# I avoided cruises for 50 years. Then I took one

> A lifelong traveler with a low opinion of cruise ships spent nine nights on one and found most of his assumptions did not hold up.
- Title: I avoided cruises for 50 years. Then I took one | Shortify
- Summary: A lifelong traveler with a low opinion of cruise ships spent nine nights on one and found most of his assumptions did not hold up. The version of cruising…
- Keywords: cruising, travel, luxury travel, northern europe, first impressions, business, technology, avoided, cruises, years, took, one
- Source: Business Insider — https://businessinsider.com/first-luxury-cruise-surprised-me-pros-cons-2026-9
- Author: Alesandra Dubin
- Published: 2026-09-13T12:34:01.285+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: cruising, travel, luxury travel, northern europe, first impressions, business, technology
## Fifty years, zero cruises
A seasoned traveler who has been almost everywhere had never once set foot on a cruise ship. It took until his late forties to board one.

> it took me nearly five decades to get on a cruise ship at all
## Never even curious
This was not a scheduling problem or a budget one. Cruising simply never registered as something worth trying.

> I had never been particularly curious about cruising
## The picture in his head
He imagined mountains of mediocre buffet food, drinks in loud colors, and decks packed shoulder to shoulder with other passengers.

> heaping buffets of dubious food, brightly colored drinks, crowded decks
## Too packaged to tempt him
The deeper objection was not the food. It was the sense of a trip decided for you in advance, with no room to wander off the plan.

> a style of travel that seemed much too packaged for me
## Nine nights up north
He finally tested it this summer, sailing through Northern Europe for nine nights on a luxury ship.
## The assumptions collapsed
By the end of the trip, most of what he had confidently believed about cruising had not survived contact with the real thing.

> much of what I thought I knew about cruising was wrong
## Key takeaway

The version of cruising you have pictured in your head may be decades out of date, and the only way to find out is to book one.