This was the first cruise for my husband & myself but it certainly will not be our last! We chose a 10-day cruise of the Mexican Riviera and I think it was an excellent choice. Ten days gave us time to settle in and really get into the swing of things. Unlike most of our fellow passengers we still have full-time, stress-filled jobs so it takes us a while to come down & get in "vacation mode".
I have to say the thing that surprised me most about cruising was how much I truly enjoyed our fellow passengers. We were actually dreading the prospect of having to dine with strangers for 10 days. But after the first dinner all fears were relieved. We truly enjoyed our dinner companions & we started seeking them out for other activities.
We chose a smaller ship so we wouldn't be overrun by a crush of people and, again, I'm glad for the choice. We started having continuing conversations with fellow passengers with similar interests all over the ship. We had our bridge buddies, our piano bar buddies, our Karaoke buddies, our deck chair buddies, our shore excursion buddies, etc. At the end of the cruise we were truly sad to leave all our new friends.