The Lifespan of a Modern Day Cruiser

[david63]

Having become despondent with P&O's latest offering it set me off thinking (never a good move I know!).

I was pondering what the lifespan of a "new" cruiser was, i.e. how many cruises does somebody starting cruising do - especially on the newer big ships? Looking at the itineraries, especially of the big ships, there are basically, at most, half a dozen different cruise itineraries. Based on that I would make a guess that the demographic that P&O are aiming cruising at will only do perhaps two or three cruises before moving on to some other type of holiday, but maybe come back to cruising at some point in the future.

Just my thoughts.

[Kendhni]

One thing we found ourselves doing was using the cruising 'day in port' to get a taster of places and then going back on a land based holiday to get a more detailed experience. W have done this with Mexico (multiple times) , Dominican Republic both of which eventually led us to Cuba and a hope to go to other Caribbean islands for a land based holiday.

[barney]

We generally have always continued to take land holidays as well as cruising.
We have two more cruises booked but that may well be it unless something special catches my eye.
When Mrs B eventually decides to call it a day work wise, our intention is to explore the U.K. much more with lots of short breaks.
We have a lovely house, a spit away from the beach, in a lovely area so for me, every day is a holiday.
I do wonder about the cruise business model sometimes.
When Azura and Ventura are considered small ships ……. ?

[Stephen]

As per David's question, who knows.

You either like cruising or you don't. Some newbies will try it once and think 'not for me', others will love it and do more.

Itineraries, ship and budget will all play a big part.

[Bensham33]

I like cruising but not on big ships. Ventura was to big for my liking although I did enjoy the cruise. I then did a couple on smaller ships with Fred and really enjoyed them.

[Kendhni]

Another view on this is that it was only 3 years ago when we started cruising closer to home. Up until then we had always done cruises in the caribbean, panama canal, west cost of central America area. My reasoning was that some day I would not want or be able to do long haul travel and therefore wanted to keep exploring Europe until later in life. It was 2019 before we did our first Baltic and Med cruises (both being areas I would love to do again).

[towny44]

I am not sure we fit into the average cruiser slot. As our cruise experiences have grown, so has our enjoyment of the cruise ship itsel as a destination. Which is why we have always been drawn to the newest and biggest ships with their many and varied attractions.
While we were both mobile and younger we enjoyed using a cruise to explore far flung destinations, from Alaska to Australia and New Zealand, with along the way Hawaii to Tahiti, the Panama canal, the Caribbean, the Mediteranean and Thailand. These of course only scratched their surfaces, but we also had many long haul land holidays along with regular short haul holidays to Spain and the Canaries.
Since 2011 we have had to limit our overseas holidays to cruises from Southampton, and the itinerary is no longer as important as the practicalities of mobility at the ports of call, so we are not as concerned about new ports as we are with the ease of mobility at the ports of call.
So the repetive itineraries are a potential plus for us, whereas new ports need to be well researched for us to ascertain how wheelchair friendly they are, and of course tender ports are a big negative for us.

[Manoverboard]

We always enjoyed cruising, ideally Port intensive, but alternated between that and Coaching Tours else Riverboat cruising. Itinerary was King and we were certainly not locked into a single brand. Smaller ships were our preference but only because of our desire to see as many different places as possible.

Now we are older the bigger ships have more appeal than they once did.

[CaroleF]

John and I started cruising in 2003, our Silver Wedding. Up to September 2018 we'd done over 30. We did two longish cruises, the Circumnavigation of South America which was 65 nights and the shorter 30 nights to Canada/USA. Now I'm on my own I'm starting to miss not having a cruise booked but as I've said on other threads I won't think about it until the threat of Covid is more diminished than it already is. I really don't want to have to worry about being off loaded in a foreign port, having experienced it once in Canada, although luckily it was only for a day and after a lot of haggling we were allowed back on Aurora to finish our cruise. I always loved cruises from Southampton, partly because our journey from home was about 20 minutes but also because I really liked having the few days to relax before arriving at the first destination, assuming we were travelling south. John much preferred to fly and avoid those first few days at sea. So in the future, I don't know, maybe Saga, I've travelled with Fred a few times and it would depend on the ship, maybe one of the ex Holland America might appeal. I've only once been on one of the Queens and wasn't impressed but I think that was more to do with the crew than the ship itself. The service wasn't up to P&O standard which amazed me but seeing as our restaurant waiter only appeared one night and the second night we had someone different plus apologies from the Maitre d' things were obviously not as usual. So who knows. I do really miss it.

Carole

[allatc]

The trend seems to be for bigger and bigger ships where the ship itself is the destination and ports of call are a bit of an add on.

For interesting itineraries it will be a case of seeking out the diminishing number of cruise operators with smaller ships that can go into ports not used by the big boys.