Re-positioning Cruises

[Javert1969]

Good day to all,

 

I am looking for some advice from anyone who has been on cruises where the ship is re positioning for the next season.  My wife and myself are looking to go on a cruise in March and we noticed there are quite a few of these at very low prices.  As an example we were looking at a Royal Caribbean ship where it's a 12 day cruise from the Caribbean to Barcelona but with only one stop, so almost all sea days.

 

If others on these boards have done any of these, I would be really interested to read about your experience and advice.  

 

Obviously the main drawback here is that there are few if any stops and you are on a lot of sea days.  Assuming we don't have a problem with this, are there other things that are different about these journeys.  I guess you can look at it as similar to a pool side beach holiday but cheaper.

 

For example, can you expect the normal full service on these journeys and all speciality restaurants etc to be open?  

 

Is the ship normally full on these (the prices seem to indicate they are not popular), and does this therefore mean you have to get up at silly o' clock if you want to get a place by the pool?

 

Do they lay on additional activities given the number of sea days involved?

 

Do the ships tend to run out of some provisions at the end of these long cruises without stops?

 

Any other advice or input on these type of cruises?

 

 

[marco]

Depends on the person.  If you REALLY enjoy several quiet, peaceful uninterrupted days in a row, you'd probably like  a repo cruise.  There's always something going on and in some respects, it's kind of reminiscent of the days when we  sailed T/A just because "that's the way we went", back in the day. They tend to be a bit older (not old) crowd, ....  more well traveled.  There tends to be more activities during the day, as (obviously) no one is ashore.  We've taken a few now, and we've never seen them run out of any provisions and we've never seen any specialty restaurants closed certain days.  And yes, the per diem cost is relatively low,   but yes they are quite popular and  pretty  full. In fact, some are "sold out" long before sailing day. For us, we take them just because we love traveling on a ship.

[Flatbush Flyer]

OP: I had to chuckle at the thought of 12 days being a "long cruise" (with or without sea days).

 

In any case, we often do them. But, we prefer transpacific rather than transatlantic.

 

I suggest that your choices ce of cruise line be the primary consideration. After all, it will be your "home away from home" for a sort of "nautical 'staycation'." Food, service and onboard amenities will be major factors in your satisfaction.

[taglovestocruise]

We are coming up on our 4th Oasis class transatlantic. Sounds like you are thinking of the Allure TA, we are booked on the Nov. 2020 Allure TA. Ship sails with all cabins sold, however they also sail with lots of solo travelers and about 1200 fewer kids.  Your drawback of 10 sea days is a crowning touch for us as we love sea days. I find the service to be much better on TA's as there are fewer passengers and the crew skips several days of lugging 10 thousand suitcases. Have only seen a drop in the amount of fresh fruit near the end, specialty restaurants are full each night, On the Oasis class there are enough shows to never run out of things to do. We have only done 1 eastbound and found it to be much cooler than a westbound. Ships are heavy loaded with Diamonds and above and we fill a lot of venues.  You will also find airfare greatly reduced if you use the cruise lines Air2SEA program. We just started looking at one way airfare offered through Royals program and found Virgin, Air France and several others at under $350. oneway.  If you are thinking of Allure it is going into a  major refurb after arriving in Barcelona, that's why we are on the return in Nov.  You really need to be a sea day lover to enjoy the TA. happy sailing. 

[jocap]

Sailing from the Caribbean to the UK,  one restaurant manager was worried that he might run out of marmalade - and bananas which are apparently difficult to keep for many days… 😁 

But you're sailing from Miami, so the ship will have re-stocked with enough food for longer than your cruise... and if you're stopping at Madeira, then there will be plenty of bananas waiting on the quay side.

That apart, we've always found plenty of things to do on board, and had time to talk to many interesting people.

[Canuker]

Love 'em. They are long and lazy and you really feel you've had some good R&R after a repositioning.
Downside: having to book 2 one-way airfares for the round trip. Often, the airfare is more than the cruise price.
PS if you're thinking of the Atlantic, eastbound, go in late April or early May, for warmer weather and more daylight.

[dogs4fun]

14 hours ago, Canuker said:

Downside: having to book 2 one-way airfares for the round trip. Often, the airfare is more than the cruise price.

