• No carrying luggage! Once you’ve boarded, you unpack one time, and then, (all too soon), pack up once to leave. Being able to hit multiple cities and countries without once carrying luggage frees you up for other, far more fun ways to get your steps in.
• Visiting many different locations!!! By definition, cruising takes you from place to place. I have heard an analogy to fine dining: if you travel to say, Rome, and stay for several days, that’s like visiting a restaurant and selecting one well-prepared meal. If you cruise to several ports, that’s more like choosing a restaurant known for its tasting menu. While the analogy isn’t perfect, it does feel right to me. And remember that in this case, if there is an item on the tasting menu that you want more of, you get to choose to do more of that in the future. 🙂 I value the variety of locations I can visit without the hassle of transportation in between those spots. There is not much better than going to sleep at night and being able to wake up the next day in a new, gorgeous spot on the planet.
• Visiting many different locations without making all the hotel reservations (and, let’s face it, there is some risk involved with making hotel reservations in places that you don’t know well).
• No worry about/wasting time finding a place to eat. While I love to dine out, the time involved in hunting down a suitable restaurant can eat into your day – and while on vacation, I really don’t need to miss happy hour because I walked around for an hour reading menus. Is that just me? On a cruise, the main dining room (which displays menus ahead of time) is the default, and you can always upgrade to specialty dining if you feel inclined.
• Entertainment is included. One of the best parts of cruising is the high-quality performances in the theater and the lounges. Typically, there is a range of musical performances along with comedians, illusionists, and possibly acrobats. This is something I now really miss when traveling on land. I’ve become accustomed to attending a show before or after dinner, or sometimes both! And yes, while larger ships may have actual Broadway shows, (seeing Six: The Musical on the Norwegian Bliss was amazing!) the shows on smaller ships are likely to feature a wildly talented cast and are a delightful way to spend part of the evening.
• Learning about a place, its history and culture. The process of doing this is simplified by joining a shore excursion (and no, these are not created equal!). We have had some fabulous guides on excursions, whether helping us understand the native culture in Ketchikan, Alaska, or explaining the way that history has shaped the island of Corfu, Greece. Most recently a tour in an eco-park in Honduras was made richer due to the native guide and her vast knowledge of botany. Shore excursions can compress weeks worth of reading and research into hours of delightful exploration.

So for me, cruising is an efficient way to see multiple locations without the hassle involved in managing separate reservations for each place, and includes the added benefits of entertainment and the ability to explore with a guiding hand. And I didn’t even mention the benefits of a fabulous room attendant and twice-daily housekeeping!

I think there are two common stereotypes that keep people from exploring cruising, and they are 1) you’ll be trapped on the ship, and, 2) you don’t get to really know a place that you only visit for a day. I would like to respond to #1 by saying that ships offer a wide variety of activities (you do not have to be on a mega-ship to have this) and I cannot imagine that you would run out of things to do and explore. You can enjoy a spa treatment, join a sing-a-long, go to a wine tasting, read a book that you brought, attend a concert, go to a cooking demonstration or class. And those are just MY favorites.

The criticism that cruise travel is merely superficial should be taken seriously – but, time in port can instead be a satisfying, deep dive, however brief the time spent. Planning ahead and reading about the ports of call can help you either to carefully choose a shore excursion, or to plan your own outing. If I do not know the language at all (in Croatia, for example), I am likely to opt for a cruise-line operated excursion. So, here is something that I find relevant: the cruise lines use local vendors for excursions. We have consistently had native, local tour guides with profound knowledge and a clear plan to share that with us efficiently in the few hours we have together. I know that on my own, it might take me days or weeks in a location to glean the knowledge I can get on a well-organized tour with guided, expert commentary. We have had the best luck with this in Europe, with guides who could relate historical knowledge and orient us to an appreciation of cultural treasures.

What are your thoughts?