Repositioning Cruises

I have heard of people taking repositioning cruises and they you can usually get them at a really good price. How do you go about booking these - do they need to be through a TA or directly through the cruise line? Would appreciate any information you can give me.

 

Thanks

Greetings,

 

We did one last year on Grandeur, New Orleans to Baltimore 9 nights and had a wonderfull time. Booked one for this coming year on Jewel, Boston to Ft. Lauderdale 12 nights....

 

You can ask your TA about them, you can look at some cruise brochures for schedules...remember if the "ABC" cruise ship does it's last schedule cruise in Europe.....and then 10-12 days later you see it is scheduled to leave Miami on a 7 night cruise it only makes sense that the ship will do a "repositioning" cruise during the open time period.

 

You are right..they are very popular...one way airfare if you live close to port. Very attractive pricing....and longer cruises...we are sold on them.\

 

ps might be a few cabins still open for our Jewel Nov. 1, 2005 cruise....if you want to experience them first hand.

 

Bill

Repositioning cruises only happen twice. Once to get someplace else to spend the next few months cruising then again when its time to go back. Usually in October and April/May. You can book these through either the cruiselines OR a agent. Whatever works best for you. Good luck.

I have heard of people taking repositioning cruises and they you can usually get them at a really good price. How do you go about booking these - do they need to be through a TA or directly through the cruise line? Would appreciate any information you can give me.

 

Thanks

You can go to *****.com or just go to google and type in repositioning cruises. Lorelle

If you are very flexible, last minute specials may be for you. My parents took a 15 day Princess cruise......SF to FLL repositioning for less than $1200 each, including the one way airfare. Of course, they didn't have a choice in cabins, they were inside. But they couldn't pass up the price. They had been wanting to do a Panama Canal cruise, and they received a postcard with the deal about a month before the cruise. I brought the postcard to my TA and she was able to beat the price.

Could someone explain the repositining cruises?

Could someone explain the repositining cruises?

All the ships that cruise Alaska in the summer have to go elsewhere in the winter, ie the Caribbean. Thats just an example of repositioning the ship. ;)

All the ships that cruise Alaska in the summer have to go elsewhere in the winter, ie the Caribbean. Thats just an example of repositioning the ship. ;)

 

Gingee.........so, in this example, the ships will sail from the west coast, through the Panama Canal and onto Florida or another "winter" port. In the spring, they will reposition from the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and back to the west coast.

Ahhh. Thanks for the information.

I have heard of people taking repositioning cruises and they you can usually get them at a really good price. How do you go about booking these - do they need to be through a TA or directly through the cruise line? Would appreciate any information you can give me.

 

Thanks

They're booked no different from any other cruise. Generally I've found that I get much better rates going through a TA.

All the previous posters info is terrific, but thought we'd share our experience as well. At the beginning of October, we were searching the Royal Carribean web-site and found the Voyager of the Seas repo cruise scheduled for May 7th, 2005. They were offering balcony staterooms for $809 per person (plus tax, of course), starting in Miami and ending in Bayonne, N.J. (as we live in NJ it would involve only a oneway airfare). We immediately put down a deposit to hold our cabin, and were even able to get a corner aft balcony stateroom on Deck 9 (the next to highest deck with cabins). One week later, we checked the RCCL website again, and saw that they were offering the same balcony staterooms for $709 per person...we immediately called Royal Carribean, and they adjusted our price down accordingly. As you might expect, the ship --- as of right now --- is totally reserved, though I've heard that some cabins might be available through a conected TA.

 

We love Repo cruises, and we highly recommend them to everyone.

 

Mike & Silke

Thank you for all the information I will keep my eyes open in the near future!

 

ALB38

There are SOMETIMES (Not Always) a few down sides to Repo Cruises;

 

They tend to be generally longer, attracting an older crowd with time on their hands.

SOME (not all) Older cruisers are SOMETIMES (not always) on fixed incomes and tend to be more frugal, usually not too excited about any activities that might cost more money. (This can be a plus for cruisers who want to get into the cover charge restaurants or go on the pricier tours.

The ship has rarely or never before stopped in the ports of call on this itinerary. The staff are often not very familiar with shore features and activities.

A crew that has been on the same daily routine for several months suddenly must contend with new hours, new ports, time changes, a longer cruise, an older crowd, many more complaints, and other challenges that tend to throw them off their normal quality of services. You will probably notice more mistakes and problems generally.

The shore excursion operators on shore often do not know the staff on the ship and there may be additional challenges on some shore tours due to this.

Some of the ports are not too exciting. If they were, the ships would stop there more often.

The cruise lines tend to heavily discount these cruises as they are often not the most exciting itineraries. The cruise line is mainly looking to "pay the bills" between the old itinerary and the new one.

Since this is a discounted cruise, sometimes (not always) the cruise line eliminates some of the more expensive elements of the cruise; lobster night, chocolate buffet, etc, to avoid losses.

Many times a ship that normally does a 7 day itinerary, must make a 12 or 14 day Repo cruise. Instead of bringing on more expensive entertainment to cover the extra days, the cruise line tries to fill in the extra time with "busy work" activities and just spreads out the quality entertainment.

