Ambiance of Long vs. Short Cruises

[kcmachinist]

Our party is looking far ahead at a few of the 2018 sailings, all of which are 28 days or longer, I have only ever done 7 days so this would be quite a bit different.

 

I would like some feedback as to the passenger base on these cruises, since it's a long time to be on a ship with people you might end up unable to stand; OTOH, I might have plenty of time to develop some solid friendships that I wouldn't necessarily have on a shorter cruise.

 

How is the crew? Did it make a difference having more time in getting to know them? Does service get less or more noticeable?

 

I guess I just want to hear some personal stories from the seasoned Mariners out there, what made that long voyage extra special or extra miserable?

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

We fill there is a different type of passenger

[Lady Arwen]

We fill there is a different type of passenger

 

Could you elaborate on this, please?

[kazu]

Ok, if you can see my signature, I'm scheduled for a 30 day cruise this year and a 28 day cruise next year. Previously have done 33 day, 31 and 30 to name a few.

 

I used to do 7 days and they are now out the window unless we really need to escape ;). (I never say never).

 

The longer cruises have a different tone.

 

Yes, the crew get to know you better. Yes, they learn quickly what you want and yes, I have traditionally found the service better.

 

And yes, they remember when you return. When you have spent a month with them (assuming you were pleasant ;) ) it is not unusual to be welcomed back :)

 

It's just a whole different cruising attitude as you get in cruise mode as I call it.

 

Yes, some of the passengers are older, but don't let that fool you. I had a 90 year old on private tours with me who would put many 50 year olds to shame.

 

While some may have issues, most are young at heart and conversations are wonderful with well seasoned travellers.

 

An example of wonderful service - Crow's Nest Prinsendam. DH was doing something in the cabin so I went to piddle on my ipad with intentions to take a drink back to the room. Out came the appetizers. The bar waiter knew DH wanted Spanish appetizers and low and behold, there they were. After asking where DH was, he brought two plates and told me to take them back to the room for DH to enjoy :) along with drinks when I was ready. He actually offered to deliver them (I declined).

 

It's the little things on the long cruises that become memorable sometimes.

[OlsSalt]

Keep in mind some "long cruises" are in fact a collectors cruise of smaller segments and not the dedicated truly "long cruises" which create a very different feeling when on board.

 

Regardless we think now that shorter cruise are not even with the TSA and packing hassles - as we are getting ready to embark on an 11 day one --- gleep. Eat my own words and it will be interesting to see how we like this shorter cruise. Most of our are 28 days or more.Up to 50 for two of them - both dedicated long cruises.

 

With various segment groups getting on and off every two weeks or so, those "longer" cruises don't have the same feeling or extra amenities as the truly "long ones".

 

Have I left you in total confusion here - tell us more which ones you are looking at. Are they long, long cruises or two short-shorts makes one long cruise ones. :confused:

 

Eating my own words again remember the rule is pack for 14 days, and recycle everything every two weeks. Except when you can't because of weather/climate differences or ...because if you are like me, you just don't want to.

Edited January 16, 2017 by OlsSalt

[Aurora95]

I prefer the month long cruises. We get to know the crew, the passengers are more laid back and relaxed. Most are 4-5 star mariners.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tampa Girl]

The longest cruise we have taken was 28 days on the Statendam. As Kazu has noted, the atmosphere is entirely different. Within a few days, people find their own groups with which they feel comfortable. The ship becomes your community, and the group that you are most comfortable with is your neigborhood In as much as whatever ship you are considering will have at least 1,400 passengers, I find it difficult to believe that you would be forced to deal with people you can't stand. That concern should be non-existent.

 

Honestly, I have never spoken to anyone who has been on a long cruise that did not hate to get off the ship. If you have a chance, by all means do it. Although I have never taken a B2B or a Collector's cruise, I understand another poster's observation that these cruises are not truly a long cruise, so the above observations probably would not apply.

[Slarty]

In addition to above responses, let me add a little bit. I've found that due to the duration of the trip (non-collectors), *most* passengers are retired, financially well-off, tend to have travelled extensively, and the roster has a much larger-than-normal percentage of non-US/Canadian passengers. Of course, there will always be exceptions, but that is my perception, to date.

 

Some of the re-positioning TA's can be fascinating. Sometimes whole families move (along with their belongings).

[kcmachinist]

Great responses, thank you SO much!

