Transatlantic Cruise options?

[Remy2015]

Hi,

 

My dad does not want to fly for medical reasons but my mum wants to go to the USA (florida) for their wedding anniversary next year. Does anyone have any ideas on how we get them there and back? Im not concerned on when in the year but an option to cruise stay and then cruise? They could do a short internal flight of no more than 2-3 hours. Thanks in advance! :)

[Piggeldy]

Going from where?

 

To Florida you are really looking at the repositioning cruises which will happen mostly in fall (from ports such as Southampton or Rome or Barcelona, depending on ship)... but you won't get them home until the following spring on a repositioning cruise ;)

 

You could check if you can find a repositioning cruise that is to their liking and can be linked with a Transatlantic on Cunard from New York City (car/train/flight from Florida to New York) but that will mostly only get them back to Southampton so there might be looking at another flight home.

 

Or they could take a TA on Cunard to New York and travel down to Florida (again car/train/flight) and then return on a spring repositioning cruise (or they could travel back up to New York and return on Cunard).

 

It can be done but it would really depend on your location and your father's medical condition and their budget and how flexible they are.

[Remy2015]

Hi thanks for the reply. leave from Southampton or somewhere UK if poss. What tends to be the best for budget? Happy to look at short internal flight in US so they can take advantage of the reposition cruise. Would the Cunard option be the most straight forward? Thanks

[chengkp75]

As the previous poster stated, most of the cruise lines' repositioning cruises are westbound in the fall, and eastbound in the spring. If you're not looking for that long in the US, then yes, Cunard is the only option, since they run TA's back and forth for several months a year.

[babs135]

Last couple of years Celebrity have done a cruise in October/November Southampton to Florida (disembarkation has been either Miami or Fort Lauderdale). After some time there you could either fly up to New York & take the Queen Mary 2 back home or be adventurous and take Amtrak up to the Big Apple. Travelling by Amtrak is somewhat interesting!!

[Piggeldy]

Yes, Cunard would be the most straight forward but that wouldn't take them to Florida if that's the main reason for them to go.

 

You could look into the Cunard TAs and arrange an additional land vacation in Florida. There is a WB TA from Southampton to New York from 23 Jun - 1 Jul 2016 with an EB TA from New York to Southampton from 6 Jul - 13 Jul 2016 which would give them a week in Florida.

 

Or you could look into the 28 Sep -13 Oct 2016 M/S Norwegian Star TA (Copenhagen to Tampa) or the 01 Oct - 17 Oct 2016 M/S Royal Princess TA (Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale) which might work with the 26 Oct - 3 Nov 2016 Cunard TA. Or you could combine the 17 Nov - 03 Dec 2016 M/S Norwegian Spirit TA (Barcelona to Port Canaveral) with the 8 Dec - 15 Dec 2016 Cunard TA.

 

Celebrity Eclipse leaves from Southampton (to Miami) 29 Oct - 13 Nov but the first Cunard TA seems to be the 8 Dec one. If they would like to spend four weeks in Florida that might be nice as well.

 

There is a 35 day cruise from/to Southampton on Oceana which stops in Florida (8 Feb - 14 March) if they aren't set on a land vacation in Florida. Also check P&O, they might offer something similar.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Piggeldy

[Essiesmom]

http://www.cruisetransatlantic.com/cruises.html

 

Check out what is available for next year. EM

[lbjen]

Internal US flights aren't always that cheap, plus the hassle of getting from the port to the airport, then the flight, and then the reverse, they will lose each of those days to travel. Unless they have someone they actually want to visit in Florida I'd say stick with the cruise full stop!

[Hlitner]

Keep in mind that what you refer to as an "internal US flight" is a 3 hour flight. Given all the hassles it might be a time to "suck it up" get some anti-anxiety medicine and fly from Heathrow to Miami or Orlando. And your Mom would likely have to fly back to NYC to catch the "Queen" back to England. As others have posted, the re positioning cruises only work as an option (one-way in most cases) at very specific times of the year. Ships relocate from the US to Europe in March-May and come back over to the USA in Oct-Dec.

 

Hank

[PORT ROYAL]

Hi,

 

My dad does not want to fly for medical reasons but my mum wants to go to the USA (florida) for their wedding anniversary next year. Does anyone have any ideas on how we get them there and back? Im not concerned on when in the year but an option to cruise stay and then cruise? They could do a short internal flight of no more than 2-3 hours. Thanks in advance! :)

 

Just off the top of my head.

Take a RCI or Celebrity repo. from UK to a Florida Port . Then take a Cruise to the Caribbean. Embark on a Caribbean Island, to then connect with the QV back to Southampton via an Atlantic island or QM2 via New York

Edited June 15, 2015 by PORT ROYAL

[Scrapnana]

Next year Cunard will be doing their World Voyages from January 10-May 10. The only transatlantics during that time will both leave Southampton on 10 January with QM2 heading for New York (and then Florida) and QV going to Florida (Port Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale).

Edited June 15, 2015 by Scrapnana

[EGG]

Depending on what the medical condition is, your parents may not want to spend so many days in a row out in the middle of the ocean without access to specialized medical care.

 

If you do go, make sure you buy medical insurance when you book to cover preexisting conditions.

[Hlitner]

My message to the OP is that if you want help and/or advice you need to tell us what time of year you need to get to Florida and how long you want to stay. Asking for advice without giving giving us enough info is going to just get you a lot of speculative answers. And there are other options not even discussed here such as the use of freighters/container ships (the use of which is dependent on the real health of the travelers).

 

Hank

Edited June 16, 2015 by Hlitner

[Wayfairers]

Consider googling east bound transatlantic cruise for whatever month, year they want to travel. That is how I found my transatlantic cruises for this year and I even found options through google that I didn't find looking at an online travel agent search engine.