Suggestion for new ports

[Extra Kim]

Visby on Gotland, Sweden have a few ships every year (and rather big ferries every day). It would be a popular port with it's medieval city center and defensive wall.

 

The same goes for my hometown Kalmar, Sweden. We have a few ships every year that tender their guests. I think that it would offer a lot with our old city center, the castle, the easy way to get to the island Öland and the nearby Kingdom of Crystal.

[Leafpeeper]

New England: Boston summer cruise to Newport, Martha's Vineyard, Portland, & Nova Scotia or a Canada cruise to Quebec like Holland America Canada cruises would b nice to cool off during hot summer.

[Leafpeeper]

Panama Canal cruise ports are horrible. NCL: Add more Caribbean ports with beaches like Aruba and cancel Columbia, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Yuck. We were so disappointed with ports on NCL in Feb. I noticed they added Aruba & Curaco in Caribbean and Ixtapa on NCL Gem in Jan. one year too late. Wish it left in Feb instead of Jan.

[sail7seas]

Funny story about St Barts. About 2 years ago one of the mass market ships did get permission for a port call. When the cruisers got ashore they quickly discovered that none of the rest rooms in town were functioning. Some shop owners claimed there was a problem with the local water supply. Apparently the problem disappeared after the cruisers tendered back to their ship :).

 

St Barts and Anguilla (another nearby island) are beautiful islands that attract a pretty upscale clientèle who are happy to spend money (lots of money) on accommodations and in the oft world-class restaurants (with world class prices). They do not want their paradise spoiled by large groups of cruisers...although they do welcome the cruisers from the small upscale lines (i.e. Seabourn, Regent, Silverseas, Sea Dream, Wind Star, etc). Looking forward at the entire 2019 year for St Barts...there is not a single scheduled arrival of a mass market ship on the island. The closest thing to mass market would be Oceania or Azamara. I think the largest ship would be the Crystal Serenity.

 

Hank

 

 

As I mentionred, we sailed there twice on HAL, the stores and restaurants we re more than happy to take my dh's credit card...... Yes, the prices were high but we knew to expect that.

[SPacificbound]

Have you been to Afrika?

[sail7seas]

Have you been to Afrika?

Tangiers,

[sail7seas]

New England: Boston summer cruise to Newport, Martha's Vineyard, Portland, & Nova Scotia or a Canada cruise to Quebec like Holland America Canada cruises would b nice to cool off during hot summer.

 

 

Wondeful cruisresd, Good ports. We liked Poftland so much ghe fistg gtiemw e gtopped gthre on Maasdam, we later booked a week end stay there with friends. . We had a wondeful time and enjoyed P:ortland so much..............

 

Halifax s i fa bvulous p;ort iNMO Don't count on i being 'so cool'. We of ten had quite warm weather on Canada/ NE itineraries . :)

[John Bull]

Tangiers,

 

Thomson/Tui go there from time to time.

But can't handle ships of more than about 2000 pax.

 

And car ferries from Spain now port at "Port Med", which is in the back of beyond about 30 miles from Tangier.

Don't ask how we found that out :o :D

 

JB :)

[SPacificbound]

Oceania has a wonderful Cape Town to Singapore 01/20/2019.It has several South Africa ports, Mozambique, Madagascar, two ports in Tanzania, Mombasa Kenya, Seychelles, overnight Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, two ports Malaysia, overnight Singapore.

[sail7seas]

Oceania has a wonderful Cape Town to Singapore 01/20/2019.It has several South Africa ports, Mozambique, Madagascar, two ports in Tanzania, Mombasa Kenya, Seychelles, overnight Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, two ports Malaysia, overnight Singapore.

 

Great itinrerary, sounds wonderful

[maryann ns]

I hope things settle down in Turkey and more ships go there again. Our first ever cruise (Azamara) included five ports in Turkey: the usual overnight in Istanbul, a long day in Kusadasi (Ephesus), and then Bodrum, Fethiye and Antalya. All three were wonderful. Warm weather in November, ancient and medieval historical sites and great waterfronts with gulets to rent.

[pghsteelerfan]

Funny story about St Barts. About 2 years ago one of the mass market ships did get permission for a port call. When the cruisers got ashore they quickly discovered that none of the rest rooms in town were functioning. Some shop owners claimed there was a problem with the local water supply. Apparently the problem disappeared after the cruisers tendered back to their ship :).

 

 

Hank

 

I do remember seeing a thread about that under the Ports of Call boards, under St. Bart's. We had just booked a cruise to the western Caribbean (last minute, a month out) and there was a new for us stop on our itinerary, so I was researching the Port of Call boards. I've always known that St. Bart's was pretty exclusive but decided to check out the posts, for kicks, and this post was at the top (and still on the first page - easy to find). :o https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1998291

 

We normally do Caribbean itineraries since it's convenient and it's hard for DH to get more than a week off work at once. There are some islands that cruise ships go to on alternating itineraries or on special itineraries (Carnival's "Journey" cruises). Most of the main cruise lines seem to have very similar eastern and western Caribbean itineraries. We normally cruise with Carnival which seems to have set, repeated itineraries. As mentioned earlier, the exception are their Journey cruises, which are generally 9+ days so probably not something we can consider (DH's job), but in checking some of the other cruise lines' websites, I've found that several of them DO go to ports that aren't on Carnival's regular itineraries. We would seriously consider another cruise line to get to some new places.

Edited April 10, 2018 by pghsteelerfan

[Joebucks]

Staying true to the OP, I don't know that there are many options. At this point in the game, I doubt these large cruise corporations have simply overlooked some best-kept secrets. Certain places have concerns with capacity, entertainment, location, politics, safety, etc. There are also some good, capable, underutilized ports, but are they marketable?

 

The Carribean is such an ideal spot because it is such an accessible, topical vacation, destination.

 

There are quite a few premium cruise lines that will take you all over the world already. It's just that demand isn't crazy, partially due to cost. That makes expansion limited.

 

Royal is really messing with things with their mega ships. I think they are on the right path with their private island though. Is it for everyone? Of course not, nothing is. However, there is no sustainable path to growing an already large fleet of mega ships without private island resorts.

[Nebr.cruiser]

We were at Padre Island, Texas recently and news articles stated that they are looking into developing it as a cruise stop, with several cruise lines interested. I can see that this could be a nice stop; there are quite a few things to see and do around there.

 

On the other hand, 3000 passengers might be quite disruptive to the island, although they are used to dealing with hordes of Spring Breakers and summer visitors. The winter is quieter but still gets plenty of tourists are 'Winter Texans'. Weather is usually quite good in the winter, though it can be very windy and cool at times. Ocean temps in the winter are too cold for me to swim (60's) but some do.

 

Building the infrastructure for a dock would cost mega bucks, but probably be a boon for the local economy.

[cmdchiefthom]

I just fell in love with the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama when HAL's ships occasionally anchored in the late '90's. It was like stepping back in time;)

[buggins0402]

Oceania has a wonderful Cape Town to Singapore 01/20/2019.It has several South Africa ports, Mozambique, Madagascar, two ports in Tanzania, Mombasa Kenya, Seychelles, overnight Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, two ports Malaysia, overnight Singapore.

 

From what I can see on the PDF of 2020 itineraries, it looks like the 2020 Capetown to Singapore has changed quite a bit....it doesn’t seem to continue up the coast to Kenya and Tanzania.