Average passenger mix and homeports

[hapster85]

We are from Ontario, Canada. For us it is a 8 1/2 hour drive to Bayonne. We have sailed out of there three times now, once about 4 years ago, last Dec (2017) and again last week. We like to be able to drive to the port, and like the cruises that start and finish from the same port. I use a scooter, and have a lift in our van so that we can transport it. I have never flown with my scooter, but have heard some horror stories from some who have. We also drove to Quebec City for a east coast cruise about 3 years ago.

In theory, we could drive to Baltimore in 9 hours. Realistically, it would be more like 12 with stops, and that is the closest port to us. So unless we move, which is not likely before retirement, cruises will always involve a flight.

 

Even if we lived closer to one, I don't think I would want to use it exclusively. With only 5 cruises taken so far, ships and ports of call are all still very new to us. We're very much enjoying the diversity so far. That's yet another reason we are looking so forward to our first B2B on Adventure next month.

[island lady]

Nobody is really from Florida, they just live there

 

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LOL...standard question down here: "Where are you from"...meaning imported in from what state. ;)

 

I bet Bella is a native like Katie is though. :cool:

[island lady]

LOL, speak for yourself.

Signed,

A Proud Native Floridian

 

 

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Seminole?

[psac]

We did one cruise out of San Juan years ago, and most of the ship was Spanish speaking. As a non-Spanish speaking NYer of Puerto Rican descent, it was a little annoying as most of the staff assumed I spoke Spanish as well. Also there must be something cultural about sitting on the steps. Almost every single staircase on the entire ship would have people sitting on it just hanging out. Not ideal if you ask me.

[John&LaLa]

LOL...standard question down here: "Where are you from"...meaning imported in from what state. ;)

 

I bet Bella is a native like Katie is though. :cool:

Bella is from Georgia.

 

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[Baron Barracuda]

Winter sailings from NY definitely have many more locals. Not surprising. For locals, safer to drive to ship than risk winter flight disruptions. If you're not from the northeast though why sail from NY and risk 2-4 sea days in cold weather?

 

Canadian sailings from Bayonne however are fairly geographically balanced.

[Tatka]

Winter sailings from NY definitely have many more locals. Not surprising. For locals, safer to drive to ship than risk winter flight disruptions. If you're not from the northeast though why sail from NY and risk 2-4 sea days in cold weather?

 

Canadian sailings from Bayonne however are fairly geographically balanced.

And Bermuda... Just not 5 dayers on Anthem.

X Summit or NCL

[gatour]

Got it. :)

 

See post #17

[Armac]

Sailed From Southampton a few years ago about 2500 Brits 400 us and 180 Canadians, other nationalities made up the rest. This info came from the cruise director. I will say the British know how to party, I would love to cruise from England again.

[Tatka]

In theory, we could drive to Baltimore in 9 hours. Realistically, it would be more like 12 with stops, and that is the closest port to us. So unless we move, which is not likely before retirement, cruises will always involve a flight.

 

Even if we lived closer to one, I don't think I would want to use it exclusively. With only 5 cruises taken so far, ships and ports of call are all still very new to us. We're very much enjoying the diversity so far. That's yet another reason we are looking so forward to our first B2B on Adventure next month.

 

 

 

We live in Massachusetts and most of our cruises after we stopped flying (unless cruise is overseas) are from NY, NJ with some from Boston and Baltimore, but once a year we drive down to Florida to experience other ships and deeper Caribbeans.

[Tapi]

After living in 4 different states, we settled in Atlanta a few years back. We sailed one time out of Mobile, AL (our closest embarkation port). Most people, if not all, were from states in the southeast which should’ve come as no surprise since Mobile has a small regional airport, and the only ship sailing from there is a smaller, old Carnival ship that operates short itineraries back and forth to Cozumel, which won’t attract people that are coming from far away places.

 

But it was a fantastic cruise. Southern hospitality at its best. Most polite and well mannered mix of passengers I’ve ever sailed with. That alone made this cruise more memorable than other cruises I’ve taken on far newer and larger ships and to much more interesting destinations.

 

I should’ve known that this cruise would be different the moment that they started playing “Sweet Home Alabama” as we sailed away from Mobile Bay.

 

 

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[nerak11]

We live just outside of Toronto so for us it is about a 7-8 hour drive to New Jersey. We've sailed Anthem before and are again for the upcoming New Years cruise. It is so civilized and relaxing to drive to the port rather than all that's involved with flying. Flying 4 people from Canada is expensive so we often fly out of Buffalo but even that would be over $1000 to get to Florida. Plus we have the option of watching the weather and leaving early to miss a storm when driving.

 

I will say that on our last Anthem cruise I definitely noticed a high percentage of New Yorkers. Absolutely not a negative thing but it added a different character to the ship.

[rimmit]

I have found that the vast majority of Non Floridian homeport cruises in the US tend to really have a large proportion (85%) of people within the 4.5 hour radius, maybe 10% within a 10 hour radius, and the final 5% random. This includes ports like LA (when RCI sailed out of there), Galveston, NYC, and Baltimore. I live in KY and Baltimore is 6 hours and NyC 10, so ever since we had kids, we do our best to drive to a port. The convenience of Baltimore for us can not be understated. The repositioning definitely skew toward the the final destination port by quite a bit, but much less so than a round trip homeport. My guess is 70% live very close to the final destination when cruising back to the US. We were on the Ovation as it moved to China, and each leg got progressively more Chinese as it go closer to China and the crew became more Chinese as well to accommodate the increase in Chinese passengers.

 

We haven’t cruised out of FL in many years, as you can only go to the Caribbean so many times, but from what i can recall, during the off peak it was 80-85% FL and 10-15% people who seemed to fly in. During the peak season all the bets were off as all the Diamonds abandoned ship as the prices went up and the ships were loaded with families on vacation. I’d say most were flying in at that point.

