Trevor

It’s all about compromise. Unless you’re filthy rich, you can’t afford many “perfect” vacations. For this cheapstake deal researcher, vacations with a comparable level of food, entertainment, and locations were always about triple the price of my discount cruises. And I really enjoyed the food and entertainment on the boat, did my research and was smart about excursions, and loved the easy access to both quiet areas to relax and enjoy the sea, and fun times getting to know dozens of new people. But yeah, each line item on a cruise can be “beat” by other vacation types.

movieguru

On the cruise I just went on they had a maximum capacity of 2600 passengers and 1200 crew members. I'm sure there was close to 2000 passengers at most on this cruise. This was one of Carnival's smaller ships.

tasha99

You can certainly find lots of cruises like that that are over 10K/pp, but I looked and found many that were in the 2-3K pp range for a balcony. I would be happy with a ship that was 500-1000 passengers (lines like Crystal, Azamara, Oceania etc, all of which had cruises in that price range). The cruises I've been on had maybe 2-3K passengers, and that was mainly noticeable in the main dining room and the buffet. Those ships were too big, but they get a lot bigger, with some having 5-6K passengers now. I haven't been on one like that, but it seems like the bigger the ship and the higher up you were, the more disconnected you'd be from that feeling of being out on the ocean. On the other hand, those huge ships have lots of amenities, so I can see their appeal to people who would use them.

zyzzle

Amenities are good, but if I'm taking a cruise, it's the feeling of being at sea that I'm after. The cool, brisk breeze, the sight of water all around, the general seafaring ambiance. That's at least 50% of it right there. I wouldn't desire to be 15 decks above the water. It would distance myself from that ambiance and make the trip more artificial and more like just staying in a hotel. Smaller ships are much more "authentic" , let's say 8 decks or fewer.

tanman

How about 106 people for ~$2700 for 10 days?

https://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews...cfm?ShipID=786

https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/s...g-hemming.html

jfoobar

One potential problem with those Viking river cruises is that they are highly-dependent on water level in the rivers they are supposed to cruise. If the water level is too low or there is some other problem preventing timely passage, you could end up on buses instead to get to the sites you are supposed to see. Odds are, things will be fine, but you always take a chance with stuff like this.

If being on a ship is what you are after, there are in-between options that are worth considering. You could always fly to Norway or Portugal or Alaska whatever and have a 2-3 day cruise be part of your itinerary somewhere in the middle of the trip. Most places you might go where a cruise is a viable option there are options like this. These will tend to be much smaller ships as well, to give you more of that "being on a boat" feeling and you would still have the rest of your trip to do whatever you wanted with a rental car or trains or whatever. For us, day cruises are usually more than enough to "check the box" but we have done some multi-night trips where it made sense, such as on the Great Barrier Reef.

tasha99

I would like to do a river cruise. I'd booked a Christmas Market one for the end of this year on the Crystal Mahler, but cancelled as I don't think we can swing it right now. But in a year or two I hope we can--the Christmas ones really appeal to me. They're not like a cruise, though, even if there is enough water for the boats to run. They sail short times between cities and have very long port stops.