I was talking this morning with a long-time friend with whom I did a lot of traveling back in our mispent youth. She expressed some surprise that I do so much cruise travel now, since most of the things I enjoyed most about travel back then are missing from the cruise experience. She's right, but there also are many things to recommend cruising. To me, the ideal is to do a bit of both.

Sooooo, this started me on list-making. Below is my list of the pros and cons of cruise travel (specifically, luxury cruise travel).

Join in, and add your own lists!

Pros first, in no particular order:

1. Exploring a variety of places in a relatively short time without having to pack or unpack, wait for a plane or train, drive yourself somewhere, or lose good vacation time to the tedium of moving from one place to another.

2. Having your bed made and room cleaned every day, and you didn't have to do it.

3. Good, interesting food that you didn't have to cook.

4. Long, leisurely dinners with a variety of fun and interesting people.

5. That never-empty glass of wine at dinner and glass of scotch at the bar.

6. Not having to worry about finding a designated driver or navigating one's way back to the hotel while under the influence of that wine or scotch.

7. The list you form of places you've sampled and now you know you must go back and spend more time there.

8. The list of places you've always wanted to go, but upon visiting you discover they aren't that great. You got to see them, but you didn't blow a whole vacation on them.

9. The places it never occured to you to visit, but because the ship stopped there so did you. And now you're in love with it (think Visby).

10. Being rocked to sleep every night by the ship's motion.

11. Do the activities, don't do the activities. You're still doing something special with your holiday, even if all you're doing is napping on a lounge chair.

12. Being surrounded by people with positive attitudes, who WILL have a good time and good experience. And who will happily join you in forming no-whining zones.

13. An opportunity to get to know the staff, at least a little: largely comprised of lovely young people from all over the world, who work hard, play hard, suffer from homesickness but are thrilled to be seeing the world, and are often supporting multiple generations of their family on their wages.

14. The enduring friendships that you form. (Hey, I'm going to share a cabin next year for 71 nights with someone I met on the Song of Flower ten years ago.)

15. If you're visiting an uninteresting place, don't worry about getting bored. You won't be there long.

The cons:

1. If you're visiting an interesting place, you never get to see all you want to see.

2. $$$$$

3. You don't get much chance to get to know the people, hang at the local spots, or have those adventures that can only come with a stay in the place.

4. You don't get as wide a sampling of local cuisine.