Thoughts on Sea Days?

[KKB]

18 minutes ago, Daruma said:

 

Thank you. 

 

I have looked at VV, NCL, Carnival, and Royal. 

 

I'm now considering going from two shorter cruises per year to an annual 6/7/8 day cruise. 

 

I have 2x VV cruises, (a 6 day on 11/15/24 and a 5 day on 4/10/26)... I really like the idea of a cruise sans kids, lol. 

 

I also have a 7 day NCL on the Encore on 11/8/25.

 

Carnival and Royal have a HUGE advantage for me in that I can sail out of Tampa rather than Miami. 

 

Royal's offerings seem to be very much the same, (itinerary, ship size, time of year), as Carnival's, but for a chunk more money... so I probably won't go Royal 🤷

 

So, I'll likely try a 6/7/8 day Carnival out of Tampa in 2027.

 

The more I read about shorter cruises, (the Booze Cruise aspect not withstanding... because most people say that the partiers/drunks can be mostly avoided) ... the more I think I just might enjoy one longer cruise per year than two shorter ones... plus I may than splurge more on amenities 🤷

Yes, I'd rather do a longer one...heck 7 days is too short anymore!\

BUT ANY cruise is better than NO cruise!

But we got a comped 4 day VV (Casino match) in July...we shall see how that goes!

 

[Monica887]

I think 3 days is too short personally, but in general ports vs sea days for me depends on what kind of vacation I'm taking.

 

Am I with the kids or want to be active and take lots of excursions and see new things? Or do I want to sit and do nothing but read a book and be left alone? Two very different types of vacations for me that affect my choices. 

[The Traveling Man]

We prefer longer cruises.  If you’re going to take the time and expense of flying to the port of departure, why not get the most bang for your buck?  Our average is about 10 days per cruise, with the longest single cruise being 19 days.  We also frequently take two or more cruises back to back, so our longest cruise vacation was about seven weeks.  We have taken two cruises of just three days each.  Those were B2B repositioning extensions of trans Atlantic cruises, so they really don’t count, do they?  The shortest stand alone cruise for us was a four day trip out of Miami on the Pearl.  Our primary reason for taking it was to check another NCL ship off our list.  We have a week long cruise booked this fall on the Jade.  That will leave us just the V!va and the Aqua as the only ships in the NCL fleet that we haven’t sailed.  Almost all of our cruises have included a sea day or two.  The TAs usually have five or six in a row plus one or two others on a two week trip.  On our first TA, we thought we would be bored out of our minds, but there were a surprising number of activities on board and we really enjoyed our time.

[Daruma]

2 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

We prefer longer cruises.  If you’re going to take the time and expense of flying to the port of departure, why not get the most bang for your buck?  Our average is about 10 days per cruise, with the longest single cruise being 19 days.  We also frequently take two or more cruises back to back, so our longest cruise vacation was about seven weeks.  We have taken two cruises of just three days each.  Those were B2B repositioning extensions of trans Atlantic cruises, so they really don’t count, do they?  The shortest stand alone cruise for us was a four day trip out of Miami on the Pearl.  Our primary reason for taking it was to check another NCL ship off our list.  We have a week long cruise booked this fall on the Jade.  That will leave us just the V!va and the Aqua as the only ships in the NCL fleet that we haven’t sailed.  Almost all of our cruises have included a sea day or two.  The TAs usually have five or six in a row plus one or two others on a two week trip.  On our first TA, we thought we would be bored out of our minds, but there were a surprising number of activities on board and we really enjoyed our time.

 

Thank you, but I don't fly anywhere. 

 

I drive either an hour to Tampa, about 2.5/3 to Port Canaveral, or 4 to Miami 🤷