Why cruise Europe?

[Cruise Junky]

I'm still a working stiff with 3 weeks vacation. If I did a land vacation I would need a vacation after the vacation. We always top up our cruise with a land portion because of the cost of flying to Europe. The land part is usually front loaded. I will do land trips when I retire and these cruises have helped me decide on where.

 

Because renting a villa in the South of France seems more tiring than back to back to back 10 hour tours from the ship?

 

We're all of course free to vacation how we like but I need to point out, land trips do not need to be running around from place to place trying to cram as much as possible into 2 weeks.

[sanger727]

Because renting a villa in the South of France seems more tiring than back to back to back 10 hour tours from the ship?

 

 

 

We're all of course free to vacation how we like but I need to point out, land trips do not need to be running around from place to place trying to cram as much as possible into 2 weeks.

 

 

 

While that's true; I can see why this happens. I can pay $300-$500 to fly most places in the continental US, get there in less than 4 hours, and have a small time change. Trips like that I don't mind having a lot of relax/lounge time. When I'm paying $1,200+ to fly to Europe, taking 8 hours to get there and going through a big time change, I want to make the most of it. I'd love to rent a villa in the south of France; when I have the time to spend 4 weeks there. But for now I can take a trip like that for 10-12 day (plus flights) a few years apart. So with potentially having 2 months spread out over the next 20 years to see foreign destinations, we end up cramming as much in as we can.

 

 

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[Roz]

While that's true; I can see why this happens. I can pay $300-$500 to fly most places in the continental US, get there in less than 4 hours, and have a small time change. Trips like that I don't mind having a lot of relax/lounge time. When I'm paying $1,200+ to fly to Europe, taking 8 hours to get there and going through a big time change, I want to make the most of it. I'd love to rent a villa in the south of France; when I have the time to spend 4 weeks there. But for now I can take a trip like that for 10-12 day (plus flights) a few years apart. So with potentially having 2 months spread out over the next 20 years to see foreign destinations, we end up cramming as much in as we can.

 

 

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Agree with you Sanger. For me, lounging in one place for 4 weeks isn't maximizing my travel time and travel dollar. I want to get out there and see as much as I can while I'm able to.

 

Roz

[dsrdsrdsr]

The problem with port calls is that you do not get "a day in each". If your ship pulls into Civita Vecchia at 8:00 AM, you will be lucky to get to Rome much before 10:00 AM -- which you will want to leave not much after 2:00 PM if you had a 4:00 PM sailaway.

Ships visiting Rome don't leave at 4 pm. More like 7 pm. The cruise lines have spotted what you just mentioned - that if they leave early, you wouldn't get much time in the city.

 

In general, there are about 10 hours in each port - 8 am to 6 pm - and that's as long as I really want sightseeing anyway. Even if I had the full 24 hours, I'd need to spend some of it eating and sleeping. And resting!

[Cruise Junky]

Agree with you Sanger. For me, lounging in one place for 4 weeks isn't maximizing my travel time and travel dollar. I want to get out there and see as much as I can while I'm able to.

 

Roz

 

Keep in mind, I didn't say 4 weeks. I was comparing it to a cruise. I don't even think I could stay in one spot for 4 weeks ;)

 

People seem to have this check list in their heads that they much check off saying they've seen it without really experiencing it which can only be done with spending time there.

[sanger727]

Keep in mind, I didn't say 4 weeks. I was comparing it to a cruise. I don't even think I could stay in one spot for 4 weeks ;)

 

 

 

People seem to have this check list in their heads that they much check off saying they've seen it without really experiencing it which can only be done with spending time there.

 

 

 

Oh, no. I just meant that to have a relaxed, non rushed trip where you rented a villa for awhile. You would have 1 of 2 scenarios. 1, a longer trip where you take your time sight seeing around or 2. A trip that was more about relaxing than maximizing your sightseeing

 

The longest trip I've ever taken was actually a 3 week tour of Australia and New Zealand. It was the definition of rushed and crammed with us flying from city to city every few days. I would have loved to travel at a more relaxed pace; But 3 weeks was already longer than I really wanted to take off work, and we wanted to see as much as possible since I don't plan on ever going back.

 

 

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[zqvol]

Cruise the Greek Isles, not on a mass market line, but on one that hits a different island or two every day, they are small and beautiful. Other than by ferry you can't really visit them any other way.

[lamchops]

Because renting a villa in the South of France seems more tiring than back to back to back 10 hour tours from the ship?

 

We're all of course free to vacation how we like but I need to point out, land trips do not need to be running around from place to place trying to cram as much as possible into 2 weeks.

 

Renting a villa in the south of France as well as Tuscany are the land trips I plan to do when I retire. I would never of known that if I hadn't sampled those areas on a cruise. To me, a cruise is like sampling the buffet. The land trips when I retire are my second helpings. :)

 

I'm going to keep sampling till my bones tell me one area is enough.

