ms. birdstrike and I did a repositioning cruise on the Dawn Princess, SFO to YVR, for just the reason you suggest. Short cruise, two nights, few children.

Turns out Princess is a middle-of-the-road line, but acceptable. I doubt that any ship with 900+ pax could really compare to a good land-based restaurant for food, but it was OK. The shops, casino, formal nights, and nightclubs were a bust for us. The entertainment was, well, entertaining.

Cost was something like $300/pp for two nights.

I'm sure there were fellow travellers who would have made fascinating partners, but how would we find them out of many hundreds of people?

We used up the ship in about four hours then settled in to the balcony to read and whalewatch. There was a surprising amount of wildlife that I'll bet 99% of the ship never saw.

So, mega-ships? Never again. Our next cruise is aboard the 70 passenger Sea Lion on Alaska's Inside Passage.

I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time on that boat @:-)