People cruise a lot!

[arsenalboy]

We are all different, that's what makes the world go round?

 

We are seniors who are UK based and will be taking our third Celebrity cruise in May. We previously sailed P and O 25 years ago.

 

I find these boards fascinating and am constantly amazed when people say they have cruised over a hundred times or have a dozen cruises in the pipeline. You guys must be living on the vessels!

 

Interested to know the driving force behind taking so many cruises? I understand there are many places to go and many places to see. That could run up a couple of dozen cruises but there are many who claim multiples of that. Where do you get the time for so many each year?

 

Don't get me wrong I think taking a cruise is fabulous, but there are so many vacation experiences that cannot be had on a boat and so many places to visit that are nowhere near water.

 

Just curious? 

[Toftwood]

We are just getting into the time in our lives when we might look at taking four our five holidays each year and each one would be at least two weeks (which is still less than three months), so, yes those who talk about being afloat for what seems like half the year are so fortunate (and are also very good at planning).

[chemmo]

31 minutes ago, arsenalboy said:

We are all different, that's what makes the world go round?

 

We are seniors who are UK based and will be taking our third Celebrity cruise in May. We previously sailed P and O 25 years ago.

 

I find these boards fascinating and am constantly amazed when people say they have cruised over a hundred times or have a dozen cruises in the pipeline. You guys must be living on the vessels!

 

Interested to know the driving force behind taking so many cruises? I understand there are many places to go and many places to see. That could run up a couple of dozen cruises but there are many who claim multiples of that. Where do you get the time for so many each year?

 

Don't get me wrong I think taking a cruise is fabulous, but there are so many vacation experiences that cannot be had on a boat and so many places to visit that are nowhere near water.

 

Just curious? 

 

Years and mileage....

 

We are regular cruisers who have also always enjoyed a wide range of other holiday types including escorted tours, driving tours (independent), villa stays, all inclusive resorts....

 

As we have got older we have found tours (independent and escorted) where you are changing hotels daily or every other day increasingly more like hard work. We can enjoy for one or two days but not the long tours we once relished. We are no longer the really confident snorkelling swimmers either so AI beach destinations like the  Maldives have lost  some appeal....

 

We still enjoy city breaks but find 3/4 days adequate....Hence our move to enjoying more cruises. We can fly to a new (or much loved) city, enjoy a few hectic days then join a cruise and see more new or familiar places in comfort without packing and unpacking with excellent dining, entertaining and socialising opportunities. Then we can exit the ship and enjoy another city break or hire a car and extend our vacation with a short driving tour or book a villa and enjoy a week in the sun....

 

What’s not to like? 

Edited March 13, 2019 by chemmo

[Stateroom_Sailor]

Many are out to see new destinations, to connect with culture and scenery.  Some are there for the ship, and couldn't care less if there were any ports.  Others are there for exotic beaches and a break from the cold, different itineraries are not nessessary.

 

To get to your question, we're all hooked on cruising like cocaine.  😜  

[Cruise Raider]

48 minutes ago, arsenalboy said:

Interested to know the driving force behind taking so many cruises? I understand there are many places to go and many places to see. That could run up a couple of dozen cruises but there are many who claim multiples of that. Where do you get the time for so many each year?

 

 

We never even get into the most traveled passenger events on any of our cruises and that is with over 55 sailings under our belt.  

We started off saving like crazy for the first several sailings and would only plan one every year or two.  But now, cruising has become such a bargain vacation for us and we found that we just love everything about it.  Are we missing out on other important things to see?  Not for us ... there is really not much we enjoy as hanging out on deck and don't even make it a point to get off in every port we visit.  We ramped up our sailings to several per year (never more than 5, though) but now that we've retired and have a stricter travel budget, we cut that back down to 2 or 3 per year.  At the current time, we have 3 future sailings booked ... nowhere near the dozen or two that others have.  I would if my travel budget allowed it, though. I guess it all depends on your schedule, likes / dislikes, travel budget and responsibilities at home.  

[jelayne]

We have the time because we are retired.  We saved & invested while we were working.  

Took our first cruise almost 13 yrs ago after beating the big C.  Then for a couple of years after we took 2 cruises  Then 3 more battles with C between us.  Now we cruise 4-5 times a year.  Our motto is “Why put off seeing the world today, we don’t know if there is tomorrow.”

We have seen some of the Ancient Wonders of the World and most of the Modern Wonders of the World.  

We leave next week for tge Eclipse😄

[Covepointcruiser]

Now that we are retired we cruise twice a year and we don’t stick with Celebrity.   We love our home, family, church and volunteer activities so I can’t imagine being away from home that much.   However, we are still healthy and mobile.   Once we can no longer shop or cook meals cruising will become more attractive.   It is much cheaper than a nursing home!

