Is October a good time for transatlantic?

[eurodl]

Looking at transatlantic in October 2021 on Crown.  This this a good time of year?  Cruise leaves Paris and ends in Ft. Lauderdale.

[cruise2relax]

We have done two in October and both were perfect for weather.  One was northern Atlantic and the other to Lauderdale.  It is hurricane season so you never know BUT thank goodness hurricane move slowly so the Captain can avoid them.

[Gracie115]

oh....anytime is a good time for a TA...lol

 

seriously we've done one in October and the weather was amazing!!

[-Lew-]

All of our crossings from the Med in October have been very comfortable.  East to west TAs, where we gain an hour almost every day, are very relaxing after what is usually a very port intensive itinerary.

 

Our only experience with a northerly crossing was on the Regal last year.  Not the best weather to be sure...we couldn't even use our extended balcony most days.

[geoherb]

The major thing you'd have to worry about with an October transatlantic is a hurricane causing the ship to divert. We sailed on our first transatlantic cruise last September and missed three ports due to the remnants of Hurricane Florence. We picked up two other ports. We just went with the flow, although I need to find another cruise that goes to Norway. We leave next week for our second transatlantic cruise. This one is scheduled to end in Fort Lauderdale. I'm hoping we get the itinerary we signed up for, but if the captain needs to divert us for a storm, I'll be glad he's looking out for our safety and comfort.

[1965]

We've done 6 TAs, 5 in Oct., 1 in May. No problems. Oct. is our favorite time to cruise. Few children onboard, temps are pleasant, prices are good, sailing east to west so we ease into our time zone. 

[Adventures ahead]

Yes! In the fall you get those 25-hr days and calmer, warmer waters than in the spring. Southern crossing is more comfortable than the North Atlantic Crossing. In the fall, we followed the Gulf Stream south and it became warmer every day. No storms that the captain would have avoided anyway. We arrived in Ft Lauderdale on Oct 17. We noticed slightly cooler temps only on the last two days as we approached FL.

 

Friends couldn't wait to go so booked a spring North Atlantic crossing from NY.  They weren't able to enjoy the ship outside on the sea days going east. Have a great cruise!

[BigGuy25]

We’ve done both September and October crossings and enjoyed both.  

[Oak City Man]

While hurricanes can and do form in October, September is the peak time for them.  For example, the National Hurricane Center is currently tracking one tropical storm and four (4) disturbances.

[NavyVeteran]

9 hours ago, eurodl said:

Looking at transatlantic in October 2021 on Crown.  This this a good time of year?  Cruise leaves Paris and ends in Ft. Lauderdale.

In my opinion, the main advantage of a fall trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise is that it is westbound. This has three advantages:

• You have 25-hour days on the crossing instead of 23-hour days in the other direction. This is much more relaxing.
• You have the port intensive European cruise first and the more relaxing trans-Atlantic crossing last. You end the cruise more relaxed. When going in the other direction, you get home needing a vacation to recover from your vacation.
• You have the longer trans-Atlantic flight (California to Paris) at the beginning of the trip when you are excited to be going and the shorter flight (Fort Lauderdale to California) at the end of the trip when you are ready to get home.

I notice that you are on the 23-Day British Isles Grand Adventure from Le Havre to Fort Lauderdale.. This is a combination of a 8-Day Ireland & Wales roundtrip Southampton and a 14-Day Western Europe Passage from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale with boarding one day early at Le Havre instead of at Southampton. Note that Princess does not sell a 9-day Le Havre to Southampton cruise separately - you can only board at Le Havre if you are going on the full trans-Atlantic Grand Adventure.

 

I have not boarded at Le Havre, but you should have a relatively easy time because there will not be very many people boarding there. Most people will be boarding the next day in Southampton.

 

Le Havre is not close to Paris. It is a long train or bus trip from Paris. Make sure you have your transfers planned in advance.

 

You do need to have an alternative plan in place in case the ship misses the port at Le Havre. This port has been missed several times. In some cases they use another port and in cases, they miss it entirely. You may need to get from Paris or Le Havre (depending on which one you are at when you find out about the missed port) to Southampton. If you are flying in on Princess EZAir and taking a Princess transfer from Paris to Le Havre, then Princess will probably arrange your alternate transportation to Southampton, and they should give you a refund for one day of your cruise. If you are not taking a Princess transfer, make sure you have contact telephone numbers and check with them that morning. In any case, travel insurance is good to have just in case Princess doesn't cover all of your expenses. I don't remember the details, but I have seen several posts about missing Le Havre.

