Days at Sea vs. Ports of Call

[captainron]

3 May 2006, Coral does her Grand Canal voyage and we have 9 days at sea, 9 ports...a good balance.

It'll be a pleasant change from the neverending rush of get ashore/get onboard with the 7 day trips in the Caribbean.

 

Ciao for now!!!

[Miramar]

For me, the more ports the better! The main thing I like about cruising is being able to sample different ports. If I go to a port and love it, I can go back for an extended stay or if we stop somewhere and don't like it for whatever reason, then I know not to invest my vacation time there in the future. For me, the ship is mostly a mode of transportation (it's very nice and all, but is still mostly a way to get between islands for me). Besides, I love being busy and running around; I don't really like "relaxing".

[Druke I]

Tough poll to vote as written.

 

Sea day lover here, but I do like a sprinkling of ports here and there.

 

Some itineraries are very port intensive (Baltic, Med, Caribbean, etc), and never have enough sea days for me.

 

Some of the trans-Pacifics, with perhaps 7 straight sea days don't appeal to some people - I love them.

[catdancers]

I vote for 3 or fewer ports on a 7 day cruise. We've been on 3 different Princess cruises where one port got cancelled due to weather and we were actually relieved! We love the sea days.

[CL-JW]

We prefer an even mix of sea & port days.

[dbmiller1956]

I would be happy if the ship stayed at sea for 7 days on a seven day cruise.

 

Count me in on that. Dh and I have commented how we could lay around the ship, go to the casino and spend more money, swim in the pool, take in some spa treatments, enjoy some shows, even finally get to one of those art auctions...if they didn't have ports.:D

[Commodore Suzy]

All sea days for me too!

[vacationhappy]

Depends on the destination. If we are taking a beach oriented cruise then we like an equal number of beach and at sea days. If we are going to a destination to tour like Alaska or Europe, we prefer to tour a few days and then a have sea day - 3:1 ratio.

[princess44]

Having taken 5 cruises in 2 years I thought that our first on Princess would be a 'piece of cake'. I did plenty of research on the ship, ports of call, excursions thru Princess and independant ones. I also went and booked the premium wedding vow renewal package. The one thing that excited me most was getting to see 5 ports in 7 days. Even though we had been to St Thomas twice and Aruba once, I thought it would be a relativley easy, relaxing week. It's a month since the cruise and it's just starting to hit me, there was so much of the ship I never got to enjoy. With a good part of each day spent on excursions, and the wedding, the bridge tour, our massage, we really only got to relax on our last day at sea. I'm starting to rethink our next cruise, and maybe do one with only 3 ports. What does everyone else think? On a 7 day cruise, what would you prefer?

Definitely more sea days! I do like the ports, but really enjoy the relaxation and activities on the ship!

[Guest Host Tink]

I have to agree with the OP's here, the more days at sea the better, when I cruise, I want to "get away from it all", not "see it all", so I love to sit out on my balcony and just watch the water go by.

[Once Upon A Time]

Our favorite cruise was crossing the Pacific from Vancouver to Honolulu with 5 days in a row at sea. What a relaxing vacation!!! Nowdays when you go into a port with all the mega-ships it's just horrible. We were recently in Cayman when 8 ships were in port....it was a mess, impossible traffic, rude people, crowded shops, long waits for anything you wanted...we went back to the ship and relaxed. :eek:

[nanlaur]

Four ports of call are good for us. We are shopaholics and at some places we just get off and shop for part of the day and go back to the ship and enjoy almost having the whole pool to ourselves.

 

We usually book excursions at 2 of the 4 ports on a 7-day (depending where we go). This year our itinerary got switched and we ended up with two days in a row with excursions. However, we ended up doing a "drive-by" of Grand Cayman because it was too rough to tender us in. We were kind of relieved to not have two active days in a row. Vacationing can be soooo exhausting, doncha know ;)

[cruzbabe]

I personally prefer 2 where on a seven day cruise you have at least a day or 2 in between the two.

[prophotogirl]

Gotta Love those SEA DAYS! 3 ports is good enough for me on a 7 days cruise.

[kryos]

I voted for three ... assuming a seven-day cruise. Of course, most of the cruises (especially the Caribbean ones) have four, but one of those is Princess Cays which is nothing more than a laze around day.

