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My wife and I don't gamble much, and we spend a lot of time in Vegas. One of the things we both hear from our "You're going to Vegas AGAIN?" friends is that we should try cruising. We took a short "starter" cruise to test this theory, 4 days on the Carnival Ship Paradise from Long Beach, CA to Catalina Island to Ensenada, Mexico and back to Long Beach. We had a good time, and will be saving up for a longer cruise to Alaska or Hawaii within the next few years, but I feel there are some things that really need to be put in perspective to compare the two properly. I'll try to write this as much like the rest of the site as I can, but I may slip into a more academic notation every now and then to keep everything organized..
I've stayed at many places in Vegas from a hotel in Jean with such low ceilings I had to duck to walk down the hallway, to The Plaza to The Venetian to a $500+/night suite at The Aladdin shaped like a half a circle with floor-to-ceiling windows the entire way around and a TV so big I could hardly touch opposite corners at the same time. My cruising experience is more limited. I spent 4 days on the good ship Paradise on a Carnival cruise to Mexico. In that time I drank at nearly every bar, tasted nearly every dining option available, visited most of the stores, and peeked into almost every type of state room available on board. Cruise advertising makes grand claims of 5 star service, delicious food, and glamorous ports of call. In this case, I found none of these to be true. The decor, service, food, and amenities onboard were very much on par with a moderate level Downtown Casino. The rooms were small (just large enough for the bed and a closet in the least expensive rooms), the food was of such low quality that I laughed out loud when I saw a Carnival Cruise Cookbook for sale in the gift shop, and the service overall was nowhere near as good as you'll find on most casino floors in Vegas, let alone in the nicer restauraunts.
If there is one truly attractive thing about cruising in general, it's this. If you don't mind a tiny room with no windows then you can cruise for 4 days for under $500 per person, with all of your food on board included. Drinks are cheap, and if you buy your booze in the duty-free shop you'll find it costs about half what it does at your local super-mart. Some cruises (those to Mexico for instance) take you places where you can buy leather, silver, Viagra, booze, etc... for MUCH cheaper then you'll find them in the US. Vegas, however, can be cheaper. I've seen rooms at places like The Four Queens go for $12/night, $30 or $40/night is even easier to find. Those prices are PER ROOM, not per person. Vegas still has plenty of cheap food, and even if you eat at more expensive cafe's it's not hard to spend less then $1000 for two people in two days. If you like things a bit more elegant, Vegas really comes into it's own. We upgraded to a suite on our cruise (we wanted the balcony) and got a 350sqft room, which is small in Vegas. a room nearly twice that size at The Venetian would still have been cheaper if we shopped around, and even if we went on a weekend it would have cost only about as much as the cruise. So when it comes to cost and value, Vegas can either be cheaper or better quality or even both if you are good at planning your trips.
Gambling wasn't as big a deal on the cruise as it is in Vegas. The casino was open whenever we were out of port, but I hardly ever saw it really busy. My personal favorite entertainment was a piano bar where Agustin (a tiny Philipino gentleman with some serious piano skills and a great voice) played til nearly 2:00am every night. Most of what you can do in Vegas you could do on the ship, with one difference. In Vegas there are many piano bars, many stage shows, many comedy shows, and many casinos. A cruise is like being locked in only one hotel/casino for your whole trip. If you don't like the comedian, then you don't go to see any comedy. If you want to see a dueling piano show instead of one guy playing, then you can't. If you really want steak and the dining room is serving chicken or fish, then you are out of luck. Vegas has a lot of choices, and most people I've seen there don't stay in only one building the entire time they are there. There is something to be said for having so many choices within a short cab ride of wherever you are staying.
There is only one real advantage I can see to cruising (I'll cover that later), but Vegas overall really seems to be a much better vacation idea. Vegas gives you more options of what to do, is less expensive, has better rooms at nearly any price level, has better food, and doesn't lock you into one facility for your entire trip.
As I said at the beginning, I will cruise again. The biggest advantage to cruising is that you can visit other places with a true minimum of trouble. No lugging bags through airports, no checking in and out of hotels. You visit one place, get on the ship, drink, gamble, and sleep, and when you wake up another city or another country is only a few steps off the gang-plank. If your destination is interesting then cruising can really be a lot of fun. Vegas is a destination but cruising is a method of travel. If you think of them each in their own way then their place in the world is clear, and there's really no reason to ask someone "why would you go there when you could..."
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