I travel often, but just took my first luxury cruise. The food was great, and it was easy to relax, but there was 1 unexpected drawback.

For all the things I loved about cruising, one of my original reservations did bear out.

I usually think of travel as a way to experience a place and its culture. I like wandering neighborhoods, eating local cuisine, figuring out public transportation, and having the kinds of unplanned interactions that happen when you’re actually immersed in a destination (even when they’re stressful).

A port stop is different. We visited some incredible places, and we were generally there for only a few hours before returning to the ship. There was less time for wandering, spontaneity, or meaningful cultural exchange.

In that sense, this cruise felt more like a true vacation than the kind of travel I typically do. And, as it turns out, I really needed and enjoyed that. But I did sometimes wonder how much I could say I’d truly experienced a destination after seeing it within the relatively controlled framework of a port day.

So if my primary goal were to deeply get to know a place, I’d still choose to stay there rather than visit it by ship. But I loved the shipboard experience, and it turned out to be one of the best trips I’ve taken in recent memory.