 

The cruises we're looking at are both on the Maasdam, one is to South America in Feb 18 (when you search it comes up Panama Canal, ironically the itinerary doesn't indicate much emphasis on it), the other is the Hawaii/South Pacific, both are RT San Diego. If we do the latter, we might do a B2B and board the Panama Canal proper to Florida right after for a total of 45 days or so. So AFAIK, neither of these are segments, but I or the website I was using could be wrong.

 

The cruise is mainly for my Dad, whose getting up there in age and we want to be able to travel while he still can, the rest of us are all 40 and up and like things QUIET, so a smaller ship on HAL seems perfect. I have cruised on the Zaandam in the past, it was a short coastal repo and loved it, I speculated that it was probably the perfect size vessel for longer sailings.

 

I didn't really have anything specific I needed to know, I just wanted to have some perspective, good or bad; I read some of the reviews and while informative they weren't written in the context I was looking for.

[kazu]

I went to look out of curiosity and your South America seems to be a collectors (two segments available).

 

In all honesty that happens on a lot of longer cruises, but I have found a good number are staying on for the whole thing. those coming on have had no adverse effect on us - in fact, we have met some fabulous people.

 

the only time I have seen a real change in the ambience is the short 1-3 day Pacific Coastals from San Diego to Vancouver, Vancouver to Seattle, etc.

 

Just my experience though ;)

[RMLincoln]

I will add that a longer cruise gives time for one to absorb the culture of the region, as you would in the South Pacific. We did Tales of the SP last year and I loved it... time to relax, time to pace myself, time to absorb the cultures around me on some of the most beautiful islands!

 

I also got to become acquainted with a few people from the roll call and that made it richer.

 

The longer cruises have, in my experience, better enrichment opportunities which DH and I enjoy but if that's not your thing then it wouldn't matter.

 

I can't say that they had to drag me off the ship after 48 nights, but neither was I anxious to get off either. Frankly I loved it all so very much, but it was also time to go home too.

 

We are not particularly well off, so not everyone on a long cruise is wealthy, but for many a long cruise is a bucket list opportunity. We splurged on an OV room rather than an inside. We did run into an issue of not being able to get a reservation for a table for two in the MDR open dining before 7:45 but we usually could get a table for 2 around 7pm most nights. This was different than other cruises we've been on but we were told that so many who got on in Seattle or Vancouver (we got on in San Diego for the R/T) requested those tables for the duration of the cruise... in open dining. So that was a frustration we had to work beyond but it didn't ruin our cruise, just changed it some. If you prefer late dining this is a non-issue.

 

Happy planning. m--

[Slarty]

I went to look out of curiosity and your South America seems to be a collectors (two segments available).

 

In all honesty that happens on a lot of longer cruises, but I have found a good number are staying on for the whole thing. those coming on have had no adverse effect on us - in fact, we have met some fabulous people.

 

the only time I have seen a real change in the ambience is the short 1-3 day Pacific Coastals from San Diego to Vancouver, Vancouver to Seattle, etc.

 

Just my experience though ;)

 

LOL. Never done of those "mini-coastals". I heard from a friendly MDR-floor manager (he remembered our names 2nd time on different Vista-class TA ships) about the infamous 1-day Seattle-Vancouver/vice-versa.

 

In the MDR, the table often wants to order 1 of everything. Yes! Soups, appetizers, entrees, desserts X8. It was his job (among many others), to say politely "No", and try to explain.

 

Does Carnival ships run into this attitude with their 3-4 day cruises?

[AV8rix]

the only time I have seen a real change in the ambience is the short 1-3 day Pacific Coastals from San Diego to Vancouver, Vancouver to Seattle, etc.

 

Disclaimer: This is going to be a VERY non-politically-correct message. You've been warned.

 

What Jacqui said (about the 1-3 days segments) is sadly true. I've endured two of them on PC repositioning cruises.

 

They become sort of Carnival-style booze cruises. On the last one someone cleverly named that segment "The Invasion of the Walmartians". He was watching folks boarding and said that it looked like a HAL rep went into Walmart with a bullhorn and shouted "Anyone here want to go on a cruise?". Unfortunately the first night of the short segment was a formal (back when they still had formal nights). Someone had to tell the DRM to ask a millenial-age-looking kid to remove his baseball cap worn backwards. Seriously, I saw that happen.

 

Seven-day cruises are a little better than that. I've been only on two of them, never again. I wish I could afford the Grands but I'll never again book a fewer-than-14-day single-segment cruise.

 

All of this is JMO, of course.

