Actually it’s 7,600 passengers but once you approach 8k what’s another 400.
My wife and I have been on plenty and never caught as much as a sniffle, those were all before covid and I’m sure the hygiene practices have been fortified since then.
Having said all that, the largest one we went on was 3k passengers and that was too many for us.
Our 1st was on our honeymoon on the smallest ship we ever cruised on and it was also the most enjoyable.
At the end of the day, it’s not for everyone.
It’s not for everyone at any time during the day.
Having lived rural my entire life (69), and my wife (66) since she was 21, we have no interest in being in big crowds.
We just got back from visiting our oldest son on Oahu. First time in HI. Without the mountains and the pineapple farms, it is all city and crowded (to us anyway).
Of our 6 days there (stayed at his place) we only ventured into the crowd at the Pearl Harbor Memorial complex. 1 day we spent on a sand bar out in Kaneohe Bay on a pontoon boat (with a second story diving board). Not too crowded. That was a lot of fun for a few hours until a boat parked about 40’ away, and was loudly playing absolute trash music: f this, f-ing that. We left.
But 1 day just the wife and I went out to the far west end of the North Shore and enjoyed the almost empty beaches where the lava rock off shore and just under the suface makes swimming and surfing nearly impossible. You could wade in waist deep and enjoy the water and waves.
Just had to face the ocean to watch for a rogue wave that might knock us down. If we saw one we just walked toward the beach a few steps so it wasn’t as likely to knock us over and drag us out by undertow. During our 3+ hours on that 1/8 mile long beach there was no more than 4 other people there.