USO tours are basically that. And during WW2 and before it, mobile bordellos were a thing in most armies. A space station is not in combat 24/7 nor is it necessarily sitting in the "frontlines" all the time. Having a recreational ship visit it once a year or two is perfectly reasonable.
No USO tour I've ever seen has consisted of the equivalent of the Queen Elizabeth 2 pulling into port for a month. In real life, a couple entertainers fly in on a plane, perform for a couple hours, and then leave almost immediately.
In that respect, it actually is a lot more true to life to either require a shuttle bay, or abstract that the 'USO tour' flew into the station commercially.
Granted, even then, this is often on top of the deployed units rotating soldiers back home for a couple weeks of leave throughout the tour.
I recognize that in the late game, when it's not unreasonable to be employing million ton defensive bases, a la DS9 or B5, this issue effectively becomes moot, because tossing in a rec center is basically an afterthought at that point. Mostly, my thought is to the early to mid game, where a few 5-20k ton 'watchtowers' are manageable to keep an eye on an unsecured JP, but a 150k pleasure cruiser represents a heck of an investment in shipyard infrastructure at the least.
I just figured that, since we're making shuttles a part of the general Aurora lore, why not give them some additional meaningful parts to play in it?