Cart is empty Someone recently asked me: Which do I prefer—a cruise or an all-inclusive resort?
That’s actually a good question. Here is an intellectual, unbiased perspective.
I’ve done almost 100 cruises across numerous cruise lines and ships, and I’ve also stayed at many all-inclusive resorts around the world—from the Caribbean to the Maldives. I genuinely enjoy both experiences.
But if I’m evaluating them strictly on overall value, variety, entertainment, and experience, I give the edge to cruising.
Now, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Vacation preferences are highly subjective. Some people want to arrive at one beautiful location, unpack once, sit on the beach, and spend a week completely immersed in that destination. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But here’s where cruising becomes difficult to beat.
Take a ship like Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. Instead of thinking of it simply as a ship, think of it as a small floating city.
You have Central Park, restaurants ranging from Italian and Japanese cuisine to steakhouses, shops, a casino, nightclubs, Latin dancing at Boleros, live music, bars, pools, a gym, spa, entertainment venues, and countless activities—all contained within one moving destination.
And that brings me to perhaps the biggest advantage: entertainment.
A quality all-inclusive resort may have nightly entertainment, live music, activities, and local performers. Some resorts do this extremely well.
But the major cruise lines operate on an entirely different entertainment scale.
Modern ships can offer Broadway-style productions, aquatic shows, ice-skating performances, comedy clubs, live bands, orchestras, karaoke, dance venues, specialty performers, and musicians recruited internationally.
That distinction matters.
A resort is generally drawing its entertainment resources from one property and often one geographic region. A major cruise line can recruit performers and production teams from around the world and invest in entertainment across an entire fleet. The scale and economics are simply different.
Then there is variety.
At a resort, the resort is essentially the destination.
On a cruise, the ship is part of the destination—and tomorrow morning there may be another country outside your window.
That’s a significant difference.
Critics correctly point out that cruising sometimes provides limited time in each port. That’s true. If your objective is deep cultural immersion in one destination, spending several days or weeks there is obviously superior to spending eight hours in port.
But two opposing ideas can be true simultaneously.
Many cruises now have overnight port calls. There are also repositioning, transatlantic, and transpacific cruises that function almost like transportation between continents. I do this often, the ship is my Uber 😁. You can combine the cruise with extended stays before or after the sailing.
And considering that more than 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by water, traveling by sea offers a completely different perspective of the planet.
There is also an important distinction people sometimes overlook: not all cruises are comparable.
Comparing a small, older cruise ship to one of today’s newest mega-ships is almost like comparing two different vacation categories. Larger modern ships have evolved into sophisticated resorts at sea, with neighborhoods, parks, entertainment districts, specialty dining, sports facilities, and attractions that would have been unimaginable on cruise ships a generation ago.
Likewise, all-inclusive resorts are not created equally. A luxury property in the Maldives is obviously a very different experience from a budget all-inclusive elsewhere.
So my conclusion isn’t that cruises are universally “better” than resorts. They aren’t.
The better vacation depends on what you value.
If your priority is relaxation, privacy, a great beach, and deeply experiencing one destination, the all-inclusive resort may win.
But if your priorities are variety, entertainment, dining choices, activities, multiple destinations, and the amount of experience bundled into one vacation, I believe a good modern cruise provides the stronger overall value.
That’s why, after experiencing plenty of both, I give cruising the nod.
An all-inclusive resort gives you a destination.
A great cruise gives you a resort, transportation, entertainment, and multiple destinations—all while your hotel travels with you.
For me, that’s a difficult value proposition to beat. 🚢🌎.