Originally Posted by
TravelingNomads
We did a 7 night cruise a couple of years ago and it was a bit too long for us. We prefer the 5 night ones. Maybe it was just our itinerary as we were at sea most of the time vs being in port very much. Try not to get sucked into the "art" presentation if you can help it. The cruises that have private beaches are always fun. I only had a balcony once, but it was completely worth it. It was peaceful sitting outside in the evenings. I would definitely recommend the dining room for dinner. I haven't been overly impressed with them during lunch, but they have decent food/service at night. The game shows and magic shows are usually fun. We also usually rent a car when we're in port so that we can visit the non-tourist areas.
We, on the other hand, will not book a cruise shorter than 10 days. Part of it is that our annual cruise is basically our major vacation and anything shorter than 10 days is too short. Secondly, after we've paid for airfare and a pre-cruise hotel we want to get as much "bang for our buck" as we can. I will say we look for port intensive cruises and are not much into sea days. The idea of a say a trans-Atlantic cruise with six or seven straight sea days is of no interest to us.