If you are looking for a cheap vacation, it is the wrong choice. If you are willing to splurge a little, they are awesome.

Your cheap may be my splurge but for the sake of discussion I'm looking at the $2,000 to $2,500 range (not including play money) for two leaving Miami. How many days that entails is negotiable but we are thinking 3 to 5, which is our standard length for vacations how long we can get someone to watch the kids.

I'm not a big drinker but do enjoy myself on vacation, I am also not necessarily cheap. It just seems that whenever the topic of cruises comes up alcohol (or the cost of it more specifically) seems to dominate the discussion.

I ran mostly on the TM during our cruise.  I tried their track but it was 33 laps to a mile and windy as fuck so I ended up on the TM looking at fjords all the time because the gym was all glass looking at the wonderful scenery.  It was worth it.

Inside staterooms are pretty good deals (unless you get seasick) !!!

That's why I like the Princess ones.  All the rooms had balconies.  They are more pricey but going outside the balcony at night to look at the daylight at midnight was a great experience.

We loved our 2 cruises we took 10 years ago.

Suggestions:

• On shorter cruises (3-4 days) don't worry about upgrading the stateroom.  We hardly spent any time in our room except to sleep, shower and ::giggity:: 
• If you drink alcohol plan accordingly.  The drinks can add up but I know of several people who snuck their own alcohol aboard and I never heard the "walking the plank" thing. Is that something new or were my friends just really sneaky?
• Keep in mind the time of year you're going and the cruise line.  Some like Celebrity cater more towards families (that may or may not be what your want).  Time of year is important.  We went during spring break and half the ship was olds (60+) and the other half was youngs (20-30) on spring break.  Longer cruises during non-peak times tend to be a lot of olds (they're the ones with the time and the money  
• Factor in travel costs to the port which can easily double/triple the cost of the cruise. 
• Relax, have fun, do something on-board you don't normally do.  Eat foods you don't normally eat.  Be adventurous.  Enjoy all of the artisans on board.  The guitar players, the pianists, the art shows, etc. 

IMHO the people who say they don't like cruising are the "routine" people.  Those who like everything neat, orderly and part of their routine.

Also, concerning seasickness.  DW gets seasick very easy on a normal boat and carsick too.  She had no problems on the ship (big cruise ship so there's that).  We only felt the boat "move" twice.  First time: when we originally left port, the initial "jolt" of moving forward.  Second time: on the way back we must of hit a good swell because the boat "rolled" a little bit side to side.  Ironically we were in watching a show and the signer was belting out My Heart Will Go On from Titanic.

I think a cruise is great if rest is what you're after, but it's not the best way to explore new places.

It was never at the top of my list of things I wanted to do but as I pare that list down it is moving up.

 

What? It's the complete opposite. I want to move freely when I travel. I travel to discover, I don't want my routine to follow me, quite the contrary. I want to see different people, different ways of living, different streets. I even want to rough it out, sometimes. Where's the neat and orderly there? Many of my trips were actually quite disorderly and unclean.

 

I think a cruise is great if rest is what you're after, but it's not the best way to explore new places.

Not entirely true. You can make as much or as little of them as you want. You dock in several different ports, giving you the opportunity to visit several different places without having to haul your stuff around. If you want to stay on the ship & sit by the pool the whole time, you can. But at each port you can take one of a number of available organized tours/activities, or explore on your own. You can make it as clean or as messy as you want.

 

Not entirely true. You can make as much or as little of them as you want. You dock in several different ports, giving you the opportunity to visit several different places without having to haul your stuff around. If you want to stay on the ship & sit by the pool the whole time, you can. But at each port you can take one of a number of available organized tours/activities, or explore on your own. You can make it as clean or as messy as you want.

I beg to differ. Most port cities are extremely commercial and do NOT represent well the country you are coming to. Unless you have a day or two to go outside of the port city (like Phil who went caving in Belize), you are not seeing how people really live in normal, not made for tourists, cities. Nassau is the best example of what I mean. It's an awful place. Cozumel is nice, but it was built for tourists and every Mexican who lives there works in the tourist industry. I'm sure some ports are better than others, though. I wouldn't mind docking in Marseille, for example.

2 cruises via Royal Caribean. I loved the first one and liked #2. I would choose a different ship for #3 as they had the same theme as before. As far as drink prices I had the impression they were okay as taxes/duty were supposed to be out of the deal once at sea. We don't drink a lot anyway. I'm not a foodie but still did okay as they would make simple salads by request. I do drink enough soda so bought the package for one, but my wife used it occasionally also.

As far as chairs by the pool I had no problems with that as there were enough chairs all over. Would I waste hours trying to guard the best spots daily hell no. The shows had plenty of good seats so I wasn't rushing there either.

As far as running, I occasionally ran outside for #1 not much. #2 they wouldn't let us outside before 10am so I stayed on treadmills. The cardio was my only complaint as there wasn't enough and if something broke it didn't get fixed.

I loved the destinations and had fun. My only recommendation is to look into packages. For example Atlantis was an option but we passed. That beach cost $20 a piece which we paid for chairs etc at a lesser place.