Linsuesue

6 hours ago, jsglow said:

The point I will add is that Alaska excursions are staffed almost exclusively by seasonal workers. Recruiting for next summer hasn't even begun yet. Until the tour operators have a handle, offerings to the cruise lines will be limited. It will come together in early '24 for the season. Patience is golden. 

Seasonal help can definitely be lined by now. I had a friend that used to work summers in Juneau. Since there were 60+ excursions available a few weeks ago that could be booked, operators had help lined up. I am concerned with the number of ships in port each day that are all accessing excursion operators. Skagway will have the Ruby Princess, NCL Jewel, NCL Sun, and Carnival Spirit at the same time. Juneau will have the Silver Muse, Safari Endeavor, SS Wilderness Legacy, NCL Sun, Carnival Spirit, Grand Princess, and Carnival Luminosa that day.  Ketchikan will have the Celebrity Summit, Celebrity Edge, Carnival Spirit, Oceania Regatta, Ruby Princess, and the Crystal Celebrity that day. There is an extent to how many atv’s can be rented, or seats in jeep tours available, seats on a train, duck tours, canoe adventures, whale watching, bike tours… I am wondering( worried) if the sudden drop in number of tours available is that many tours have sold out already, because of having so many large ships at once in the port. I hope that is not the case, and that it will be a boom year for all excursion operators with many offerings for all. This will be our 7th cruise to Alaska and we have booked all sorts of excursions in advance, last minute, and private tours too. Think of Skagway with 3,782 from the Ruby Princess, 2,376 passengers on the Jewel, NCL Sun can have 1,976+, and Carnival Spirit with 2,124 passengers. I am wondering if people going now or booked for next year are seeing a big drop in availability. Maybe the 60% drop in offerings was a computer glitch and we will have more availability soon. I am thinking that anyone seeing an excursion they like better book as soon as possible. 

6 hours ago, RD64 said:

Skagway - in particular - can be subject to excessive winds. Two weeks ago was one of the windiest days I have ever experienced, and numerous excursions got cancelled the day of.

Did the train excursion still run?

With 5 cruises booked, you are a good judge of glitches! I had a payment problem on the website a couple of weeks ago. I was putting $300 on the cruise, the webpage showed I was paying $300 on the $2800 balance. When I clicked on apply the payment, it had paid the whole thing off! I got it straightened out, but was wondering what else wasnt working on the website. Thanks for the quick reply and am hoping  many more excursions will be added soon. 

There is a cocktail called a Pink Flamingo🍷

   I am booked on the Carnival Spirit to go to Alaska in July 2024. On July 14th of 2023 there were 59 excursions available. Shortly after that there were 64 excursions. I know there will be more added-like the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion…, but today when I checked there were only 24 excursions available. I have checked the port schedules for our cruise and there will be many big ships in each port each day. I dont know if this is a website glitch, or an indication of the extreme competition there will be for tour operators. Is anybody else going to Alaska next year noticing the same decrease in excursion availability?

On 8/2/2023 at 11:47 AM, Haljo1935 said:

Yes - they scan it to know you attended.

If you  cant get to your room mailbox to get your sign and sail card, I believe they can scan your boarding pass as well. 

We used this service pre covid on Carnival and it worked flawlessly. When we sailed to Alaska in August of 2022, the Carnival people said they didnt have Port Valet anymore. If this is a port service, wouldnt it be offered to any and every cruise ship at that port?

9 minutes ago, TomCruise48 said:

A S2S between Miami and Fort Lauderdale is easily doable.  Since Carnival no longer sails from Fort Lauderdale that leg will need to be on a different cruise line.  Royal Caribbean will provide free transportation between these ports if you do your S2S between two of their ships. 

That is good to know. I don’t know a thing about Royal Caribbean but want to check them out.

3 hours ago, JimmyTheSaint said:

I'm not sure if this counts as side to side but at the end of the Transatlantic cruise on Pride that finished in Tampa we boarded Mardi Gras on the same day for a seven night Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral. We booked an Uber to take us across Florida as it was the cheapest and most convenient option.