A longer Repo cruise usually means quite a few consecutive sea days. Inexperienced cruisers usually have problems with too many sea days and normally start complaining about nearly everything by the 4th or 5th sea day. This gets the crew rattled. and they experience further difficulties - which of course get the passengers even more upset.

With auto-tipping being the norm these days, the auto tip for a 14 day cruise can be rather large for a fixed income pasenger. A large percentage of the passengers on a Repo cruise remove or dramatically decrease the tip, claiming poverty. The crew knows that this will happen, so are not too excited to be working that much harder and earning far less for all their troubles at the end of the cruise.

Phillip217, thanks for the interesting insight.

There are SOMETIMES (Not Always) a few down sides to Repo Cruises;

 

They tend to be generally longer, attracting an older crowd with time on their hands.

SOME (not all) Older cruisers are SOMETIMES (not always) on fixed incomes and tend to be more frugal, usually not too excited about any activities that might cost more money. (This can be a plus for cruisers who want to get into the cover charge restaurants or go on the pricier tours.

The ship has rarely or never before stopped in the ports of call on this itinerary. The staff are often not very familiar with shore features and activities.

A crew that has been on the same daily routine for several months suddenly must contend with new hours, new ports, time changes, a longer cruise, an older crowd, many more complaints, and other challenges that tend to throw them off their normal quality of services. You will probably notice more mistakes and problems generally.

The shore excursion operators on shore often do not know the staff on the ship and there may be additional challenges on some shore tours due to this.

Some of the ports are not too exciting. If they were, the ships would stop there more often.

The cruise lines tend to heavily discount these cruises as they are often not the most exciting itineraries. The cruise line is mainly looking to "pay the bills" between the old itinerary and the new one.

Since this is a discounted cruise, sometimes (not always) the cruise line eliminates some of the more expensive elements of the cruise; lobster night, chocolate buffet, etc, to avoid losses.

Many times a ship that normally does a 7 day itinerary, must make a 12 or 14 day Repo cruise. Instead of bringing on more expensive entertainment to cover the extra days, the cruise line tries to fill in the extra time with "busy work" activities and just spreads out the quality entertainment.

A longer Repo cruise usually means quite a few consecutive sea days. Inexperienced cruisers usually have problems with too many sea days and normally start complaining about nearly everything by the 4th or 5th sea day. This gets the crew rattled. and they experience further difficulties - which of course get the passengers even more upset.

With auto-tipping being the norm these days, the auto tip for a 14 day cruise can be rather large for a fixed income pasenger. A large percentage of the passengers on a Repo cruise remove or dramatically decrease the tip, claiming poverty. The crew knows that this will happen, so are not too excited to be working that much harder and earning far less for all their troubles at the end of the cruise.

 

Havr you gone on many repo cruises ?

If not then may I ask where you obtained your informations from ?

 

We've only done one and I thought it was great....and we are booked on another for next year.

 

Bill

Havr you gone on many repo cruises ?

If not then may I ask where you obtained your informations from ?

Do a search on Phillip217 past posts. I find him to be a credible source of valuable information. ;)

We have done several repositioning cruises. Love them. These cruises have caught on the last couple of years and certain categories sell out quickly. They can range from 12 days to 22 days and some are even longer.

So you have to decide which cruise line, how long of an itinerary, what ports are important to you, do you want to go from east to west or west to east.

Anytime we do them, we also pay the air deviation in order to select the flights that we want to take to the embarkation and from the disembarkation port. That way we don't get stuck with some wild schedule that the cruise line may give you.

 

Anytime we do them, we also pay the air deviation in order to select the flights that we want to take to the embarkation and from the disembarkation port. That way we don't get stuck with some wild schedule that the cruise line may give you.

You can also just book air on your own to save even more money, in most cases.

There are SOMETIMES (Not Always) a few down sides to Repo Cruises;

They tend to be generally longer, attracting an older crowd with time on their hands.

SOME (not all) Older cruisers are SOMETIMES (not always) on fixed incomes and tend to be more frugal, usually not too excited about any activities that might cost more money. (This can be a plus for cruisers who want to get into the cover charge restaurants or go on the pricier tours.

Philip, I am glad that you did put the words (not all) and (not always) in your statements. I would like to state our experience with a transatlantic cruise on Celebrity since it was exactly like our experience with a regular Celebrity cruise. We have done the transatlantic twice and are doing our third one next year. We love this repostioning cruise. We have found a wide variety of ages on the two transatlantics we have taken and a very small number of children. We have been seated for dinner with people our age (early 50's) and younger. We have also found that a number of tours were sold out.

The ship has rarely or never before stopped in the ports of call on this itinerary. The staff are often not very familiar with shore features and activities.

A crew that has been on the same daily routine for several months suddenly must contend with new hours, new ports, time changes, a longer cruise, an older crowd, many more complaints, and other challenges that tend to throw them off their normal quality of services. You will probably notice more mistakes and problems generally.

We also have not noticed any difference in the crew. If anything, the crew was even better than a 7 day caribbean cruise because they got to know the passengers better.

The shore excursion operators on shore often do not know the staff on the ship and there may be additional challenges on some shore tours due to this.