[CHEZMARYLOU]

We are retired but stick to one cruise per year in a suite for a number of reasons. Our 1st cruise was in1997 and we are coming up on our 20th in November. A lot of the intervening years we took land  based vacations. Now it is just cruses.

[Ken the cruiser]

Like others, we just love cruising. We started back in 2012 on a HAL cruise and have tried a variety of lines since then. We started with 7 day cruises, but now we have to go for at least for 2 weeks; otherwise it's just not worth going. However, to keep from gaining too much weight, we stay off the elevators if at all possible, and walk at least 1.5 miles every day, whether it's on a promenade, a running track on top of the ship or in the hallways on poor weather days. Our goal is to go to all 7 continents and we love going to places where there are a lot of animals to see in their natural habitat.

[George C]

I started cruising when I was single and in my 20’s in the 70’s , 65 cruises later been married for last 50 cruises. Why we cruise is love the entertainment in general, and do not like to drive while on vacation since it interferes with drinking . Used to cruise in inside cabins now cruise in suites. 

[NantahalaCruiser]

1 hour ago, jelayne said:

We have the time because we are retired.  We saved & invested while we were working.  

Took our first cruise almost 13 yrs ago after beating the big C.  Then for a couple of years after we took 2 cruises  Then 3 more battles with C between us.  Now we cruise 4-5 times a year.  Our motto is “Why put off seeing the world today, we don’t know if there is tomorrow.”

We have seen some of the Ancient Wonders of the World and most of the Modern Wonders of the World.  

We leave next week for tge Eclipse😄

Congratulations on beating out the big C 4 times. Once was enough for me!

 

Happy Cruising

[jelayne]

19 minutes ago, NantahalaCruiser said:

Congratulations on beating out the big C 4 times. Once was enough for me!

 

Happy Cruising

Thanks❗️  3 for me 1 for DH.  One changes your prespective completely.  

Hope you are one and done, and have many more cruises in your future.

[reallyhooked]

 One a year until DH retired. After that it was 2 a year.

it’s contagious. Overall we enjoy meeting new people.

Arthritis is a pain, but we will keep going as long as we can. Leaving next week 

 

😊  

[clskinsfan]

We love sailing and ships. Period. That makes our choice in vacation easy. And although cruising has gotten more expensive over the past decade, we still feel like it is the best value in a vacation as long as you shop wisely. We will grab cabins when they are on sale. And we are not afraid to take different lines or grab a port hole room to save a few bucks either. We are sailing our first Celebrity cruise in May to Alaska. It is our 25th and we wanted to do something special. Being from the east coast and never being able to see Alaska before this cruise was our choice. And this is BY FAR the most we have ever spent on a cruise. But it is a special occasion after all. 

[Denny01]

After reading the other posts, I agree with lots of the reasons:

 - Not big on packing/unpacking to visit different places.

 - Enjoy being at sea, and with a relatively large group of people to met interesting people.

 - Enjoy at sea days and even not going ashore in certain ports 

 - Love the ship environment and just looking out a the sharp, clean horizon of the sea edge.

 

I spent 21 years in the US Navy and it took my wife 10 years to talk me into paying to go back to sea........and I’m the one who keeps getting us cruising.

 

We know sometime soon, we will not be nearly as agile to be able to take cruising vacations, so we do it now as much as possible.  We have a B2B on the Edge in 2 weeks; a river cruise up the Rhine in May; a TransAtlantic from Southampton to FLL in Oct and a New Years party cruise with our daughter and her friends, all this year. Crazy isn’t It.

 

And none of this is ‘just cruising’. We add time before or after the cruise to enjoy the area we are in. For the May river cruise, we will spend 4 days on our own in Amsterdam, 2 days in Basel, and train to Munich and spend a week there after the cruise. In Oct, we wil spend 8 days mainly in Cornwall area exploring before we go on the TransAtlantic. And that cruise spends overnight in NYC (go to a play!) and overnight in Bermuda - explore a wonderful island, which Isn’t a Caribbean island, its very unique!

 

So, yes we cruise and do it a lot. We are lucky to have the funds and now the time. We take our kids with us and do visit them on other times. But they know we plan these things well ahead and many of the cruises are repeat itineraries, but we do many other things than before.

 

Sometime in the future, I’ll be sitting at home, yelling at the TV and at those rotten kids stepping on my lawn. Until then, I’ll enjoy the world.....comfortably. 

 

Den

 

[DENIE]

Great post topic! 

 

We got off to a slow start, largely because we didn't have the income, and had other obligations.  However, we finally able to string 1 each in 2015, 2017 and 2018, and are booked for later 2019 and 2020.  So, about 1 per year.  We both still work full time and have other obligations as well, but enjoy cruising so much we have made it a priority.  We just enjoy all the places we have been able to go, even if you only spend a day.  One of the biggest reasons for cruising, for me, is that it sort of has the effect of taking a pencil eraser to the brain....being at sea is the one prescription that can take the every day job stress away.