You won't find B2B cruises on a website, we booked the Transatlantic cruise through Carnival's website, you can find them in the Sail To box, and then the rest of the planning and booking fell into place very easily. We knew the date of the sailing so looked for the previous one and what date we'd arrive in Florida so looked for a sailing on that date. Sometimes it's easier to find a cruise using a cruise comparison website with multiple search options such as search a specific date and then find it and book it on Carnivals' website.

I guess traveling from one side of Florida to the other makes it a supersized side2side!😃 Thanks for the tip. Traveling across a state from port to port is real thinking outside of the box!

1 hour ago, jam19872016 said:

Freedom is doing round trip transatlantic cruises this fall with about a three week gap while she gets her new whale tail installed. 

 

There are lots of us onboard doing both legs and spending time in Europe for the time in-between. 

 

I'll be doing five days in Barcelona followed by 14 days on Cunard for the bargain price of $899 pp.

 

The return TA is currently sold out but final payment is coming up soon and I bet some rooms open up then as they did on the outbound TA. 

 

If that is too soon, Glory has a spring TA next year which you could combine with another ship heading to Europe around that time.

Thanks for the examples! This year is too soon, as we have 2 trips planned this fall. Next year is chunked up with 3 cruises booked. I am going to shoot for fall of 2025, because I found a B2B that would add up to 29 days. Your European trip sounds great! My first thought is that all of that time in Europe between the cruises sounds expensive. Having never been there though, but I figure hotels, gas, and transportation is high. What a unique way to avoid flying across all because of a whale tail!😃

11 minutes ago, Etta1213 said:

You probably picked up this tidbit already, but cruisers refer to "side to side," meaning they change ships. It obviously provides one with more options. In small ports like Galveston, it wouldn't be a super big deal. It could involve two different cruise lines or just two ships of same line. Be sure to let us know what you book! I'm so excited for you!🤗

Thank you! I really enjoy the planning phase of a trip. Today is the first time I have ever heard of a side by side. It sounds quite fun-as long as the itineraries weren't carbon copies of each other. I am so grateful for the Cruise Critic boards. I have found out so many great tips and tricks on here. This was the first place I found out about Spirit Class aft wraps-that later became Vista Views, the 4K Inside obstructed view cabins on deck 4 of the Spirit ships, the Grand Scenic Ocean view cabins on the Splendor-and other ships, what Port Valet was in Seattle…

7 minutes ago, CGinMTL said:

I think you need to find a good travel agent. But I just googled " repositioning cruises" and you get different websites that have different search engines that you may want to play with.

 

Normally these are at the end of a season when ships move from one zone to another, they include many sea days and are less expensive

 

Ships that are in the Caribbean for the winter will move either to

Alaska

Europe

East coast for the summer.

.

Example. Holland America has one ship that goes from Florida up to Montreal early May.

That ship then does Montreal to Boston for the summer. ( This year was the Zaandam ).

 

Think of were the ships are which month, and when they would move back.

.

If you are set on carnival. Look 1 ship at a time for a one year period. You will soon see the pattern.

Which I could give you more info, but the rules don't allow it 

Great information—Thank you so much! I have been checking out some websites that have repositioning cruise information on them. I would enjoy sailing on other cruise lines and need to be more diligent to check out their prices and itineraries. 

1 hour ago, Haljo1935 said:

I have found some incredible deals for Australia but the flights kill me - like mortgage the house expensive. 

Messaging in this board is disabled, and I have one question about the B2B you did. You said that you paid less for the B2B than some people paid for just one of the cruises. How does that happen? From info I am getting on here you have to book each leg of the B2B separately and then Carnival will link the 2 cruises together and each leg has its own reservation #. If that is the case, how do you get a better deal booking 2 separate legs? I have seen killer deals on Australian cruises but a $2,000 cheap seat on a 15 hour flight?! 😮 

46 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Hey @Linsuesue weighing in a bit on B2B and TAs (transatlantic) & TPs (transpacific) and answering @RobertL88 as you may have same question when (see what I did there? "When" not "if") you book your B2B.

