I tend to agree with your wife, as my girlfriend and I have done several repositioning cruises, with and without any ports of call, and we have fun just being on the ship. That said, my favorite ocean cruises have been Vancouver to Whittier, Alaska (Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College Fjord) and Caribbean (Key West, Havana, Colombia, Curacao, Bonaire, Aruba, Santiago de Cuba).From PRSI:
I‘m not really a cruise person either, but it depends on the cruise. Caribbean cruises, with a stop in Jamaica, Caimen Islands, and Cozumel, Mexico? ...eh, that was ok. My wife says she considers the boat as much the destination as the destinations, but I disagree. The boat is fun, but I woukd have zero interest in a cruise from the UK to New York crossing the North Atlantic. And you really can’t dock at a tourist dock for 6 hours and say you’ve visited Jamaica.
Now a 2 week Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise? ? Or a 2 week cruise around the Med starting in Barcelona to Italy and back though a dozen intermediate stops? ? Expensive but well worth it.
That said, our typical vacation is fly in, rent a car, and set our own schedule. It’s hard to beat that.
Her parents did the Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise. We only did Nürnberg to Budapest, but added days in München beforehand and in Budapest afterward, so it was still about two weeks. My favorite river cruise by far, though, is the Nile between Luxor and Aswan, which I've done twice. I just love the Nile at Aswan. My Egypt trips have all been fantastic.