Itineries and Ports .

[Yorkypete]

I have just read piece in the Daily Express about cruises.There was a complaint that some lines only spend around 4-6 hours in a port and it is not long enough to explore. Asking a variety of passengers  though about cruises it seems that most say that the ship is the important thing and visiting  ports is just a small bonus. The ship and its amenities is the main destination and people would even stay aboard when visiting a port.  Does this mean we should have ships on cruises which never see land and just sail around whilst others do many port visits for longer periods to soak up foreign cultures?

[Dobbers]

Personally we cruise for the ports. We have seen many places that we would never have thought to book a holiday to. Agreed that some ports we could have done with more time to explore and some much less.  Some ports we will stay on the ship but only because we have visited many times.

People cruise for different reasons, some for the experience of the ship itself and that’s great too. 
Might be that sailing only cruises could be introduced for cruise only experiences, it wouldn’t be for us though. 

 

[molecrochip]

I tend to stay on board for about 50% of ports nowadays especially if it’s port heavy.

 

On an Azura cruise from Malta, I want 3 days relaxing on ship and 3 days in port but that usually means missing a port. That’s fine, you can only do the train into Rome so many times in life!

 

Each to their own.

[John Bull]

Hi, Pete,

 

The norm is about 8 hours in port, but most cruises involve a short day or two. The reasons include  tight scheduling (sailing time from yesterday's port or to tomorrow's port) or the limitations of the port (for instance tides).

The only cruise lines I know which are frequently in ports for short days are the Italian ones, particularly Costa, and particularly on their Mediterranean cruises - on those itineraries the bulk of their passengers are  Italian plus a lot of French & Italians

 

Much more prevalent are cruises with a lot of sea-days. Other than logistics (eg Atlantic crossings or Pacific cruises), they are American ships - usually the big ones - sailing the Caribbean. Bear in mind that the Caribbean is in America's back yard and many of them take Caribbean vacations in much the same way as we Brits go to all-inclusive resorts in Europe, Egypt, Caribbean islands, etc. 

For them a cruise ship is an all-inclusive resort hotel, with the option of spending a day or two on the beach or exploring ashore.

Not my thing, but each to their own

 

JB 🙂

 

 

[Harters]

Ports are fine in themselves but you are there for such a short time that you really don't get even a "broad brush" insight into the place. Accept it for what it is. Generally speaking, I prefer sea days to port days.

 

Our upcoming 10 day cruise with Oceania has three sea days and that'll be great. It also has three ports in which we have pretty much zero interest, so we may or may not bother getting off for a leg stretch. Maybe get lunch ashore if there's somewhere nearby.

 

 

[Thejuggler]

Our first cruise was very much about ship life, the ports didn't matter.

 

We then chose cruises for ports as it was a good way of seeing places where cruising made sense, especially the Fjords, or places we would probably never see,  Faeroes in particular.

 

i did know someone who had done a number of world cruises and she rarely left the ship on any of them.

[Bob++]

Our first cruise (on Pacific Princess) was around the Mediterranean. The ship was on its way back from the Antipodes and had sailed through the Suez Canal, in the Spring of 2011 just after the riots and protests in Cairo. This was an important port for us, and as the sailing date approached it was increasingly doubtful that we would be able to go there.

 

We did dock at Port Said, and stayed overnight in Cairo, before rejoining the ship at Alexandria. That was a very memorable port.

 

While on board, we became friendly with two elderly American ladies who had been with the ship since New Zealand. They had intended to leave earlier, but they were offered a huge discount to stay onboard as so many people had cancelled due to the riots. Those ladies had only left the ship once on their entire voyage and that was in Bahrain to buy some gold.

 

Now, a few cruises later, and restricted to UK sailings, we tend to stay onboard or just go for a walk if it's possible.

[SofaSogood]

For our honeymoon, my husband and I have chosen our 9-day cruise which has 8 ports and 1 day at sea, so that we have the option of visiting lots of different places, as opposed to staying in one or two places for a week or two and not getting to see much else other than a beach or pool and the local town.

There are 2-3 days where we won't be doing an excursion, because too many can become costly, so we will stay on the ship when there isn't much to do in the port.