Why travel out of Barbados rather than San Juan?

[ragethjj23]

So I was daydreaming about my first cruise in September...of 2015...and the Valor on the southern route has sailings out of San Juan and Barbados. The price out of Barbados is $300 more, for basically the same sailing (just get on a few days after and stay a few days later). Question is, why in th wold would you g out of Barbados rather than san juan? Im thinking air fare would be more, the cruise itself would be more and you would NEED a passport (I think anyway). Any special reason as to why go out of Barbados over San Juan?

[welldone60]

Most of the cruisers that sail from Barbados are from Europe. Flights are cheaper and there are more of them to Barbados then San Juan.

[ragethjj23]

Most of the cruisers that sail from Barbados are from Europe. Flights are cheaper and there are more of them to Barbados then San Juan.

 

Ohh that makes sense. Thanks for the thought!

[shipty2]

Personally I would much rather sail out of Barbados . I love San Juan too but Barbados has better beaches by far for a pre cruise stay.

[ragethjj23]

Personally I would much rather sail out of Barbados . I love San Juan too but Barbados has better beaches by far for a pre cruise stay.

 

Suppose you are right, but for $300 more pp not worth it for me, especially since we are flying in the day before.

[themnms]

Personally I would much rather sail out of Barbados . I love San Juan too but Barbados has better beaches by far for a pre cruise stay.

 

I am with you!! I would take a few days extra in Barbados!!

[Kfoot]

Well I think it's a matter of personal choice. If my cruise is over a year out (like yours is), I wouldn't mind flying into Barbados a day or 2 before my cruise. I have plenty of time to plan and budget.

If the dates are close then I would definitely sail out of SJ. Flights from Orlando are reasonable.

[seeing this world]

for me as a Canadian flights are pretty close in price flying out of Buffalo. The difference in price would not even come play to make up our mind which one to go to.

[kteachcruiser52]

On our Valor cruise in March, there were only 155 people that ended there cruise in Barbados. The CD said most of them were from England.

[jwalk03]

Barbados has a long history as a British colony, and is still very closely aligned with Great Britain. Therefore it is a very very popular spot to holiday for British citizens. I would say at least 95% of the people that do the itinerary round trip from Barbados are British citizens, that is clearly Carnival's target market in offering this option.

 

This is like the only cruise Carnival still offers where you can board in more than 1 embarkation port. When we took this cruise last year I was talking to the bartender in St. Thomas and he was planning to take this cruise but wanted to just board in St. Thomas instead of having to spend the extra money to fly over to San Juan for boarding (that way he wuld just have to buy a one way flight home from San Juan after the cruise) but Carnival would not let him.

Edited May 8, 2014 by jwalk03

[Amyracecar]

We did this itinary last year, flying from Manchester, England to San Juan via Philadelphia. The flight took about 14 hours including the change, and was the only negative of the holiday. It would have been only 8 hours to Barbados, but whether that's worth the extra cost I'm not sure.

 

One member of staff seemed really confused that we'd done it that way. She kept saying 'Really?? San Juan??'. Apparently it's pretty rare for Brits.

 

No regrets from us, I like Barbados but we stayed in some quirky boutique hotels in SJ that added a unique experience to the holiday. Lovely place with old world charm. If you can cope with the travelling, I'd recommend other Brits to do the same.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[cruisingbajan]

Quite a few Barbadians and folks from other islands sail out of Barbados as well, This is another target market for Carnival as well.