 

 

For Disney, I’d say the 7 day disney cruises were primarily people vacationing in FL. I don’t remember meeting too many native FL on those cruises, unlike an off peak RCI, where People were always asking what we were doing so far away from home.

 

European and exotic cruises also had a wide swath of people, with no specific population dominating. It was a little heavier on Europeans or native continent but never so much so that as an American i felt out of place. The exception is on a Non US cruise lines like a Star cruises. On that ship an American would definitely be an odd one as it is mainly Asians as they only advertise in Asia.

 

I have found while Alaska skews toward the west coast heavily, it like the European and international cruises brings in a heavier fly in crowd as well. Probably because Alaska tends to be more expensive and is often viewed as a bucket list level trip.

 

Expeditions, like Quark, are totally different and even though they are US company there can be very few Americans on board. The last one I did had only 5 Americans, but the manifest is much smaller (50 pax).

Edited May 18, 2018 by rimmit

[Tapi]

We sailed in 2016 on the MSC Divina out of Miami. Since MSC is still fairly new to the US market, it seems that Americans haven’t fully discovered this great alternative. The passenger mix was heavily from European countries as well as South America. Americans were a small minority and the ones we met were from the South Florida area.

 

Every important announcement was made in 7 different languages to accommodate the diverse clientele. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet people from other countries and cultures while still sailing from a US port, but we did share a van at one of the ports of call with a group of Americans who were hating the cruise. All they did was talk about everything that they hated about MSC and they felt that it didn’t cater to them. So they were going back to Carnival or Royal for their next cruise.

 

 

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[sparks1093]

And Newenglanders like us.

Also it has sometimes people from overseas who visit New York.

 

Yep, driving to the port is much more convenient than flying.

[Joe12]

My experiences based on the homeports that I have sailed from:

 

Harwich (JW 2009) - Royal no longer sails from there and I honestly can't remember.

 

Southampton (IN 2010/11/12) - I would say about 90% were Brits. Maybe a few other Europeans, a fair number of Irish and about a dozen Americans. Sometimes a few Aussies.

 

Baltimore (EN 2011) - Definitely mostly North Easterners, likely Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania or Virginia. Very few non Americans seem to sail from there.

 

Bayonne (EX 2012/AN 2016) - Similar to Baltimore, but usually attracts a younger crowd and more from New York and New Jersey, alongside those from other parts of the States. Does attract some non Americans, partially due to proximity from NYC (We met some people from the same town as us on Explorer). I think I was on the same Anthem cruise as the OP and remember that cruise as mostly people from NY & NJ. I can't remember the CD addressing people as New Yorkers, but he only seemed to care about American guests so that doesn't surprise me.

 

Barcelona (SR 2013/AL 2015/HM 2016/SY 2018) - This attracts a lot of Spanish people, but aside from them, there are many Brits who sail from BCN and some other Europeans. A number of Americans and Australians also sail from there. I've found that my 3 sailings from BCN have attracted the widest clientele of all. I will look out for this when I am back on SY in July.

 

Fort Lauderdale (OA 2014/HM 2017) - This attracts Americans from all over the country, and there are a lot of Latin Americans who sail from there (e.g. plenty of Quinceañera celebrations on Harmony). With the larger ships, they will also attract a wide range of nationalities.

[holden0301]

We love the convenience of sailing out of NY/Bayonne. It's an hour and a half drive from our Philly suburb. However, the ships and itineraries aren't always the best. We've done many out of there, but also out of FL.

[Rala]

The majority of cruisers are from "out of town"....sure, some locals will take a cruise now and again, but the MAJORITY are folks who fly into the port city to have a vacation.

 

READ the thread...once again your information is mostly wrong probably because you only sail from Florida to the Carib. to get a tan. :rolleyes:

[island lady]

Bella is from Georgia.

 

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LOL...I bet she knows a few Bulldogs then?

[John&LaLa]

LOL...I bet she knows a few Bulldogs then?

She thinks she's a Dawg

 

 

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[island lady]

She thinks she's a Dawg

 

 

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Aww...so sweet! Hi Bella!! :hearteyes:

[95south]

Cape Liberty cruises like the Anthem you have a lot of New Yorker's mainly long island, NJ, and PA. I find a lot of those people drive to the port, like more thank 1/2 the ship drove from home to the port on embarkation day! Also a good number of Canadians who drive from Ontario as well. The rest of the passengers are from all over the US and some Europeans mainly Brits. Florida is a mix from everywhere since it's more of a destination port than NJ.

[Tatka]

Cape Liberty cruises like the Anthem you have a lot of New Yorker's mainly long island, NJ, and PA. I find a lot of those people drive to the port, like more thank 1/2 the ship drove from home to the port on embarkation day! Also a good number of Canadians who drive from Ontario as well. The rest of the passengers are from all over the US and some Europeans mainly Brits. Florida is a mix from everywhere since it's more of a destination port than NJ.

And New England. :)

Especially when there are no cruises from our port in Boston.

[scorpluvsdolphins]

LOL, speak for yourself.

Signed,

A Proud Native Floridian

 

 

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Yep. Me too. And native to the Space Coast.

Born in Melbourne, FL

Raised in SB.

 

 

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[scorpluvsdolphins]

We cruise from NYC, live close to the port, and find the majority of passengers are from the northeast. Cruises out of here are generally pricier, and hotels and transportation expensive. If I had to fly to a cruise, there is no way I’d fly here.

 

 

 

Our kids always meet other kids on cruises, most live at most an hour from us (they had teen meet ups).

 

 

 

Unless you earned a free cruise.

 

 

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