What is the farthest you have traveled to get to your embarkation port?

[K32682]

3 hours ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

Are cruises that far away that much different from a cruise you can get to by cab?

Obviously the ports of call are different but the actual cruise portion itself. Is it different enough to warrant a 8-9-10k mile flight or series of flights to get to. Again, obviously the ports of call are unique and I am guessing that is main of the reason for the long travel to embarkation, not just the cruise portion or am looking at it wrong?

 

The ports of call are the only reason we cruise. Cruising is our preferred option for remote locations that are hard to get to and/or lack modern tourist infrastructure. In between ports we tolerate the tedium and occasional silliness of life onboard ship.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by K32682

[mom says]

19 minutes ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

Thank you, that is making some sense to me. On a land vacation, you are not surrounding yourself with a bunch of like minded individuals (unless you book a group tour kind of thing). The cruising part is a shared experience that adds to the overall Itinerary...

Very much so. Land vacations certainly have their place. And we do just as many of those as we do cruises. But there's also what we call the "scouting " factor for far flung cruises. A cruise port stop only gives you a taste of the place but also can be an excellent way to see if it would be somewhere you would like to return for a longer land stay. Our next cruise includes 7 different Pacific islands. I shudder to think of the costs involved in stringing all those together by flying from one to the other.

 

[jsn55]

9 hours ago, capriccio said:

750 days in advance for us.  We booked our upcoming April 2023 Australia cruise the day bookings opened in mid-March 2021.  Within hours only guaranteed cabins in our desired category (mini-suite) were available and within a day or two the entire cruise in all cabin categories was sold out.  Since then, occasionally one cabin category will open for a day and be sold out again.  

We do exactly the same ... want a mini-suite aft-facing balcony on a high deck.  I spend a great deal of time sitting on that balcony sipping whatever (depends on the hour) and thinking about how wonderful it all is ...dreaming of the next one in a completely different place.  Ah, so relaxing!  We're doing a cruise to and around the Hawaiian Islands in that kind of cabin, and I would probably be very happy not even getting off the ship except to walk around for a couple of hours.

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

Thank you, that is making some sense to me. On a land vacation, you are not surrounding yourself with a bunch of like minded individuals (unless you book a group tour kind of thing). The cruising part is a shared experience that adds to the overall Itinerary...

Actually, you can get similar individuals by booking an escorted land tour. We have done this in both central Europe (Budapest, Vienna, and Prague) and Peru featuring Machu Picchu.

[cruisemom42]

16 hours ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

If it is the destination as you said, why bother with the cruise portion at all? Port time is usually limited, most of your time is spent onboard....

 

Another point worth addressing. On itineraries outside the US that I've been on, port hours are usually longer.  It's not unusual to have a 12-14 hour port day. Some ships even overnight in ports -- I've been on cruises that overnighted in Istanbul, Athens, Livorno (for Florence), Venice, St. Petersburg, Saigon (HCM City), and Casablanca (to facilitate a visit to Marrakech) among others....

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by cruisemom42

[DnD CruiserZ]

24 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Another point worth addressing. On itineraries outside the US that I've been on, port hours are usually longer.  It's not unusual to have a 12-14 hour port day. Some ships even overnight in ports -- I've been on cruises that overnighted in Istanbul, Athens, Livorno (for Florence), Venice, St. Petersburg, Saigon (HCM City), and Casablanca (to facilitate a visit to Marrakech) among others....

 

Thanks!

That would certainly add to the overall experience and make the long travel to an embarkation port worth while...being able to enjoy more time off the ship.

On the cruises I have been on, we have never had anything like that. Last cruise we were on we had "port day" that was 1900 to 2330 or something close to that. We did not get to really do anything on land.

Edited July 8, 2022 by DnD CruiserZ

[capriccio]

30 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Another point worth addressing. On itineraries outside the US that I've been on, port hours are usually longer.  It's not unusual to have a 12-14 hour port day. Some ships even overnight in ports -- I've been on cruises that overnighted in Istanbul, Athens, Livorno (for Florence), Venice, St. Petersburg, Saigon (HCM City), and Casablanca (to facilitate a visit to Marrakech) among others....

 

When embarking in Quebec City Princess (and probably other lines) have an overnight on some itineraries.  The ship doesn't depart until the evening of the second day.

 

While not overnight, we were on a British Isles cruise that didn't depart Glasgow until after 1 am (having arrived around 7 am the previous day).  This enabled passengers to attend the Tattoo in Edinburgh.  It was probably our longest one day excursion ever.  Our roll call group was picked up around 8 am and spent the morning and most of the afternoon touring southern Scotland in a van and were dropped off in Edinburgh around 4:30 for a couple of hours of independent sightseeing.  We then had a group dinner organized by a RC member, then attended the Tattoo (we each bought our own tickets), and then met the van for the ride back to the ship.  A wonderful, lovely and memorable day!

[cruiserking]

During the winter it's just a short car ride to New Jersey for a cruise to the Bahamas aboard Anthem of the Seas. This August we're traveling to Southampton, England for a 12-night British Isles cruise aboard Emerald Princess. 

 

Still dreaming of doing the World Cruise though that leaves conveniently from New York aboard the QM2.

 

Jonathan

Edited July 8, 2022 by cruiserking

[capriccio]

Just remembered another overnight (also on Princess):  Lima, Peru.  This enabled passengers to take a two night tour to Machu Picchu and then meet the ship at the next port.  We took two different 8+ hour city tours (one each day) with a private tour company with other members of our RC.  It was great and very informative.