You will get instructions for "turnaround" day - the day passengers leave & new ones get on. It will tell you when/where to meet, just follow those instructions and know you will cause an entire ship to wait for you if you don't. If you change cabins, you can pack your loose stuff, leave hanging clothes on hangers - stewards will move your stuff. There are threads on here w/very good info and lots of details.

As for the B2B - I have always built my own by searching for ports I would be willing to get to to leave from then just start expanding the filters for dates. I do not filter by number of days because it will omit the shorter itineraries that you can book to build your B2B.

@Linsuesue I would encourage you to add HAL (Holland America Line) into your search as they do a lot of European itineraries. 

We built a B2B on Princess pre-Covid flying to Athens, cruise Athens RT (round trip), turnaround day in Athens then cruise Athens->Barcelona, flew home from Barcelona. This repeated 1 port even though we were in the same area; we could have spent a week in that 1 port and still not seen it all, so repeating it was certainly acceptable. We wouldn't have repeated it, but Turkey was canceled and it was the replacement.  That was our 1st B2B and honestly back then didn't even know that's what it was called (silly, naiive us) - we just knew we thought it was easy to cruise a 2nd  week and didn't understand why more people didn't do it (again, how dumb were we). We heard people talking about how much they paid for the full cruise and were surprised as our B2B was far less than their 1 cruise. We did a HOHO (hop on hop off) around Athens on turnaround day - it was fabulous!

We have our 1st TA and TP coming up. The TA we fly to Rome cruising Spain to FLL (Ft Lauderdale) then fly home from FLL. We booked air as 2 separate 1-way tickets for far less than half what a multi-city ticket cost.

By not limiting yourself to 1 cruiseline (sorry cheerleaders and loyalists) you will have more options to avoid the long flights you are looking to avoid. We booked a RT Rome that would require us to fly both ways from Rome, but then I found a TA London->FL that left the day after the Rome returned. So a $70 flight got us from Rome->London then cruise London->FL. I did not look for a TA going the other way to prevent flying to Rome, but I likely could have found one. This does require changing cruise lines for London leg.

The TP is one you may well be interested in; I built it into a B2B as well. We fly to Japan, cruise to Seattle then cruise Seattle RT, fly home from Seattle. If you don't want to fly to Japan, there is cruise from the US to Japan; I couldn't add it because I couldn't get that much time off work.

I personally don't turn this research phase over to a TA and do not have a good PCC/PVP to do it. But I will send them what I've put together to see if they have recommendations to make it better/cheaper or have an alternative. 

Happy to answer questions or share any tips if you want to DM.

Haljo-thanks for the insights! You explained some things I had not considered. I am a big Carnival fan but have sailed on NCL too. It gets to be a bit apples to oranges when you start to compare and contrast multiple cruise lines. Keeping plane time to a minimum of discomfort and money, it seems to be worth the research to find every ship coming into every port on every day around the time you want to travel somewhere. I guess I thought it would be easier to figure out the back-to-backs/repositioning cruises, because many people on cruise critic sound so casual about all of the ones they have done. 500 people on one ship doing back-to-backs. Wow. Japan would be a 1 time bucket list item for me. I want to see as many places as I can in one trip not knowing if I will ever be able to come back again. You are correct-my B2B is a when-definitely not an if-definitely not a one time only.😀 I will DM you as I think of more things! 

1 hour ago, Drew B 58 said:

If you are trying to avoid flights, repositioning cruises probably are NOT the way to go.  By definition, they start in one port and end in another.  You’d have to fly to/from at least one of those ports.  For example, I did a repo Alaska cruise that started in Los Angeles and ended in Vancouver.  L.A. is my home port, so I didn’t have to fly to get there, but I did have to fly BACK from Vancouver (actually from Seattle because it was cheaper to drive from Vancouver to Seattle, then book a domestic flight home…).

I live inland, so I have to fly to get to most ports, and I am OK with that. I know it is a dream to just travel by ship, but if I could take a transatlantic one way, that would make me much happier. That 8 + hour flight to Rome which would be $3,000+ roundtrip for 2 is why we havent ever been to Europe.  We recently did a Panama Canal cruise from Miami to Los Angeles. If we had more time, I would have booked a 7 day Miami Caribbean cruise and then done the Panama Canal cruise. That kind of back to back shouldnt be that hard to set up. 

