Same here except our original plan for our 7-day Med cruise was 11 days abroad, which stretched involuntarily into 2 weeks because we lost our Passports and it took a few days to sort it out. Our next long one is a 12-day British Isles cruise in May and we'll be holding onto our papers for dear life!2 weeks. Did it twice for cruises. One was Mediterranean, other was Northern Europe.
There are definitely economies of scale to be achieved with longer trips, but I'd rather go on short trips than none at all. Lots of our vacations over the years have been limited due to time and finances. Our one and only trip to Hawaii was for only 4 nights and although we took a lot of flak for it, we didn't care. It was a wonderful trip and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.We usually can only pull off 5 days, maybe 6. Twice we were able to do 8 days at WDW and it was awesome! 2 weeks is a dream.
It's cheaper and easier doing the longer WDW trip but our schedules don't allow it. So we end up taking 5 day trips more frequently and it costs much more between extra tickets and airfare. One of these years I'll take another 8 day trip.
We have a cat. I love to vacation but I do also miss the cat when we go away. He's also why I keep in mind how long I'm gone. The longest so far has been 11 days and boy does he let us know when we get back how he feels about that lol.Since I share responsibility for my elderly mom, we mostly limit our trips to 8-10 days. I miss my mom and our doggie too much when gone longer than that.