I just got off a QM2 transatlantic crossing(which is about as captive/boring as cruises can get?) Friday. I went on a lark, I have never “cruised”(and had a pretty negative view of it - all people do is eat and drink etc)but had an itch to cross the ocean on a ship in old timey titanic type way. I’m also ~30(which might as well be 16 on a cunard ship - very very old crowd) and went alone. I expected this was mostly a bucket list type thing people did once, or a select coterie of people who both need to travel and cannot fly.
My most surprising takeaway was that almost everyone had done it before, a lot of people many many times. It was legitimately rare to meet a first timer, even among the relatively young group I fell into.
The boring bit is more subjective, it was more fun than I expected. I can see why people love it. “enforced” relaxation, no stops, peaceful, easy, etc.
So someone pitches you a floating city complete with amusement park, hotel, entertainment venues and restaurants that trots around the world dropping you off at nearly everything interesting on the way, and you think it sounds boring?
I don't like cruise ships for reasons, but they never struck me as 'boring '.
They are a floating mini-Vegas hotel. A lot of the same reasons people find Las Vegas fun are the same for a cruise ship, if maybe just in "miniature" (though the scale factor is now questionable on some of the huge ships), just that when you get the chance to leave the hotel you aren't stepping into Nevada desert, you've got an island beach or a cool port town to explore, and a variety of them at that.
Depends on the trip but it's more like a hotel that shows up in a different city every day, so there's something new all the time if you get off the boat.
My perspective as well. When I was high school and college I went on a few cruises with my elderly grandparents. We had a blast. Every morning you wake up in a new city without the bother of packing bags or spending any time actually going there. Unlike airports, piers are frequently in the oldest most interesting part of the city and you can directly walk to see quite a bit.
Isn't that going a little far in applying your subjective preferences to universal fact? Lots of people love cruise ships - they seem to be a pretty good business, in fact.
I just got off a QM2 transatlantic crossing(which is about as captive/boring as cruises can get?) Friday. I went on a lark, I have never “cruised”(and had a pretty negative view of it - all people do is eat and drink etc)but had an itch to cross the ocean on a ship in old timey titanic type way. I’m also ~30(which might as well be 16 on a cunard ship - very very old crowd) and went alone. I expected this was mostly a bucket list type thing people did once, or a select coterie of people who both need to travel and cannot fly.
My most surprising takeaway was that almost everyone had done it before, a lot of people many many times. It was legitimately rare to meet a first timer, even among the relatively young group I fell into.
The boring bit is more subjective, it was more fun than I expected. I can see why people love it. “enforced” relaxation, no stops, peaceful, easy, etc.