 

[MotownVoice]

Ironically I’ve had worse luck in the normally languid Mediterranean in the Fall than in the Atlantic.  Might just be my dumb luck.  I dunno.

 

 

[eurodl]

Thank you NavyVeteran. We were thinking it would be nice to have the sea days at the end of the trip to relax. I did notice that there aren't very many cabins available leaving from Paris but there seem to be more available leaving from London. Not sure why that's the case it's just one day later.

[Hlitner]

I was just trying to look up weather and sea forecasts for Oct 2021 but had no luck :(.  But seriously, we have more then a dozen crossings in October (doing another next month) and the weather and seas have generally been very good except when it was Not!  And that about sums it up.    

 

 

Hank

 

[capriccio]

We did a TA from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale the last week in October/first week in November 2017.  The weather was warm and sunny and the seas were flat calm.  We were spoiled - I'd like to do another but wonder if we would be so lucky the second time!

[NavyVeteran]

On 9/14/2019 at 2:33 PM, eurodl said:

Thank you NavyVeteran. We were thinking it would be nice to have the sea days at the end of the trip to relax. I did notice that there aren't very many cabins available leaving from Paris but there seem to be more available leaving from London. Not sure why that's the case it's just one day later.

The cruise before yours is sold as a 12-Day roundtrip from Le Havre (Sep 22 - Oct 4) or a 12-Day roundtrip from Southampton (Sep 23 - Oct 5). I suspect that Princess sells a lot more Southampton cruises than Le Havre cruises, and therefore they would allocate a lot more cabins to the Southampton ones.

[eurodl]

It looks like we may end up switching gears and going on a 12-day either from Paris or London sometime in May of 2021. Sailing with another couple so waiting to get their feedback. I'd love to do the transatlantic but I got vetoed 😞

[Jim_Iain]

As we all know, weather is unpredictable.   I have taken many TA's and some have been smooth and sunny while others have been rough.   Remember that October is still in Hurricane Season and you could be impacted.

 

2 Years ago we took the Southampton - Beaches to Broadway.   There was a HUGE storm at sea and all ships including Queen Mary and Celebrity Edge (who were in front of us) had to divert South of the Azores.    Was a really rough crossing with furniture tied down on balconies for the entire cruise.    We arrived Boston a day late and all ports were shifted by one day and Bahamas was cancelled.

[CGTNORMANDIE]

On 9/14/2019 at 2:46 AM, eurodl said:

Looking at transatlantic in October 2021 on Crown.  This this a good time of year?  Cruise leaves Paris and ends in Ft. Lauderdale.

Too bad you got vetoed.  A southern TA in October is wonderful.  I’ve done it 8 times.  

[jamacka]

On 9/14/2019 at 3:46 AM, eurodl said:

Looking at transatlantic in October 2021 on Crown.  This this a good time of year?  Cruise leaves Paris and ends in Ft. Lauderdale.

 

As other's have mentioned, it's hurricane season. But don't let that deter you!!  In November 2018 we sailed from Southampton to Boston-NYC-Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale on Celebrity Silhouette and we were faced with a major storm that required we take an extra day to divert our course to avoid.  We were suppose to stop in the Bahamas but we lost that port because of the extra sea day.  But sea days are lovely.  We did hit some rough weather.  Our balcony furniture was all lashed down for the first few days and we weren't allowed outside on deck 5 and really didn't want to go outside even on the top decks because it was quite very windy and cold.  About halfway through the week the weather cleared although we still had rough seas of 6 meters (20 feet) is was quite nice out.  We hit more stormy weather as we approached Boston.  There was ice on the deck as we docked in Boston.   Here's a couple of videos of our trip.  This first one is taken from our balcony on deck 6.

 
This second one was when we entered New York Harbour.  Much of the crew was on deck. Really nice to see they were allowed to take the time off from their very busy schedule to get out on deck and see the iconic sight of the Statue of Liberty against the backdrop of the city, like so many immigrants have seen through the ages, as a symbol of hope and freedom.

 

[eurodl]

Thank you so much Jamacka for the videos.  We ran into something similar if not worse on on cruise back to Long Beach from Hawaii.  Even the crew got seasick!

 

We've actually changed direction in our planning and will probably fly over to Europe once we figure out what itinerary we like best.  So many to choose from 🙂.  But who knows!

 

 

[boblin]

I have done 6-8 transatlantic, all but 1 was eastbound in April. I love them because , going east, I avoid overnight flights to Europe, which I hate!  Also I have something to look forward to during the winter. On my one westbound TA in Sept, a hurricane off the east coast caused major problems with missed ports.