each port so that you end up doing the most important excursions. 

 

 

 

 

[Kartgv]

We've done several almost that long - 26, 34 (both B2B's) and 29.   We picked them because they got us where we wanted to go with less flying time than we'd have to do with several shorter cruises.    There does seem to be more activity in the roll calls for longer cruises.   We've also found people are more likely to strike up conversations and friendships when they know they have more time together onboard.   

 

As far as tips are concerned...

If you have lots of consecutive sea days, make sure to load up a Kindle or other device with lots of books.    

We also take Sudoku and crossword puzzle books.

 

Pack as you would for a 7-10 day cruise, do or send out laundry and wear things multiple times.    The exception is supplies like personal care items and medical supplies - finding replacements onboard or even in ports could be very costly or almost impossible to find what you need.   

 

Pre-pay all your bills and make sure to safeguard your home while you're gone.

 

Make sure you have adequate medical and evacuation insurance.

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Kartgv

[reedprincess]

We've moved to longer and longer cruises as our airfare is so ridiculous that anything less than 2 weeks isn't worth the flight - and two weeks is a bare minimum to make it worthwhile...

Longer cruises - if a single voyage - definitely have an older demographic,  so we are well out of the average age - but find plenty of interesting and enjoyable folks t o spend time with. More time to explore the ship and try new things,  befriend a crew member or three, relax, etc.  

Back to backs work well too, your passenger lineup tends t be a bit younger, and  changes much more often obviously,  and crew can be a little less. Approachable as they're moving around more often, having to learn new people more often, etc.  It's a trade-off.  

Either way, we won't do less than 14 nights,  and even that is often too short...

[AVCruzers]

Aside from agreeing with the other comments, with the longer cruises, you will possibly have more sea days which we really enjoy.  Sometimes a shorter port intensive cruise can be exhausting.  We have take the South Pacific 28 day cruise twice from LA and have fond memories of each cruise.  

[paul929207]

I have to agree with the above comments. We love the relaxed atmosphere on the longer cruises. Days of the week and dates become meaningless. Few people know which day it is.

[skynight]

21 hours ago, hurleyjp13 said:

I've been on 15+ cruises and loved them.  Many were on Princess.  All the cruises I've  been on were 7-15 days, and  I'm  thinking about "graduating" to longer cruises.  I'm looking at Princess's Circle South America or a cruise from Singapore to Southampton.

 

If you've been on one of these longer cruises, I have some questions: 

• Why do you like longer cruises?  Anything you don’t like?
• How are long cruises different from shorter 7-14 day cruises?
• Is there a social community that forms onboard when you spend so much time together?
• Does Princess do anything special on longer cruises?
• Any tips when considering your first long cruise?

 

Thank you for your help!

Our long cruises are mainly b2b's of 30 or more days, but we have been on a 31 day from Sydney to L.A., 28 day RT South Pacific, two South America plus return to the U.S. plus some Trans Atlantics connected with Med and Baltic voyages. We enjoyed them all. Most had legs that were not port intensive. Don't know if I could handle a long port intensive cruise with lots of tours. Would get to tired. We love the routine of the ship, the relaxing time on board, on b2b's the ability participate in on board activities at you pace, dining at all the different locations, not just the DR's. The staff gets to know you and you know them.

[silvercruiser]

We loved long cruises for the same reasons everyone has mentioned.   The ship truly feels like 'home' and luckily, we loved the sea days.   It's just a way of life if you cruise often.   I've spent over 900 days at sea and loved every minute of it.

[floridalover5623]

After 30 days I'd be pulling my hair out 1 strand at a time. There's only so much I can take of a good thing before it becomes boredom. 

[gooch47]

My two cents might not count since our longest was 28 days.  But about halfway through that one I was ready to go home.  It was fairly port intensive (the Australia Circumnavigation one) and even though we were a lot younger, it was very tiring.

[Hlitner]

We consider 35 days to be a medium length cruise and prefer something closer to 60 days.  But other cruise lines often have better itineraries then Princess for the really long cruises.  That being said we will try to answer some of the questions raised by the OP.  After we retired (13 years ago) we started increasing the length of our cruises until we finally went over 60 days (on HAL).  After that first 62 day cruise, on the last evening, DW said to me, "I could do another 62."  Perhaps that says it all.

 

The long cruises do allow more opportunities to form new and lasting friendships.  Bonding with crew members is also more common and adds to the enjoyment of the voyage.  We find that the longer cruises are much more relaxing because folks just naturally slow down, don''t try to cram things into a few nights, don't get concerned about missing something, etc.  On Princess there really isn't much different on longer cruises since this line tends to consider those cruises as a series of shorter cruises.  So if you were to do a 35 day cruise it might have a 17 and 18 day segments.  So Princess will repeat things (such as production shows) on each segment.  And its the same with dining room menus in that they may be repeated in each segment.  On lines such as HAL or Cunard where they truly consider it a 35 day cruise (for example) they will not generally repeat shows.  On our 62 day HAL cruise they did not repeat one production show and we never had the same dinner menu twice...although they certainly served items numerous times...but just revamped the menu options.  As a result, those who love production shows will be disappointed.  If the entertainers are trained to do 4 main shows that is what you will get on a 30 or even a 60 day cruise.  Other nights have to be filled with Guest Entertainers or they might even have some "dark nights" with no main shows.

 

Hank

 

[compozer]

The longer the better for me.    Same with land vacations, if we are going where we need to fly, we might as well stay as long as possible.   Why take two short trips  with airfares  being so high the past year or so.   With so many flights being delayed, cancelled because of numberous reasons, we have started flying in 2 days at a minimum to FLL.   On ta's,  we have gone to the departure city four or five days early - our winters are getting worse.   I like to do b2b's or b2b2b's.   Such a wonderful feeling when you see the hallways full of luggage and you can stay out late because you don't have to pack.   And the next morning is so nice just watching people and not being sad that have to get off.

Being able to travel whenever you want is the best benefit of being old.  Not sure if there really are any other ones. 

[hurleyjp13]

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.  Definitely makes me want to do do one of these longer cruises.

 

I may ask a similar question on the HAL or Cunard board to see what folks there think.  It sounds like other lines might do more special planning for longer cruises (eg. no repeating menus or production shows).

[Cowbell Kingdom]

We keep eyeing long cruises.  Our primary motivation is the amortized cost. We were looking at one that was $65,000 per person. Yea...that's a lot of coin, but when it was broken down per nights aboard, it was really quite reasonable when you figured it was your hotel, travel, and food. It was less than a night at a Hyatt in most cities! So we figured it would be a great way to see a large chunk of the world. At least the edges....LOL! You don't get very far inland on a cruise..... 

Maybe someday we will have the money and 6 months to spend aboard a cruise ship.

.....now where DID I put that PowerBall ticket.....??????

[oldracer]

We love cruising and will be platinum on Princess this month but we took a 30 day cruise from Australia to LAX last spring. Plenty of ports, New Zealand, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Pago Pago, Hawaii but the five sea days in a row was not good. We've decided to keep trips to 20 days or less.