Could you give up cruising.....?

[babs135]

For a year if it meant that you could afford the budget busting cruise you've always fancied?  Like a lot of people we have a budget in mind when we book a cruise and that budget does allow for some 'stretching', but there are a number of cruises that I've always fancied doing that go way beyond any stretching.  So, can I (and you) manage a whole year, or maybe 18 months, without cruising?  

 

[MBP&O2/O]

Yup ... save up fot two years ir so. Easier on the CC as well.🙂

Having said that I think my next will be my last. 😏  

Just can't justify the expense.

[CDNPolar]

Nope.  We are hooked / addicted to cruising.  We keep talking about cheaper options but we always end up booking another cruise.

 

We sacrifice a lot of other things to afford to cruise and we like to cruise on at least the Premium lines.

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, babs135 said:

For a year if it meant that you could afford the budget busting cruise you've always fancied?  Like a lot of people we have a budget in mind when we book a cruise and that budget does allow for some 'stretching', but there are a number of cruises that I've always fancied doing that go way beyond any stretching.  So, can I (and you) manage a whole year, or maybe 18 months, without cruising?  

I think I could do it without much issue. Recall that the cruise industry was recently shut down for about 15 months with barely any cruising. That was the cause of my longest gap between cruises since I started cruising, which in my case was 20 months. 

 

I also recently broke a streak of nearly 4 years without sailing on one of my favorite cruise lines. I know, it's not quite the same as not sailing at all, but it did feel extended at the time.

 

I'm thankful to be able to afford most adventures as the come, and hope that I can continue to do so. 🙏

[Essiesmom]

I did for nearly two years when I built a house.  EM

[navybankerteacher]

I would prefer not to give up anything, but seem to have reached the point of seriously cutting down.  Up until a few years ago, it was three or four cruises per year but as ships got bigger and more crowded and generally devolved, I started to feel that cruises were giving me up.  The likes of HAL and Celebrity (certainly since 20 years ago) became more like Royal Caribbean and a bit like Carnival and NCL. So now it’s one or two cruises on lines like Azamara, Oceania Seabourn and Windstar — I doubt I will sail on a mainstream  line again - they just do not any longer provide what they did in the past.

 

 Paying for what I want means getting less of it.

[ontheweb]

We went from July 2018 to August 2023.

 

In 2019 instead of a cruise we took a land vacation to Peru including Machu Picchu. In 2020 we had a Norwegian fjords cruise booked for the summer, but we all know what happened to those cruises. In 2021, we saw an itinerary we really wanted and booked it, but the ship was still being built so the cruise was not until 2023. (When we first saw it and did not realize it would be so long until it sailed, we thought it would be perfect for our 45th anniversary in 2022.)

[TwinMamainMN]

Yes, we could give up cruising for a year. We like to travel lots of ways, not just cruising, so giving up cruising would just mean traveling another way (RVing or flying and doing a land based trip).

[DarrenM]

3 hours ago, babs135 said:

For a year if it meant that you could afford the budget busting cruise you've always fancied?  Like a lot of people we have a budget in mind when we book a cruise and that budget does allow for some 'stretching', but there are a number of cruises that I've always fancied doing that go way beyond any stretching.  So, can I (and you) manage a whole year, or maybe 18 months, without cruising?  

 

Due to wrok and holiday restrictions, I only do one cruise a year. Its my main holiday.

 

Couldnt really find the time to do more.

[cruisemom42]

I could give up cruising for a year or more, but I would not be willing to give up TRAVEL altogether for that period of time.

 

Time marches on, and things happen in the world. If nothing else, Covid showed us that travel is not a "given". World events point to the possibility of not being able to travel where we want and when we want at all times. And not to be morbid, but my grandmother (who loved to travel but worked) had planned a retirement full of travel -- she retired at 65 and died a couple of years later....

 

For these reasons, I intend to travel as much as I can while I am able to do so.

 

[navybankerteacher]

1 minute ago, cruisemom42 said:

I could give up cruising for a year or more, but I would not be willing to give up TRAVEL altogether for that period of time.

 

Time marches on, and things happen in the world. If nothing else, Covid showed us that travel is not a "given". World events point to the possibility of not being able to travel where we want and when we want at all times. And not to be morbid, but my grandmother (who loved to travel but worked) had planned a retirement full of travel -- she retired at 65 and died a couple of years later....

 

For these reasons, I intend to travel as much as I can while I am able to do so.

 

Yes - it is important to carpe that diem.

[Hlitner]

Nope.  We are addicted to cruising (and increasingly addicted to the luxury lines) and need our "cruise fix" at least 70 days a year!  And we do get restless in years when we spend fewer than 100 days on ships.  My warning to young cruisers is that it is truly addicting, and as you grow older and try some of the premium/luxury lines it becomes increasingly difficult to go back to the so-called mass market ships.  

 

Give up cruising?  Not until at least 1 foot is in the grave.   We once cruised on the Prinsendam and helped a fellow passenger celebrate his 102nd birthday.  My hero!