[AV8rix]

Ooops, posted twice, sorry.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Av8rix

[OlsSalt]

Great responses, thank you SO much!

 

The cruises we're looking at are both on the Maasdam, one is to South America in Feb 18 (when you search it comes up Panama Canal, ironically the itinerary doesn't indicate much emphasis on it), the other is the Hawaii/South Pacific, both are RT San Diego. If we do the latter, we might do a B2B and board the Panama Canal proper to Florida right after for a total of 45 days or so. So AFAIK, neither of these are segments, but I or the website I was using could be wrong. .....

 

We have done both of them and each was fantastic - think I liked the SA best of all. But we have vivid memories from both. And both would be what I call are more dedicated long cruises- even though the SA could be broken up into smaller segments. But they both had a lot of dedicated extras and enrichment talks as well.

 

Your problem now will be deciding which one. They are different enough that this may take some weighing and balancing about what you think works best for you.

 

The South Pacific cruise could be more challenging if this is your first long cruise simply because there are longer stretches of "at sea" days. SA seemed much better paced but was perhaps more rugged in the variety or ports and weather we found going up and down the continent.

 

We also probably spent more on shore excursions on the SA cruise because this was our chance to include the overnights to Machu Pichu and Belmond train, the flight to the Torre de Paine National Park in Patagonia and the Falkland Islands 4X4 penguin trip. That is also something to consider - the South Pacific can be more enjoyable closer to shore and just walking off the ship.

Edited January 16, 2017 by OlsSalt

[SilvertoGold]

What we like about the longer cruises is that while some pax are very friendly and form cliques, you can just float along as you wish. If you're not wildly on the social side, you can have a graciously nodding relationship with anyone and will be left alone for the most part. This suits some and it was a big concern with some friends of ours.

 

We saw this on several 30+ day cruises, as well as 63 and 42 day cruises.

 

Re: the short segment cruises. We've experienced these as part of repos and found them really pretty wild. Very exuberant atmosphere, especially in the MDR. Our regular Ocean Bar waiter was unhappy with one of these segments, because they kept him up until 3 am serving drink after drink after drink. Unfortunately, he said, no one got drunk enough to shut them down.

[kazu]

Disclaimer: This is going to be a VERY non-politically-correct message. You've been warned.

 

What Jacqui said (about the 1-3 days segments) is sadly true. I've endured two of them on PC repositioning cruises.

 

They become sort of Carnival-style booze cruises. On the last one someone cleverly named that segment "The Invasion of the Walmartians". He was watching folks boarding and said that it looked like a HAL rep went into Walmart with a bullhorn and shouted "Anyone here want to go on a cruise?". Unfortunately the first night of the short segment was a formal (back when they still had formal nights). Someone had to tell the DRM to ask a millenial-age-looking kid to remove his baseball cap worn backwards. Seriously, I saw that happen.

 

Seven-day cruises are a little better than that. I've been only on two of them, never again. I wish I could afford the Grands but I'll never again book a fewer-than-14-day single-segment cruise.

 

All of this is JMO, of course.

 

LOL - there are no gala nights now on these Pacific Coastals. Most come with carry on's ;). Smart, especially in San Diego, but it does limit the attire ;)

[RuthC]

The rhythm of short vs. long cruise is totally different.

 

A short cruise tends to have a sense of "hurry up and relax!", or "hurry up and enjoy!" There is so much to experience, and so little time. :(

 

Now, a longer cruise is more like real life, in the sense that you tend to fall into a relaxed routine. There's no need to eat everything that's offered, as there will be another opportunity.

You go to the lectures, and work breakfast and lunch around them. But pretty much at the same time every sea day.

You see the same people, and get to know them on a much deeper level than a short cruise allows. You find that those who sail longer cruises have interesting tales to tell. :D

 

Once you move up to longer cruises, you don't want to go back to short.

[peaches from georgia]

There's even a noticeable difference in ambience between the 7 and 10 Day cruises, though both are considered short. Our cruise from he!! was a 14 day b2b- they were 2 separate 7 day cruises the last 2 weeks before Christmas. The 2 cheapest weeks of the year. We were comparitively new cruisers at the time. Live and learn. We just wanted to be home for the holiday itself.

[iancal]

Most of ours have been 14-18 days. After 18 days we are very much looking forward to disembarking. The food starts to taste the same, there is too much of it, and it all looks the same. We have done 14 days, then three weeks of land travel followed by another 14-18 days.