[geoherb]

One of the nice things about our cruise last month was the long time in port. The shortest was 7 hours in Guernsey. The overnight in Dublin was great for those who wanted evening time in pubs. We also had a very late departure from Greenock (1:30 a.m. scheduled departure, which turned out to be closer to 3:30 due to late arriving buses from the Tattoo in Edinburgh).

[Azure Moon]

Sure, with a med cruise, you only get a day or two in each port, but in one 12 night Med cruise with 8 days land pre and post cruise, we saw:

 

- the Eiffel Tower

- the Louvre and D'Orsay museums

- Notre Dame

>>>- Sagrada Familia

- Montserrat

>>>- Park Gruel

>>>- Las Ramblas

>>>- Coliseum

>>>- Vatican and Sistine Chapel

>>>- Amalfi coast

>>>- Pompeii

>>>- Cinque Terre

>>>- Pisa

- Acropolis

>>>- Ephesus

>>>- Blue Mosque

>>>- Grand Bazaar

>>>- windmills and shops in Mykonos

>>>- St. Mark's cathedral and square

>>>- Grand Canal

- Islands of Burano and Murano

 

We tend to do more land based vacations than cruises, but sometimes it's hard to beat one flight but multiple countries and dozens of historic/tourist sites. 🛳 🗼 🏟 🌋 🏰 🏛 🕌

 

While I agree that you can see much more of Europe by land; a cruise is still good for island hopping or getting to places you wouldn't have made it to otherwise. We did a med cruise where we went to several Italian/Greek islands. But it also hit Turkey which we wouldn't have gone to otherwise.

 

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Loving My Life and Sanger727, I feel the same way! I'd rather have a moment in as many places as possible than zero time in them.

I always dreamed of seeing some of the places we went to, and other places I never even thought about, but am glad they were part of the itinerary because I fell in love with them...and would like to see again someday if I am fortunate enough to get that chance.

We did a 12-Day Grand Mediterranean cruise and flew in the day before the cruise and left the day the cruise ended (that was all the time my DH was able to get off work). When we went through customs back in the United States, the customs officer asked how long we'd been out of the country and couldn't believe the number of countries we went to in just two weeks!

Athens was on the schedule, but they decided to hold a protest the day we were to be there so the cruise line substituted Dubrovnick, Coatia. Other than seeing that city on the news due to war there, I never thought I'd see it in person. Boy am I glad I did! The views of the old and new towns and scenery from the top of the wall surrounding the old town are breathtaking.

St. Tropez (Lol, I'm old enough and had heard about this place enough when I was a kid that I just always thought it'd be cool to go - and we did, and it was :cool: !

[lamchops]

I always dreamed of seeing some of the places we went to, and other places I never even thought about, but am glad they were part of the itinerary because I fell in love with them...and would like to see again someday if I am fortunate enough to get that chance.

 

My DW and I grew up in (60's-70's) an ethnic neighbourhood where the main subject was English. To hear my friends describe their homeland and what little we were expose to on TV has fueled my desire to see Europe. I never imagined as a kid that I would ever make it there. It took 50 years of hard work to get that first trip but will be going on our 6th in a few weeks.

 

People poo-poo Pisa but seeing that Leaning Tower brought a tear to my eyes. As a 7 yr old watching "Chef Boyardee" commercials, that tower represented Italy to me.

 

The Parthenon was something I saw on the walls and placemats of the local Greek & Italian pizza joints I visited as a teenager growing up.

 

As a Royal watcher, DW knew everything about our London sites and she was misty eyed upon seeing them.

 

There are many sites that one needs to "check off" but that doesn't necessarily diminish the experience.

 

Without the cruises I would of never thought of visiting places like the Normandy war sites, Ephesus, Dubrovnik, Valletta, Nauplio, Lisbon, & Santiago De Compostela to name a few. My cruise itineraries always seem to include a few "checklist" locations and some "discovery" locations.

 

Still on the cruise bucket list:

Baltic cruise

New England & eastern Canada cruise

Australia to Vancouver cruise

South American "around the horn" cruise

[hubofhockey]

However, the idea of a limited number of hours in a city stops all thoughts of the cruise.

 

So can anyone help change my mind? :)

 

Great reason for not wanting to cruise. I wouldn't want to change your mind, but would suggest that you might want to look at itineraries with overnights at ports and much longer hours. Seeing cities at night and going out to dinner is always a highlight for us. We had two overnights (Malta and Dubrovnik) on our most recent cruise and two full days in St Petersburg on the cruise before that. Our next cruise is Alaska with obviously no overnights, but we'll drive to Denali. After that, our big one is Southeast Asia on Azamara and that has overnights at two ports and two nights and three days at another.