 

Hank

[9tee2Sea]

I really do not enjoy driving, especially on strange roads.  Cruising , for me is a way to see far off places, and feel comfortable in a shore excursion.  I could give it up, ( it is becoming much more expensive).  Im getting to the point in life where I would rather travel more in the USA, than overseas.  Fly to a state, use public transport to get around, no need to learn new language.  Definitely wound NOT rent a car.  That's what I say now, after coming off a 15 day cruise just last month.  

[lenquixote66]

I am totally disabled and have not been able to cruise since 2019.

[clo]

4 hours ago, TwinMamainMN said:

Yes, we could give up cruising for a year. We like to travel lots of ways, not just cruising, so giving up cruising would just mean traveling another way (RVing or flying and doing a land based trip).

Absolutely. I'm getting a REAL urge to go to NYC and then maybe up the coast to Montreal/Quebec. And eating great food.

[clo]

1 hour ago, 9tee2Sea said:

I really do not enjoy driving, especially on strange roads.  Cruising , for me is a way to see far off places, and feel comfortable in a shore excursion.  I could give it up, ( it is becoming much more expensive).  Im getting to the point in life where I would rather travel more in the USA, than overseas.  Fly to a state, use public transport to get around, no need to learn new language.  Definitely wound NOT rent a car.  That's what I say now, after coming off a 15 day cruise just last month.  

I've thought about a Canadian train trip.

[cruiseryyc]

After 15 cruises, I gave it up totally about 10 years ago.  Once those awful huge mega ships started showing up, I was outta there.  I liked cruising and watching the ocean; not sitting on an amusement park on the water!

[navybankerteacher]

38 minutes ago, clo said:

I've thought about a Canadian train trip.

The Via Rail “Canadian”, Toronto to Vancouver, has comfortable accommodations and decent food.  We’ve also taken the “Ocean” , Halifax to Montreal.  I suppose you could cobble together a true trans-continent ride by adding something from Montreal to Toronto.

[clo]

2 minutes ago, navybankerteacher said:

The Via Rail “Canadian”, Toronto to Vancouver, has comfortable accommodations and decent food.  We’ve also taken the “Ocean” , Halifax to Montreal.  I suppose you could cobble together a true trans-continent ride by adding something from Montreal to Toronto.

Thanks for that. Quite a few years ago we did a Rocky Mountaineer train trip only from Vancouver to Jasper, coach down to Banff and train back to Vancouver. We stayed in hotels at night so missed none of the scenery. Loved it.

[clo]

I thought about this for truly a long time and am going to give a brief summary. Some people here have talked about cost. Some in relationship to their getting older. It's a definite factor in any pretty big ticket item we spend on. Based on my late mother-in-law's experience we have long thought about senior living residence (and on to assisted living and memory care). I doubt that there's a single one - and I'm talking about pretty nice - that's under $50k/yr. And way, way higher than that. You can easily hit $100k and that's without the assisted part. So we met with our financial planner and he gave us an annual budget including that. Gratefully we haven't needed it yet. Okay, that's it. Thanks for 'listening.'

[cruisemom42]

2 hours ago, cruiseryyc said:

After 15 cruises, I gave it up totally about 10 years ago.  Once those awful huge mega ships started showing up, I was outta there.  I liked cruising and watching the ocean; not sitting on an amusement park on the water!

 

Curious, if you haven't cruised in 10 years, what keeps you coming back to Cruise Critic? (Honest question, not trying to be snarky.)

 

[cruiseryyc]

18 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Curious, if you haven't cruised in 10 years, what keeps you coming back to Cruise Critic? (Honest question, not trying to be snarky.)

 

I sometimes wonder that myself🤣

[mom says]

Back to the actual topic - BTDT. Been there, done that. Got the T shirt. Several times. We have a set travel budget per year. On quite a few occasions  over the years we've wanted to do either a cruise or land trip that exceeded our limit, so we saved up until we could go. Fortunately we've reached a place in our lives where our budget has increased enough, and the bucket list has shrunk enough that we no longer need to defer travel on that score.

[olemissreb]

If you look at my signature, you can see that I regularly go a year or more without cruising. I'll be back on a ship in March '25 and can't wait.  Much as I love cruising, I also like variety so this year is a land based vacay in Key West. I haven't been there before, so I'm looking forward to it (almost as much as the cruise).

[Nebr.cruiser]

We could and in fact have for almost a year--not to save up for a big cruise, but because DH has developed back problems.  We've already cancelled a South America cruise last Dec. and Med this May.

 

But we probably wouldn't do it just for a 'special' cruise, meaning I guess either very exotic or very expensive, or both.  We've been lucky to visit many wonderful locations, cruising or not, and although I still have my bucket list, I can't complain about the amount of trave we've done.

 

Cruising is still high on the list as we age due to comfort and convenience.  A recent quick trip with 14+ hour days in the car and hauling luggage in and out of hotels was a wake-up call!  We don't handle that as well as a few years ago.