I think you must be sailing on the wrong ships if you think cruising is cheap Bruce…
I love cruising, been on quite a few since I surprised Mrs Fox with a 6 day cruise on the Queen Elizabeth 2 with 3 days in New York on her 60th Birthday. Said she felt like Kate Winslet…
We enjoyed it so much that in 2015 we then went on a two week cruise around the Mediterranean with some good friends…
In 2016 we sailed to the Canary Isles for a couple of weeks.
2018 saw us sailing to the Caribbean for 16 days, and in June 2019 with our good friends to the Fjords. In July the same year just Mrs Fox and myself visited Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Ireland, on the P&O ship ‘Oriana’ (small ship) on it’s next to last final cruise…
And finally, we saw the New Year in on the Arcadia, a cruise to Amsterdam and Zeebrugge.
Covid and the troubles in Ukraine meant we had to cancel the Baltic cruise in 2021 which got rescheduled and finally cancelled in 2022.
I think people get the wrong impression about cruising, the fact that there are so many passengers on a ship means that you are cramped together, but it’s not like that at all. On all of the ships that we have cruised on, most having around 3,000 passengers, there is plenty of room for everyone, and you can always find some space and be alone.
I used to run the decks early in the mornings and I only saw the odd like minded person taking their exercise. Unless the sun is beating down, the decks are usually deserted for most of the day, and in the evenings there are so many bars, restaurants, casinos, theatres and coffee shops that people are very much spread out around the 14 or fifteen decks onboard.
And after all…Someone once said that the British are a nation of sailors.
And Mrs Fox has always said that I remind her of the sea…I said ‘Do you mean I am Deep, Mysterious and roving’… She said “No, you make me sick!”
I was only on one cruise ship. It sat in dock due to rough weather. I got seasick and didn’t go anywhere. I wasn’t enticed after that. But I can say I’ve been on one.
No. Not on my list of things to do
My one & only cruise was with P&O to the Norweigan Fjords.
I loved every moment of it. 
We did this one on the Iona last September. My wife bought me this cruise as a retirement present, with the vauge hope of seeing the northern lights… Not long after leaving Southampton, it started to rain and didn’t really stop for the entire week, that is until we were back at Southampton and the sun came out.
Despite the weather, we still had an amazing time.
They’re commonly referred to as “Floating Petri Dishes” with very good reason.
If what happens on board stayed on board, maybe not so bad, but sadly these self indulgents bring this back onshore with them to share with innocent folk.
My last such experience was overhearing two women sitting just across from me on a train discussing events of that very same day as they had only just come off one of these Petri Dishes. 
.
The Diamond Princess is a British-registered luxury and cruise ship that is operated by Princess Cruises, a holiday company based in the United States and Bermuda. In February 2020, during a cruise of the Western Pacific, cases of COVID-19 were detected on board. The vessel was quarantined off Japan for two weeks, after which all remaining passengers and crew were evacuated. Of the 3,711 people on board, 712 became infected with the virus – 567 of 2,666 passengers, and 145 of 1,045 crew. Figures for total deaths vary from early to later assessments, and because of difficulties in establishing causation. As many as 14 are reported to have died from the virus, all of them older passengers - an overall mortality rate for those infected of 2%.[1][2]
That’s why we don’t go cruising now Spitty. We have heard horror stories of people contracting Covid and being confined to their cabins for the duration of the cruise. I’m not paying a kings ransom to be locked in me cabin even though we always have a balcony.
Folks like to mingle on a Cruise Foxy, if you don’t want to be Ill its a sad fact, mingling is of the menu for the foreseeable.
No cruise ships for me, small or large. I wouldn’t like to be confined, no matter the entertainment or food.
I prefer land travels, wandering the small towns finding secret gems of interest on side streets.
Then, a nice hotel later, to treat myself to a bit of luxury.
Ruby Princess too.
But if we live our life worried about what diseases we might catch we would never go out of the house. Airplanes are even worse they only change the air three times an hour since smoking was banned. Worrying about it is a stupid way to live.