[slidergirl]

Right now I’m in Marseille France, going to Arles tomorrow for my canal barge cruise,  so from SLC to MRS.  oh, forgot SLC to CAI for my Nile cruise back in the mid 2000s

[ldubs]

21 hours ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

Are cruises that far away that much different from a cruise you can get to by cab?

Obviously the ports of call are different but the actual cruise portion itself. Is it different enough to warrant a 8-9-10k mile flight or series of flights to get to. Again, obviously the ports of call are unique and I am guessing that is main of the reason for the long travel to embarkation, not just the cruise portion or am looking at it wrong?

 

I think you are looking at it correctly.  If I just wanted a boat ride, I would always leave out of SFO where no flight is required.  And in fact, sometimes we want and do exactly that.   

 

Another facet perhaps.   Tour time from cruise ships is limited as many will point out.   We have not done many, but I found the same to be true of the multi-city paid land tours we have done.   And because of the constant packing/unpacking,  keeping to schedule, and shuttling from one mode of transport to another, I find a cruise to be better.   Land tours on our own are an entirely different story and much preferred.   Our favorite is a cruise coupled with an on-our-own land tour.   

Edited July 8, 2022 by ldubs

[MBP&O2/O]

21 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

I very much enjoyed my Business Class flight on Air New Zealand:  LAX-AK

The flight I mentioned from London to NZ was on a DC10 .... four abreast in the middle. The flight was a night flight and  virtually empty so I moved to the middle, pushed up the arm rests, got extra blankets and zonked out for hours .... cheaper than first class! No biz class in those days😄

[rkacruiser]

22 hours ago, lissie said:

Yes we leave next week to pick up a cruise out of San Francisco which will go to Europe 

 

Wow!  That will be quite a trip.  What ship?  What itinerary (detail of all the ports not needed)?  

[lissie]

1 hour ago, rkacruiser said:

 

Wow!  That will be quite a trip.  What ship?  What itinerary (detail of all the ports not needed)?  

Its in my sig-  Cunard Queen Elizabeth its her repositioning from Alaska to Barcelona - for us the appeal is the Panama Canal and exotic ports like Bermuda and Madeira. 

 

We dislike the overnight flight to the west coast so are breaking it up with 5 days in Hawaii before we have 5 days in SF before embarkation.  

[AKJonesy]

Anchorage - New Zealand

Anchorage - Singapore

Anchorage - Buenos Aires

[Ben2travel]

On 7/6/2022 at 9:06 AM, DnD CruiserZ said:

I have been in the "How many days until your next cruise" topic and I was surprised to see some people counting down from hundreds of days. I mean HUNDREDS of days.

We’ve been counting down probably close to a THOUSAND days, but a lot of that is due to the fact that we rescheduled three times due to COVID. Finally down to sixty! Traveling from Virginia to Venice for embarkation.

[CanobieFan]

10,300 miles or so between my home in Orlando, FL to the port in Singapore ❤️ 

[Wendy-Europe]

6012 Miles/9676 km, Munich to San Diego 

[rkacruiser]

21 hours ago, lissie said:

Its in my sig-  Cunard Queen Elizabeth its her repositioning from Alaska to Barcelona - for us the appeal is the Panama Canal and exotic ports like Bermuda and Madeira. 

 

We dislike the overnight flight to the west coast so are breaking it up with 5 days in Hawaii before we have 5 days in SF before embarkation.  

 

Thank you for responding.  (I didn't read your signature; sorry.)  That will be a wonderful trip as well as your October cruise!  

[lissie]

3 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

Thank you for responding.  (I didn't read your signature; sorry.)  That will be a wonderful trip as well as your October cruise!  

Just about to do a proper back we leave in 4 days - its one long trip so we are away for 3.5 months 

[edinburgher]

Edinburgh to Santiago Chile for a S America/Panama Canal.  And on arrival in Santiago we had the additional long (2 hour?) coach ride to Valparaiso for embarkation. Once onboard we disacovered many pax were doing either a B2B or a B2B2B around S America and kicked ourselves for not thinking about it ourselves as we were on our knees with exhaustion.

 

A couple of years later it was Edinburgh to Rio.  Shorter than the Santiago flight so felt easier despite the still quite long distance.

 

Multiple flights to and from  Edinburgh /Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong,Singapore.

 

Chennai to Edinburgh via London.

 

Only NA flights were to Seattle for a special Alaska 2 week cruise -,

 

Orlando and Miami(land) several times when our kids were small..

 

 Edinburgh to Vancouver for another Alaskan (it was our first),

and, believe it or not, Edinburgh to Toronto for a city break.

Edinburgh to Quebec for a New E./Canada itinerary-home from NYC felt like a short hop.

 

We have never braved the OZ/NZ flights as we can only pay for  coach/economy.

 

We loved each and every destination, just came to dread the actual flights over the years as flying became more of a "sufference"

Edited July 10, 2022 by edinburgher

[edinburgher]

BTW, I am referencing Edinburgh Scotland and not any other Edinburgh (I know there are a few)

[DnD CruiserZ]

On 7/9/2022 at 9:55 AM, Wendy-Europe said:

6012 Miles/9676 km, Munich to San Diego 

If you don't mind me asking, which cruise line/itinerary enticed you to travel from Munich to San Diego?

 

[Wendy-Europe]

21 hours ago, DnD CruiserZ said:

If you don't mind me asking, which cruise line/itinerary enticed you to travel from Munich to San Diego?

 

Mexican Riviera with Holland America.

[crystalspin]

LAX through MIA to CPT (Cape Town South Africa). My first cruise, that went to Buenos Aires.