Long days in places I could never afford or have enough annual leave to visit for longer, and discovering the places we do want to visit for longer. Long walks through beautiful places, visiting as many historic places or tourist attractions as we want. Never do excursions unless the place we want to visit is too far inland to manage alone.
Lunch somewhere local.
Get back on board and all our food is included, waiter service drinks at good prices, a lovely cabin where we don’t have to pack/ unpack between different Capital cities or even different countries. An onboard spa. High quality entertainment every night.
We can travel with family who have different interests and all do our own thing and meet when we want to. Especially those with mobility issues. The best of both worlds- sea days to be in a “resort” having drinks brought to you, or playing board games or reading a book in a bar overlooking the ocean, port days to explore as much or as little as you wish.
When we went to Barcelona for a long weekend a few years ago I hated it. We couldn’t find anywhere nice and authentic we could afford to eat, it was the wrong time of year and we’d been made to feel very anxious about pickpockets. This year we stopped there on a cruise and I loved it. Left anything valuable in our cabin, got a taxi to Sagrada Familia, spent 3 hours there then spent 8 hours wandering back to the ship via sights, shops, the food market. I have good memories of it now and I never would have gone back otherwise.
The only place I’ve ever caught norovirus was a luxury all inclusive in Greece. Anywhere where there’s lots of people it’s a risk.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, and maybe come down off your high horse a bit because your post came across really nasty.