No, it wasn’t the simple questions. It was the uninformed premises therein.
But to your key gripe. The inability to get off the ship at any time. I mean, why would you want to? That’s not what you do cruises for. Like my me saying I’d never go on a flight because they won’t let me look out the front window. Or that I’d never go on the Ghan train because I couldn’t get off at every little town and settlement.
However, if you do need to leave a cruise, with the vast majority of them, you can leave the next day when it’s in a port. On my recent two cruises, I could’ve got off and left the cruise on any day. Heck, even in Greenland I could’ve left the ship on any day! No, not in the middle of the night when we’re cruising between ports - I admit that’s a limitation. If you’re cruising across the Atlantic Ocean, then yes, you’re stuck for the duration. That’s not a cruise I’d ever want to do either.
I guess I’m passionate about this is because I used to hold much the same views – I knew I would never, ever be seen dead on a cruise ship for much the same reasons as we’ve heard here. However I realised that I’d have to give it a go to really find out, so I did. I took a nice safe cruise from Darwin to Broome down the Kimberley Coast and it was absolutely stunning and magnificent.
I took my first few cruises on small boats, under 200 passengers. I said I’d hate to go on one of those multi thousand passenger monsters but again I went and actually found out for myself and joined an AFF cruise Sydney Hobart Sydney. Yes, didn’t like it, take that type of cruise off the list.
So, seven small boat cruises later and five more booked, I’m quite content in having been able to visit Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland, the Caribbean, and island hop around the Canary Islands in style and comfort. If someone doesn’t want those sort of experiences, then sure, cruising is not for them.
End of rant