How has your cruise experience evolved over time?

For you experienced cruisers out there…We recently finished our 4th Royal cruise (5th overall) and this one had a little different feel to it. We were still very busy in ports, but on sea days, we didn’t do much during the day. We basically sat by the Solarium pool and relaxed. While we greatly enjoyed the relaxation, it felt a little like we were missing out on something. There was a certain excitement that wasn't there. There just wasn’t anything scheduled though that could lure us away from the pool.

I’m wondering if this is natural as we start to reach the “been there done that” phase, or if we’re just getting older and value relaxation over activity, or if it’s because there are less things available to do (or some combination of all of the above). While there is no question that we are definitely getting older, my wife and I both think that there were more activities available onboard in the past. The activities listed in the Cruise Compass now take less than a page. We don’t have older Cruise Compasses lying around but we both recall there being a couple of pages worth of things to do.

How has your cruise experience evolved over time? Do you still get excited about onboard activities, or is it more about relaxation?

For us, a vacation has always been about a certain amount of "relaxation"...so we've never felt we needed to stay busy from morn till night...do everything, see everything, schedule everything...we've never been into the "activities"....

What WE do hasn't really changed. The overall experience has, tho!

Being able to sit back and do nothing (unless I want to :D) is one of the things I love about cruising!

After 55 cruises we definitely have the been there, done that attitude. We have been taking suites for years and find we spend more time in the cabin and on the balcony than out and about the ship. We no longer rush to make a show. If we see it great, if not, no big deal. I can't recall anything during the day exciting enough to make an effort to get there. We also order lots of room service.

In the Caribbean ports we generally go to the beach and spend even more time relaxing.

We enjoy the night time activities, but sea days have always been about relaxing by the pool for me. We only cruise in the cold weather months and I love sitting by the pool with my books and feeling the glorious sun.

During the day it's all about relaxing in the solarium, sundeck, cabana or bakcony with a good book or music. The activities offered on the ship during the day really don't appeal to me anymore. I still like to explore the ports, but the evening activities are what appeal to me most. A predinner drink, a nice dinner and a show followed by a lounge is what I still like. Going on the Allure the 1st time was overwhelming with all the choices for evening activities, but on the 2nd sailing we took it easy and only repeated the specialty restaurants and the comedy show and the headliner. I look forward to even more relaxing on the Liberty of the seas.

We have become very "self directed" in recent years. Sometimes we feel like dinner in the MDR, sometimes.....not so much. We might find ourselves at the WJ or specialty dinning. Might hit the concierge lounge, diamond lounge, both or neither. Sea days spent at the solarium or our room/balcony. One thing that we always will do the same is get a cabana at Barefoot beach in Labadee.

Oasis cruise compass is two pages, one day, one night

After 25 cruises or so we have relaxed into some patterns. We still love pre dinner drinks, meeting new people, good conversation at dinner and the shows. But on sea days we relax. Sometimes we do activities in the am but the afternoon is always reading, napping in the solarium or if it is noisy we retreat to our balcony. No more sexy legs or belly flops. For the most part we don't like the big pool. Just too much noise. We cruise to relax right now since both our jobs are high stress. We joke about how good the vacation is by how many books we read. We are still active at the ports even though we have been many times. We always find something new to do or revisit places we really enjoyed before.

At the beginning, it was wonderful. Now (for me), it has definitely become a "been there, done that" experience.

If it's a Caribbean cruise, 90% of the time you can find us on our balcony or just roaming the ship. After awhile, the islands start looking the same.

If it's a European cruise, we'll be in the ports during the day. When we get back to the ship its all about relaxing so we are fresh for the next port.

If it weren't for my husband "itching" for a cruise, I probably wouldn't be taking them as often as I do.

Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people (like my husband) love the relaxation and being able to tune out from the world entirely; however I'm now more interested in taking land vacations.... see landlocked countries and have more than six hours to explore the cities. :)

Our most recent cruise to Alaska was amazing. Our first time to Alaska and also on HAL. I feel like a first time experience is always more exciting and new than repeat visits or repeat sailings on the same ships. I did everything that I wanted to and had lots of time on the balcony/decks. When it comes to vacations it is all about me. I don't like traveling with other people as they have their own agendas and that is ok. I just don't like to feel obligated. I always take a highlighter for the compasses so I don't miss what I am interested in doing. I love cruising. There are so many places and things that I want to experience still. We only have 10 cruises under our belts. 1 Alaskan & the rest Caribbean. We have one more S. Caribbean booked then we will start looking at other itineraries.

After 25 cruises I find that each one is different. On some cruises I try everything. Then on other cruises I just relax, take in the breezes, the food,

the people, and the sand. I still get excited by the details before the cruises (airports, hotels, shuttles) but once I am on that ship, awwwwww!

I guess I have evolved to know what I like. I have an intense paperwork-heavy somewhat solitary job. So what I find relaxing and energizing is the liveliness, the music, the pool deck with its endless cast of characters. This is just what others try to avoid, I know, but it's completely different from my regular life and it's what I enjoy, even if it's a bit on the silly side Schedule a belly flop contest and I'm there like Smokey the Bear.

Sent from my LG-D801 using Forums mobile app

Being able to sit back and do nothing (unless I want to :D) is one of the things I love about cruising!

Us too! I think after so many cruises and especially after you get to a certain age. :rolleyes:

I find that I like just hanging around the balcony or roaming around the ship. One thing I would change, if I could, would be the shops on the ship. It seems like it is always the same old stuff. I would buy more "stuff" if there was more variety. Rotate inventory in and out of shops. I miss the private diamond dining areas for breakfast where we connected with many interesting people, but do enjoy some good conversation at the concierge or diamond lounges. We enjoy the shows after dinner and various lounges. We always enjoy the ports, but don't care for labadee anymore. Liked it when it was more like coco cay. Like the freedom to enjoy my vacation my way.

We LOVE cruising, started 7 years ago and will shortly be going on our 21st, all with Royal. Our first cruise was on Freedom and I remember being overwhelmed and almost worn out feeling we had to do something all the time or we were missing out, since then we have become very relaxed, we've done port intensive and also Transatlantics with lots of lovely sea days, our last cruise was a TA and we hardly got off the ship, we only went to the Windjammer for dinner and Giovanni's so skipped the MDR altogether. The previous poster has a point about the compass, I recently came across an old one from an Independence cruise and it was loaded with activities, seemed to be many more than they have now and a lot of them can have an additional charge. We have 4 future cruises booked but as we've been lucky enough to try all the different classes we are looking at Celebrity as there are the reciprocal benefits there.