 

Maybe I'm just getting old quick, but I tire after too many port days in a row. True, you can stay on the ship ... no one is forcing you to get off ... but somehow I feel guilty when I do that. It almost seems that I am "wasting" my cruise by not getting out there and exploring. So, after a couple of days of this, fatigue sets in. It's nice to have a sea day after no more than two port days in a row in order to recharge one's batteries.

 

That's the only problem I found with the Hawaii itinerary. Of course, there's no way around it ... but five port days in a row with all those sea days at the front and back almost didn't make sense. After those five port days, you were exhausted. It would have been nice to have somehow put a sea day in the middle of them, but of course ... I doubt there was any way that could be done without extending the cruise by a day ... and thus the cost.

 

But in the Caribbean, interleaving a sea day between a couple of port days is readily doable, and those are the itineraries I like best.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[AzTraveler]

Since we just came off the Hawaii cruise that Rita mentioned previously, I would have liked much better to have only made 4 stops with a sea day in between. Having 5 ports of call in 5 days seems to be a little much. Princess has so many activities on board plus it would let you rest up for the next excursion - it would have been nice. The overall cruise would have been the same lenght etc.
Harold

[dwelsh]

The cruise from Venice to Ft. Lauderdale on board the Star was great.
After leaving Venice, a day at sea around the "boot" of Italy, a day on the Amalfi coast, a tour of the Etruscan country near Rome, a visit to the French Riviera, a day at sea cruising the French and Spanish coasts, Barcelona, Cadiz, Lisbon, a couple of days at sea before a morning in the Azores before a glorious 7 day crossing on flat seas to Florida.

NOW, THAT'S WHAT I CALL CRUISING.
Doing it agin this year on the Radisson Voyager.

[MGilly]

I love the idea of LOTS of ports of call! No one is holding a gun to my head saying I HAVE to get off at all the ports, so I can really have as many sea days as I want - and as much time as I want in different ports, too.

We're booked on a 7-night cruise in December with 5 ports of call. Most of them are really only half days in port, so I figure we'll end up spending some days with only a morning in port and the entire afternoon sailing on the ship to our next destination. It's something for everyone!

[NitaBcruising]

I like many port days! I love to see new places, or another tour or beach on a return to a port. But, after reading the comments here, I can now understand why the cruiselines have so many ships that sail with only 3 ports on their 7 day Caribbean sailings! Those aren't my favorite, but you folks have enlightened me! :D

[kevinsac]

Thank goodness for variety of opinions, else we'd all get bored with one another. There is no pat answer, as we can read above. I did not answer the poll, because I think it was lacking a key element: how many days is this hypothetical cruise?

I know that the number of ports visited is the a selling point for some: the more ports, the more "bling" the cruise has.

On a 7-day cruise, I'd love 2 ports, no more than 3 ports. IMHO, I love crossing the Atlantic or, even more so, the Pacific, because it gives us more sea days. I have even gone so far as to enjoy an "empty" ship while in port--let everyone else get off and enjoy the land-based activites....I'll enjoy some solitude on board. What's also nice on the longer cruises...maybe 2 days in a port, where you have the chance to really explore.

This fall will be my first Princess cruise. It's 18 days on board, with only 6 ports. YIPPEE! We have single sea days at the beginning and end of the cruise--but we also have 5 consecutive sea days travelling from Alaska to Russia. The idea of sitting in a corner, reading, watching some DVDs, napping, eating, and starting all over again is sheer bliss. :D That balance of sea -vs- land days is why we choose this itinerary.

[Ethel5]

I love sea days-the more the better. The only thing worng with the new 14 day Caribbean Itinerary is there are only 3 sea days. :( I suppose I'll cope somehow.;)

[Mike2131]

[color=red]Too many ports in a row and they can all start to run together. I like a balance of sea days to relax and get next ready for the next adventure. 3-4 ports on a 7 night cruise is about right for us.[/color]

[LARGIN]

[b][color=darkred]Two ports will work for me.. the embarkation port and the disembarkation port.[/color][/b] :D

[dawne577]

I think you have to love sea days to love cruising. But I would like to have 4 port days just because we are new to this and haven't seen many of the ports yet.

[Splinter]

I prefer at least half the days be sea days, or more. More relaxing, no rushing around to get to a port that is often crowded with the same people we see on the ship. One of my favorite crusies was 20 days with only 5 port days...it was heaven.