Some of the ports are not too exciting. If they were, the ships would stop there more often.

We stopped at ports frequented by cruise ships - Gibraltar, Madeira, St. Martin, and St. Thomas.

The cruise lines tend to heavily discount these cruises as they are often not the most exciting itineraries. The cruise line is mainly looking to "pay the bills" between the old itinerary and the new one.

Since this is a discounted cruise, sometimes (not always) the cruise line eliminates some of the more expensive elements of the cruise; lobster night, chocolate buffet, etc, to avoid losses.

Yes this cruise was cheaper. In fact that is one of the reasons that we took it the first time. We could do a two week transatlantic for the same price as one week Alaska. And after doing two port intensive (6 ports in 7 days) cruises within 6 months of each other, we took the trans because of the price and the itinerary. We finally want to do a cruise where we could enjoy the ship as our destination instead of using the ship as a means to get to our destinations. There were still 3 formal nights, the dinner menus were the same that we had experienced on our other Celebrity cruises, there were the same number of buffets as offered on 2 one week cruises. All the special touches that Celebrity has were offered - the welcome aboard glass of champagne, the cool towels when returning from a port, the mid afternoon sorbet and cool towels poolside, etc.

Many times a ship that normally does a 7 day itinerary, must make a 12 or 14 day Repo cruise. Instead of bringing on more expensive entertainment to cover the extra days, the cruise line tries to fill in the extra time with "busy work" activities and just spreads out the quality entertainment.

The entertainment was the same as was on the Med cruise before the transatlantic. The entertainment signs up for certain term and must perform a certain number of times per week of that contract. We have found the entertainment to be "quality" at all times - not any different than a 7 day cruise on the same line.

A longer Repo cruise usually means quite a few consecutive sea days. Inexperienced cruisers usually have problems with too many sea days and normally start complaining about nearly everything by the 4th or 5th sea day. This gets the crew rattled. and they experience further difficulties - which of course get the passengers even more upset.

With auto-tipping being the norm these days, the auto tip for a 14 day cruise can be rather large for a fixed income pasenger. A large percentage of the passengers on a Repo cruise remove or dramatically decrease the tip, claiming poverty. The crew knows that this will happen, so are not too excited to be working that much harder and earning far less for all their troubles at the end of the cruise.

I have never seen the crew rattled on our transatlantics - in fact, they seem to go out of their way to be more patient and friendly - again, I believe because they really get to know their passengers.

 

We have found that it is cheaper on a transatlantic to book the air through the cruise line as you would need to book one-ways since you are leaving from one continent and/or country and disembarking in another. Some suggest buying round trip tickets and using only one portion, but I would definitely not do that as I have read that the airlines are cracking down on people who do this and are billing them for the difference of a one way fare. I would also be afraid, with security measures today,that if I did not return on the other ticket I would be placed on a watch list.

OBX Bill,

 

I can tell you how many Total cruises I have taken; 1,060, including the one this week. Can you guess what I do for for a living? If I had to guess the number of repo cruises I have done, I would say about 50 or 60.

Not all were bad. Some were fantastic. But (in my humble opinion only) the odds of getting burned or having your expectations dashed are greater on a repo cruise. If you are a gambler, take cruises in Hurricane season because they are cheaper, enjoy older and quieter crowds, enjoy many sea days (thats me) and dont really like hundreds of children running around, perhaps repo cruises are for you.

 

There are also some real pluses on repo cruises:

- Very few children.

- Very few "drink til you puke" passengers.

- An older, quieter, better behaved crowd.

- Lots of lazy sea days to do absolutely nothing.

- Less sense of urgency to stampede into the diningroom, show lounge, etc.

- Getting to know the other passengers and crew a bit better.

- Saving a lot of money.

- Visiting ports that rarely see cruise ships.

OBX Bill,

 

I can tell you how many Total cruises I have taken; 1,060, including the one this week. Can you guess what I do for for a living? If I had to guess the number of repo cruises I have done, I would say about 50 or 60.

Not all were bad. Some were fantastic. But (in my humble opinion only) the odds of getting burned or having your expectations dashed are greater on a repo cruise. If you are a gambler, take cruises in Hurricane season because they are cheaper, enjoy older and quieter crowds, enjoy many sea days (thats me) and dont really like hundreds of children running around, perhaps repo cruises are for you.

 

There are also some real pluses on repo cruises:

- Very few children.

- Very few "drink til you puke" passengers.

- An older, quieter, better behaved crowd.

- Lots of lazy sea days to do absolutely nothing.

- Less sense of urgency to stampede into the diningroom, show lounge, etc.

- Getting to know the other passengers and crew a bit better.

- Saving a lot of money.

- Visiting ports that rarely see cruise ships.

 

 

Thanks for pointing out some of the good reasons for taking a repo cruise. Like I said I've done one and enjoyed it very much. I can understand some of the concerns one might have, but the one I have coming up like the first one is really adding only one port to their itinary and then ending someplace else.

 

And I too enjoy those "sea days" nothing better than just sitting back watching time go by......

 

perhaps some day we'll meet on one of your cruises.....

 

Bill