[DAllenTCY]

My longest cruise has been 10 days, so I can't give an opinion as to longer. However, I think that Ruth hit the nail on the head with her comments. Short cruises tend to make you want to do too much in too little time. Much regret that you didn't have this entree or that, attended that demonstration/seminar, and that you never truly relaxed. Those dreaded CBP blue forms and debark luggage tags seem to arrive way too soon! On the other hand, in my wildest dream, I don't think I'd be comfortable with 30, 60, 115 days. Nice enough people, some have become my friends, but I'm not desirous of being away from my beautiful home, dog, and cat for that long. Kids and grandkids can e-mail or skype, but they can't. I manage to take my 2 short cruises each year and be content with them. I very much enjoy keeping up with CC folks who are kind enough to post so I can enjoy as if I were along. Thanks for taking the time to share your travel information, photos, and experiences.

 

David

[take us away]

Our party is looking far ahead at a few of the 2018 sailings, all of which are 28 days or longer, I have only ever done 7 days so this would be quite a bit different.

 

I would like some feedback as to the passenger base on these cruises, since it's a long time to be on a ship with people you might end up unable to stand; OTOH, I might have plenty of time to develop some solid friendships that I wouldn't necessarily have on a shorter cruise.

 

How is the crew? Did it make a difference having more time in getting to know them? Does service get less or more noticeable?

 

I guess I just want to hear some personal stories from the seasoned Mariners out there, what made that long voyage extra special or extra miserable?

 

The differences are vast, so I will try to explain from my perspective. After I retired, I started cruising with a vengeance and started with 28- day cruises which I loved, then have had the pleasure to take all the Grand cruises at least once and the world cruise several times.

1. Someone once told me there are tourists and there are travelers. Longer cruises tend to have more travelers who have spent time learning about the countries, the people, etc. The port lecturers do NOT talk about what stores to go to but talk about the port, the people, how much is a cab to town, what to see (there are separate excursion lectures), etc.

2. The crew gets to know you and you get treated even better because of this. Example; I like fixed seating and at the 1st dinner, asked for lemon for my water and for the next 114 days, there was a small bowl of lemon wedges on the table when we sat down. The bar stewards just asked if I wanted my usual whether it be soda during the day or a drink in the evening. I used the sofa small pillow for a knee pillow and forgot to put it back one morning. Each evening after that, the little pillow was on the bed.

3. There are many more activities on board and sea days can get super busy, or not, as your choice.

4. HAL tries to use more local foods on longer trips and have had fresh tuna off the Chilean coast, interesting fruits from SE Asia (and fell in love with dragon fruit). Personally think the food is better and definitely more varied on longer cruises.

5. The passengers are much more friendly and I have some life-long friends from long cruises. Many tend to take only long cruises so we often cruise together - again.

6. Had room service once and kept the little vase of flowers. For the next many, many days, my cabin steward kept my flowers fresh, including a rose now and again/ Never asked where he got them but he would just have a sly smile when I thanked him with each change.

7. Trivia is amazingly competitive.

8. There should be lecturers, some of which are excellent. Once had a volcano specialist on an Asian cruise who did her Ring of Fire lecture twice, with the 2nd at our request, and it was standing room only. The multi-series history of the pirates was great. Had an astronomer talk about the differences in the Southern sky when in So America and the captain had all the lights on the top deck turned off for star gazing for us. Have had Antarctica researchers as lecturers with amazing films and photos. The Duke prof who went down each year to tag whales had some amazing footage. The lecturers will be geared toward where you are cruising.

9. Be warned, these are addicting! Have done a few short cruises since I started the longer cruises and have to say, I will just wait for the long cruises as totally spoiled and loving it!

10. Have had AC issues, plumbing that decided to not work now and again but bottom line, But HAL was accommodating so no huge issues that would ever make me stop cruising like I do. Heck, the plumber is coming today for a leaky elbow joint in my MBA.

 

Do believe that life is what you make it and even though I have run into grumpy people on long cruises, I just try to ignore them - except for 1 guy who had me trapped so I could listen to his ranting until I told him that if he was that unhappy, why didn't he just go home as we were in Sydney in 2 days and I was sure HAL would get him a flight home.

 

Enjoy your cruise - but check #9!

[albingirl]

We prefer the very long cruises. We take the 40 plus day transatlantics and love every thing about them. Some of them are cut into sections but we take the whole thing and find that most people do the same. We've learned a vast amount of information from these trips and have met some very wonderful people!

[St Pete Cruiser]

Liked your views, Take It away! Agreed.