 

Dale

 

 

[ginger123snaps]

We are in our 40's with 3 very active boys...ages 10, 10, 9.  They have been on 17 cruises.  We absolutely love it!  There is something for all of us!  We have time together and time apart that we all enjoy.  The kids programs are awesome!  We don't even care about the ports anymore....we go for the ship!  

 

We have tried other vacations...but cruising is soooo much easier with our boys!  No worries about food, entertainment, etc. We find other forms of travel stressful!  

 

Oh and my absolute favorite is my morning coffee with a book on the balcony!  I leave Saturday and we are sooooo excited!

[emmas gran]

For us its the places and travelling with friends if they suggest something to us--we tend to take longer cruises 3-4 weeks sometimes 6 we can be away from home up to 10 weeks every year. First cruise was 1991 QE2 transatlantic to New York and it got us hooked, although we don't do insides now like we did then and have now done 65 cruises.

We love retirement  

[chemmo]

9 hours ago, jelayne said:

We have the time because we are retired.  We saved & invested while we were working.  

Took our first cruise almost 13 yrs ago after beating the big C.  Then for a couple of years after we took 2 cruises  Then 3 more battles with C between us.  Now we cruise 4-5 times a year.  Our motto is “Why put off seeing the world today, we don’t know if there is tomorrow.”

We have seen some of the Ancient Wonders of the World and most of the Modern Wonders of the World.  

We leave next week for tge Eclipse😄

 

Firstly so pleased about your recovery. 

 

Also totally concur with your ‘living for today attitude’. Having out of the blue ended up  in intensive care a couple of years ago as a couple it was a ‘wake up call’ not to take anything for granted. Indeed after two recent surgeries I have cruised before hand and after as part of my recovery plan! When my doctor wouldn’t sanction flying we cruised from Southampton....

 

[mrsgoggins]

Firstly, I can't believe just how lucky we are.  Both of my parents died at the age I am now and never had the income to afford more than very modest holidays here in the UK - and not every year at that.  So from very humble beginnings, I regularly reflect on my good fortune and being born at the right time.

 

We have also been very lucky in that we have been able to afford great vacations throughout our married lives but there were a lot of places not seen and where I would not like to commit to a long holiday, eg we had never visited any of the Canaries, Greece or its islands.  We have now, thanks to cruising.  And I always hoped that we would see Alaska (cruise and inland) and the Norwegian Fjords - both ticked off.

 

I like cruising but I don't love cruising and still take many land-based holidays, or wrap one around a cruise.  I enjoy working on a touring itinerary and seeing new places where I wake up and see the place come alive, and walk around in the evening as it closes down - rarely an option on cruises.  When I next visit Dubrovnik or Venice, it will be out of season and only after I have checked that there are no large cruise ships in port that day ..... and that's why I don't love cruising despite appreciating its many benefits. 

 

 

[dani negreanu]

11 hours ago, chemmo said:

 

Years and mileage....

 

We are regular cruisers who have also always enjoyed a wide range of other holiday types including driving tours (independent), villa stays.

As we have got older we have found tours (independent) where you are changing hotels daily or every other day increasingly more like hard work. 

 

We still enjoy city breaks but find 3/4 days adequate....

 

This 😀

[Alushar]

Great topic! We are newbies just done our 6th cruise and have 2 booked in next year and counting the days.

 

We love cruising for lots of reasons but specifically it's taking your great 5* hotel which has great service, food and facilities, around the world with you, so on many days you wake up somewhere new. Many places are new, some we know like back of our hands but we love it.

 

We are still working so can only manage 2 cruises a year as we also follow a rugby team around the UK and Europe which results in probably 8 weekends away ranging from overnight to long weekends. We also need weekends for visitng friends (usually out of season Norfolk and Liverpool planned so far this year) and the occasional city break, though we did loads of those before we started cruising.

[h20skibum]

We do this on a more frequent basis, since we have retired.  We usually book 3 per year, but we also tie them in with some land based trips. 

 

We rent a house for a week each year to get the family together, then take a cruise after to relax. 

 

We we want to enjoy all our travel while we can, and have booked the first (of several, we hope) European cruises this year.  

Edited March 14, 2019 by h20skibum

[Sascol]

Great story related to this topic...

 

We were at a comedy show on our annual cruise about 5 years ago.  Comedian said, "how many people have cruised more than 5 times?"  About half the room raised their hands.  He kept asking higher numbers...More than 10 times? More than 20 times?  When he got to 50 times, only one couple was left with their hands up.  His question to them?  "WHY DON'T YOU JUST BUY A BOAT????"

 

[Orator]

"i'm Charles and I have an addiction to cruising"

Hii Charles"

"It's been 3 days since my last cruise and I want another soon".

I have a cruising addiction that I don't want to cure.