Depends nowadays if you want to spend half your life with respiratory illnesses, its a bold New World
I went on a large cruise ship once. I can’t remember the name of it but it was one of the P&O cruise ships.
A month’s cruise, setting off from Southampton, across the lumpy bumpy Bay of Biscay, stopping off in Portugal, then on to cruise around the Caribbean Islands.
The facilities were all excellent. Our cabin was comfortable and spacious, with a good sized balcony - but the sea was a long way down from our 12th floor level!
The restaurants were spotless and the food was delicious.
(It was a bit off-putting to discover they’d had an outbreak of Noravirus on board during the cruise previous to ours. The hand hygiene regime on board was extensive and the ritual of using hand gel at every doorway and at the entrances and exits to every part of the ship was a constant reminder that your trip may end up with you being confined to cabin with a nasty infectious tummy bug!” - this cruise was long before Covid reared its ugly head)
There was too many people for my liking - I’m not keen on crowds of people - although all the other passengers I got chatting to were very nice individually and I struck up some pleasant and interesting acquaintanceships with several passengers during the course of our journey.
I enjoyed some of the trips we had on some of the islands we stopped at but our stops were all too brief. I didn’t feel I got much of a flavour of the islands we visited. I hardly got to speak to any of the people who lived there and I would have liked to spend more time in each place.
There was just not nearly enough time on each island to explore much - it seemed such a waste to spend so much time sailing to a destination then only being allowed one short day there - by the time we disembarked, we only had about 5 hours before we had to be back on board, then were setting off to cruise to the next island.
The cruising time in between our stops was quite boring - it was mostly about eating and drinking and lazing around. I’m used to sea cruising on a small yacht, crewed by just 2 of us, so there’s always plenty of things to do and the time flies by - and if we spend the time and effort to sail to an island, I like to moor up there for at least a few days and nights to explore the place.
On board a large liner, the promenade decks are so high above the water, it felt more like I was staying in a hotel than on a sailing trip. I didn’t feel connected to the sea - and there’s only so many times you can walk round and round the decks for some fresh air - I felt like a caged animal, wanting to get out!
I spent a lot of the daytime when we were at sea in the gym - fortunately, the gym was fabulous, with all modern equipment and it was the least populated place on the ship! Very few passengers used the gym, so when I felt the need to escape from being surrounded by lots of people, the gym was my favourite spot.
We were never moored up anywhere overnight, so never got to spend an evening ashore. Every evening had to be spent aboard the ship. I’m not that fond of the type of “music hall / variety show” type of entertainment they put on in the evenings and the casinos did not appeal to me, so after enjoying the delicious dinners they served, the rest of the evenings were a bit of an endurance test.
So all in all, it was a bit like the curate’s bad egg - “good in parts” !
I won’t be going on that sort of cruise again.
Don’t tell macywack 
Not sure what you mean - I thought Macywack said he didn’t go on large cruise ships?
I thought his description of small boat cruises around the Hebrides with only 12 passengers sounded much more fun and more interesting than a large cruise liner.
It was the eating, drinking and LAZING around that might have pricked his interest 
(not the size of the vessel)
Oh, I see! 
and some faffing
A brilliant description of cruising and more or less my feelings too if I may say Boot…
However, to me, the beauty of cruising is the journey and not necessarily the destination.
Although it may seem crowded to some, I think that the fact that you are hundreds of miles from civilisation in the middle of a vast ocean I feel quite isolated and apart from the amenities on board ship, cut off from the hustle and bustle of modern day living. It’s just nice to escape.
I always try to choose a cabin on a high deck being as I spend quite a lot of time just watching the sea and spotting whales, dolphins, and other marine life passing by.
You are right about the brief visits to ports and Islands, it’s not long enough to get the flavour of a place, but seeing a place I like would provoke a visit by some other means later, with perhaps a longer stay.
On a cruise you are forced to slow down and watch the world go be, don’t try and resist it or else a cruise is not the holiday for you…
That’s shows a lot of misplaced optimism, I’d have to fall ill immediately and live past my 150th birthday for that to happen. I feel confident that half my life is well behind me.