1 hour ago, FastShip24 said:

 

If the first part of your cruise is Seattle to Alaska-it has a stop in Victoria, Canada, and then back to Seattle-that is fine. The second part would be Seattle to Hawaii-that would be problematic with no foreign port stop. I am thinking maybe one of the ships could go from Seattle to Australia, or Seattle-Hawaii-Ensenada-California. 

1 hour ago, JimmyTheSaint said:

We did our first B2B last October on Carnival Pride. We booked the Transatlantic sailing from Lisbon to Tampa and as it was such a good deal we had a look at the cruise before it, Rome to Lisbon, and as the price of it was a good deal we booked it also. We booked the cruises separately but then contacted customer services to link them as B2B. 

 

The process on board Pride was very easy and well handled by the crew, I think there were about 500 passengers doing B2B. We had to move cabins which was very straightforward, we moved next door. It was a great trip and I wouldn't hesitate to do another B2B.

Did you have to spend some days in Lisbon, or did the cruises mesh so well that they arrived and departed on the same day. I love the Pride and the Spirit class ships. How long was the flight to Rome?

42 minutes ago, FastShip24 said:

That's literally what she asked for

I realize now the title should be, “Where to find repositioning cruises”, but I am learning the lingo as I go.☺️

10 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

I just pulled up plan and sail to on website, and I didn’t see any repo options. Not sure why it isn’t showing. Makes it difficult for those looking for repo cruises, or I’m just looking in wrong place.

Since I haven’t done it before, I am probably looking in the wrong places. I would think those cruises are popular enough to sell out faster. 🙂

33 minutes ago, FastShip24 said:

I know the last cruise out of Alaska goes to a different part of the globe. 7 days Alaska to 14 days somewhere else

That sounds perfect! I have cruised to Alaska and cruised out of California to Hawaii and back. I am wondering where the Alaskan cruise ships are repositioned. Would the cruise be Alaska-Hawaii-California, or do the Alaskan ships reposition to Australia with a stop in Hawaii on the way?

1 minute ago, luv2trvlnow said:

You could always check Carnivals Transatlantic crossings and then look at Cunard for the opposite crossing.  They have many more crossings both East and West during the year.  You might find something that works where you can spend some time in Europe before boarding the return cruise. 

I have to admit that Cunard has never been on my radar for a cruise. I would just as soon spend the airfare money on a return cruise, even if it is more expensive. Extra days in Europe would be bonus too. Good tip-thanks!

I have read and learned so much from your posts, that I dont think there is a cruise you haven’t been on yet!😄 Keeping the same cabin for a repositioning cruise would be my dream. Now that booking a flight has become problematic due to computer errors, lack of pilots, bad weather, floods, and lack of cabin staff, it would be a benefit to me to not have to fly twice for 2 cruises when one flight will get me to a back to back.

2 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

I believe Cunard is your only choice for consistent RT’s between Europe and US.

Most cruise lines do their Eastbound TA’s in the spring and westbound return late summer/early fall.

Good to know!

2 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

In 2016, I did 2 Europe cruises and then the TA on the Vista. I prefer Westbound TA’s. I just finished a B5B on the Ovation of the Seas from Australia. It included legs to South Pacific, New Zealand, TP, Hawaii and Alaska. Next year I will be on the Panorama from Singapore to Long Beach. I did the reverse on the Splendor in 2019. Enjoy your retirement. There’s a whole big world to cruise to now.

Your post looks like a bucket list to me! Now I am thinking maybe I could find one cruise line to get to Europe, stay a few days and find any cruise line that goes back to the United States. I would prefer the same cruise line to make it easier, but I just checked Carnival’s transatlantic dates to Barcelona and they dont match up.

Just now, Prometheus1 said:

I find that the easiest way  is to use one of the big box travel sites to search- they have repositioning listed under the search functions, its just easier to see the dates, etc.. then I can search the carnival site after.

Never thought of doing that. Big help!!