Pet Friendly Cruise?

[pick_me_an_avocado]

Does anyone know of a pet-friendly cruise? My family loves cruising, but we'd love to take our little pug. We always take her when we stay in hotels, but haven't heard of any ships allowing dogs.

[beachchick]

Short answer, no. Cunard ships doing trans-Atlantics have kennels, but the pets are not allowed out of the kennels, so their people must come visit them. It's simply too much liability, logistics, and possible damage issues for the cruise lines to allow pets. Plus, it's much, much harder to clean cabins of animal dander than it is to clean them of smoke residue (for those ships which still allow smoking in the cabins). They'd have to have cabins designated specifically and only for pets. There would be no way to know if they would be booked each cruise and then would be empty--thus, loss of revenue. On top of that, many pet owners are simply not responsible when it comes to their animal's behavior. And what do you do at meal time? Do animals stay alone in the cabins or are the other diners forced to have pets in the dining room? As a final thing, animals often do not travel well in such a different environment. Best to leave them home with caretakers to comfort, play with, feed, walk, and love them.

 

I truly understand why you ask because we love our "babies" so much, but it's not reasonable to ask the cruise lines to allow it, IMO.

 

beachchick

[crusinmama06]

Yep, sorry...like beachchick says, only some Cunard sailings allow dogs.

 

And the dogs need special clearances from every single port they get off on. Imagine the red tape...yep it's bad. When you send a dog to another country, they actually go into quarantine. So your dog would have to stay on the ship while you are in port.

 

And the only dogs allowed are service dogs.

[pick_me_an_avocado]

Thanks for the info, beachchick and cruisinmama06. I thought the answer was no, but thought I'd ask anyway!