We have managed to avoid this issue by booking 2 TA cruises within the same year and booking just one round trip, multi-city (aka open-jaw) air ticket. Our multi city airfares are no more expensive than any other round trip airfare. For example,

1. TA ended in May, AMS (we stayed 5 days in AMS and then took the train to Prague).  Flight from PRG to DEN

2. TA commenced in BCN and ended in MIA (we actually booked a Med cruise that began in VCE and ended in BCN). Flight from DEN to VCE

Our r/t air was PRG to DEN and DEN to VCE

Personally, the larger benefit of the TA from BCN to MIA was that it was restful. Although I usually climb the walls on TAs (the rest of my family love them), after our exhausting, port intensive Med cruise and a few days DIY in BCN, I was truly ready for the r&r of a TA.

Edited January 3, 2020 by dogs4fun

[hallasm]

I’m primarily doing repositioning cruises - last year Singapore to Hong Kong and Rome to Dubai. Actually booked the Allure 12 nights from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona - love the sea days - but also the possibility to spend additional days in two different ports pre- and post-cruise.

I do have blogs from some of my sailings:

Rome to Dubai - 16 nights

Spice Route from Singapore to Barcelona

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by hallasm

[msmayor]

We did a re-positioning cruise on Celebrity in 2018 in October...just six nights from Cape Liberty in NJ to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We live in NJ so just an uber ride to the port.

 

Three sea days then stops in St. Maarten, St. Thomas and then debark in San Juan.  We booked it as the perfect getaway right after our daughter's wedding to relax.  It was a perfect trip!

 

We found it to be an amazing value (just $500pp for a Concierge-level stateroom) and we got an AMAZING deal using Celebrity Air for the flight home...one way from San Juan to Philadelphia in first class for just $319pp.  Well worth it considering the coach price was $250.

[bonsai3s]

We love "respos" or any type of crossings for one reason...we love the numerous sea days.  It gives us time to simply relax.  Preparing or planning for them is also so much easier.  Only a couple of ports to search for.

 

We often add couple of sailings, before and after, the repositioning for a couple of reasons: 1. It somewhat justifies the usually expensive, two one-way tickets. 2. The sailings before and after the repos are usually more port intensive.

 

* Yes, there seems to be more activities scheduled on sea days.

* We can't recall any of our sailings running out of provisions.

* Transatlantic crossing are very popular among "high tiered" cruisers on RCCL.

Happy Sailing!

 

[Flatbush Flyer]

4 hours ago, hallasm said:

I’m primarily doing repositioning cruises - last year Singapore to Hong Kong and Rome to Dubai. Actually booked the Allure 12 nights from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona - love the sea days - but also the possibility to spend additional days in two different ports pre- and post-cruise.

I do have blogs from some of my sailings:

Rome to Dubai - 16 nights

Spice Route from Singapore to Barcelona

 

Those would not be "repositioning" cruises. Rather, they're just regular "one way" itineraries while a ship is moving across a particular world region (or two).

Such cruises form the bulk of our cruising calendar.

[Daytona_MAc]

We also enjoy these types of cruises. I've been on 3 transatlantics and would like to try a transpacific someday. We like the increased number of sea days, though I prefer to opt for a balcony room so I have plenty of outside space to myself. As for the one-way airfare, I find that is not a problem if you seach all options. For example, our return from Italy at the end of the cruise was much cheaper by flying from Rome to Amsterdam and then back to USA, plus we has a couple days to sightsee in Amsterdam.

[Flatbush Flyer]

8 minutes ago, Daytona_MAc said:

.....As for the one-way airfare, I find that is not a problem if you seach all the options.

Hopefully, you're checking ITA Matrix for the best routing/pricing on multi-city air.

[shipgeeks]

Cruiseline air is well worth looking at, for one-way flights.  

[hallasm]

1 hour ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Those would not be "repositioning" cruises

- do not want enter into a discussion however If a repositioning cruise is defined as a cruise where a cruise ship is moving from one home port to another at the end of a season those cruises were reposition cruises.

[geoherb]

We've taken two westbound transatlantic cruises from England to the U.S. The first went to New York City and the second to Fort Lauderdale. We had six sea days in a row on the first one and eight on the second. I enjoyed them all. I like to participate in the shipboard activities. DH is just as comfortable reading a book on the Promenade Deck. Some people might go stir crazy with all those days at sea.

[Flatbush Flyer]

15 minutes ago, hallasm said:

- do not want enter into a discussion however If a repositioning cruise is defined as a cruise where a cruise ship is moving from one home port to another at the end of a season those cruises were reposition cruises.

