I did a 2 night cruise from NYC, it was fabulous. But I lived in North jersey and it was a quick drive to the port. Worth every minute.
Yes! We live in South Jersey and it was an easy train ride from Hamilton Station and then taxi to the port. Very stress free. It was just our younger ds and myself; he was 12 then. Older ds was 15 at the time. He and dh felt it was too short so why bother. I took a Friday off and we had a wonderful weekend with lots of pictures sailing past the Statue of Liberty. Camera flashes were flying in both directions. It was nice to be able to book another placeholder too. Following the map channel, it looked like we sailed south to approximately VA Beach then turned around back to NYC. I would totally do it again.
To answer OP, I used to laugh at the thought of doing a 3-nt cruise. Our first 5-6 Disney cruises were all 7 nts on the Magic. This was back when the options were 7 nts on the Magic or 3/4 nts on the Wonder. It seemed like too much work for such a short trip. Well, depending on your stage in life, you might find yourself in desperate need of a
DCL fix and just don't have a full week off work or can't pull your kids out of school for a whole week. I was in some desperate need of sunshine, Wilderness Lodge and DCL so we spent a day at MK/WL then sailed a 3-nt. It seemed crazy: like we board, the next night is already Pirate Night, then disembark but it helped keep me sane through a cold, dark winter.
There were plenty of times later when our kids would have a Thursday & Friday off school and we'd squeeze in a quickie 3-nt.
Dh and I just sailed a 3-nt again in late August when I wasn't sure how comfortable I'd feel in post covid world of cruising. Now I'm ready for longer. Our 14 nt WBPC sailing, booked before covid, was cancelled for 2021, rebooked for 2022 and we're hoping it still happens.
Just know that you will most likely want a longer one next time. As kids get older, it's not so easy to pull them out of school.