I was musing on our return flight about "Why we travel". Twain had a pretty good idea, it's the enemy of prejudice, which I find true. More specifically, why do we go on cruises? Mainly, for us, it's to see new places conveniently. As usual, on the last cruise, after we boarded, we had to wait an hour or so for the rooms to be prepared. Every bar on board was packed, and I think Caribbean cruises in general are "drinkfests" for many cruisers. They want their money's worth, so to speak, in free booze. The cruise lines make money off this I'm sure, I wonder if some alcohol free cruise could exist.
Anyway, we like seeing new places, taking excursions/tours/etc. A cruise is good for that, I have determined that a midlevel cruise on a line like NCL starting in the US will be full of ... Americans, mostly interested in the shows, gambling, boozing, etc. So, I had already reached the conclusion to avoid such things, though our next cruise originates in NYC. Ha.
As I noted, we did sign up for another cruise from Iceland going to Norway and into the Baltics, and we won another "free" Carib cruise in December. Maybe, I'm not sure I'm going to do that one, it had some strings. Whatever.
So for us, while NCL is "middle class", it works for us, we get a larger balcony suite, the food is "OK" (my wife likes the Garden Cafe for most of the dining), we don't particularly want to pay more for more upscale experiences, though it probably would limit the "riff raff".