Admittedly, going from Rome to Dubai would be a repositioning cruise for a few cruise lines. But, for some others, it would be a high demand/expensive "segment" that continues on enroute to its "new home" destination.

In any case, glad you enjoy them.

[Daytona_MAc]

1 hour ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Hopefully, you're checking ITA Matrix for the best routing/pricing on multi-city air.

Always one of the options when searching flights, but that trip was found by searching for the lowest cost one-way from Europe and then searching for the best inter-city flight from Rome.

 

We considered an overnight high-speed rail connection to Amsterdam but it did not leave from Rome and the best connecting rail out of Rome did not get us to the overnight train in time to board the same day.

 

It's mostly about examining all options. We also considered renting a car and driving, and had the ship not docked in Italy, we could have done that. (Rentals leaving Italy are very expensive - in-country is not so bad.) It would have meant no overnights in Amsterdam, but we would have had some interesting cross-country travel by car.

[gerryuk]

There are a few cruises from the Med down to South America (Brazil / Argentina) via Gran Canaria and the Canary Islands around November time. From the Canary Islands onwards the temperature just keeps rising, its hot, no northern European winters on these cruises. There are usually 5 / 6 sea days crossing the Atlantic depending on the first Brazilian port of call.

On Costa I have paid around £560 from Savona to Rio de Janeiro, 19 days in November this year and around £630 for the return leg next April, and this is solo prices. There are defiantly deals to be had on these sort of cruises, I would defiantly recommend them.  

[Flatbush Flyer]

4 minutes ago, gerryuk said:

.... There are defiantly deals to be had on these sort of cruises, I would defiantly recommend them.  

LOL.

Sometimes "autocorrect" has its own mind.

[Canuker]

8 hours ago, dogs4fun said:

We have managed to avoid this issue by booking 2 TA cruises within the same year and booking just one round trip, multi-city (aka open-jaw) air ticket. Our multi city airfares are no more expensive than any other round trip airfare.

 

I take your point - and agree, if the stars can align.
A little while back, after booking a TA from NYC to SOU, it transpired that it was cheaper to take the ship back than to fly back. So that's exactly what we did!

 

[gerryuk]

Oh dear.

[calliopecruiser]

On 1/2/2020 at 3:24 PM, Javert1969 said:

Obviously the main drawback here is that there are few if any stops and you are on a lot of sea days. 

That's not a drawback, that's a much-loved feature!

 

The biggest issue is the extra flight (unless you're going somewhere at a time that you can get a return cruise).  Otherwise, I love them, and I leave on a transpacific B2B in less than 3 weeks. 

[Hlitner]

We have probably done more then 2 dozen repo cruises to Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.  At one time repo cruises were almost a secret used by a group of well informed cruisers.   And they were amazing bargains.  We have cruised on some excellent cruise lines in high category balcony cabins for less then $50 per person/day!  But those deals are no hard to find because more and more folks (especially those of us who are retired and have the time) know the "secret" and routinely take repo cruises.  

 

As to the post about the "extra flight" or one-way flights, that is not a big deal these days.  Many cruise lines offer amazing air fares (including fantastic business class fares) and there are now airlines that sell one-way fares priced about 1/2 the price of a round trip.   We have 3 long cruises booked next year that are all technically repos.  One goes from the USA to Europe, another from Europe to Singapore and another from Japan to the USA.  They are not bargains since many others are wise to the game :).  But there are still some good repo deals to be found if you keep your flexibility in terms of cruise lines, ships, dates and itineraries.  You can usually find decent repo deals for cruises between the USA and Europe in the spring and fall.  We used to book two of those (one each direction) and buy a single round trip air ticket to cover the two cruises (which were months apart).

 

Another neat idea is to use certain airlines to get to or from a repo.  For example, Aer Lingus will usually allow a free stop-over in Ireland (it can be for more then a week) and Icelandic will allow free stopovers in Iceland.  There are other similar airline deals if you look around.  Combine those airline deals with a land trip and repo cruise and you have a really nice trip :).  This year we are using a repo cruise to get from the USA to Europe where we are going to fly to a few cities (we handled this on our own) ending up in Prague where we are using our original cruise line's air deals to get a fantastic business class fare from Prague back to the USA.   My point is that the limits are often your own imagination.

 

Hank

[MicCanberra]

The cruise ships nearly always sail full, that is why they usually discount fares in the weeks prior to sailing.

Sea days are wonderful and some lines may do some extra activities (progressive) if there are many of them but usually it would be similar to any other sea day on a cruise.