14 night cruise/back-to-back conundrum

[Arizona Wildcat]

On 2/18/2021 at 5:29 PM, Bruin Steve said:

NOTE:  It’s a long rant, feel free to skip to the last couple of paragraphs if you don’t want to read my build-up.

 

Okay, I am a little tired of only participating on Covid-related threads...So, I’m looking to expand the discussion a little...even though this is tangentially connected to the pandemic as the whole lift-and-shift thing got me thinking about this.

 

I’ve been thinking about my upcoming cruise bookings and a little frustrated at the thought of what will happen if they are canceled again…

 

First, a little history:  When we first started cruising, it was the “trial size” variety--the short 3 and 4 night cruises.  Our very first cruise was a Disney deal (actually, the old “Big Red Boat”).  My wife wasn’t sure she wanted to cruise--wanted to take the daughters (then 3 and 5) to Disney.  I wanted to cruise. The Big Red Boat was a compromise--3 nights on the ship, 4 nights at Disney in Orlando.  When we were done, my wife commented that we probably should have done the 4 night cruise/3 night Disney version.  I responded that we should have just taken a 7-night cruise and tacked on a couple of nights pre-cruise at Disney on our own.  But, one thing was clear--we really wanted to do longer cruises…

 

So, eventually, we moved on to 7-night cruises.  And, after a while, even those felt too short...Seems like you just got on board, learned your way around the ship...and, suddenly, it was over. 

 

Then, we decided to cruise in Europe.  My wife chose the Baltic.  My travel agent strongly recommended we do it with Celebrity.  Celebrity had marvelous 14 night Baltic cruises.  But we had to wedge the cruise into a narrow window--with my older daughter needing to take Chemistry in Summer School and my wife needing to be back to work on a specific date.  None of the Celebrity Baltic cruises fit into the window...but Princess had a 10-night cruise that did.  So, we went with Princess…

 

Afterward, we decided even 10 nights was too short for a European cruise...If we were going to fly all the way from California to Europe...invest all of that time and all of that money, the length of the cruise really needed to make that worthwhile...and, the longer the cruise, the more comfortable we become just being on the ship…

 

So, the next time we did a Europe cruise a couple of years later, we booked a 13 night cruise on Millennium...and it was wonderful...Even the itinerary was outstanding--one way from Venice to Barcelona, mixing in a nice variety of ports in several countries...and we tacked on a multi-night hotel stay on both ends.

 

After that, we kept booking 14 night itineraries in Europe (and a 16)...one way, if we could find it...mixing in some nice pre- and post-cruise stays.

 

Then, over the past few years, we started noticing fewer and fewer and fewer 14 night cruises.  It seems Celebrity shrunk those like ice cream manufacturers shrunk the old half gallon cartons to 1.5 quarts...A LOT of 7-night cruises and a few 9, 10 and 11 nights sprinkled in...So, a few years ago, we were forced (or so it seemed) to do two 7 night cruises back to back to get the equivalence of a 14 night cruise.  Luckily, we were able to find a ship alternating completely different 7-night itineraries--7 night Greek Island out of Civitavecchia followed by a 7 -night Western Med out of Civitavecchia...So, we dealt with starting AND ending on the same port and having a turnaround day there as well, but, at least all of the other ports were different.

 

2019, our last pre-Covid Celebrity cruise, we ended up with back-to-back 12-nighters on Reflection out of Amsterdam...Thanks to good scheduling by Celebrity, the first was a Baltic, the second British Isles...making it a 24-night experience with completely different ports (aside from start/end/turnaround in Amsterdam…

 

So, for 2020, with scant few decent longer cruises and few in the 14-night range, we found a well-scheduled back-to-back--two distinct itineraries, Rome to Venice, Venice to Rome...Of course, soon after, they replaced the Dubrovnik stop on one of them with what would be a duplicate stop in Kotor...but, okay, we could take one repeat stop.  Of course, then, due to Covid, the whole thing was canceled.

 

We decided to lift-and-shift it to 2021...and that is where it started getting interesting.  The schedules changed and no longer was the ship doing DIFFERENT back-to-back itineraries...Now they were doing very similar itineraries in both directions--multiple duplicate ports. We ended up changing to two different ships with one ending in Rome, the second starting in Rome--but two days apart.

 

Now, I understand that a lot of people--due to budget concerns or due to time concerns--cannot or do not want to cruise for more than 7 nights...so, it makes sense to offer a lot of 7 night cruises.  And, perhaps, it is harder to fill up ships with 14 night itineraries.  So, maybe, that 7-night structure works out well for marketing purposes.

 

But, in the interest of giving those of us who want that longer cruise a few better options--or any options at all, what I would ask of Celebrity is to please not schedule ships, especially in Europe, with all the same 7-night cruises over and over...or with the same 7 night one-way cruises merely repeating themselves in reverse order the next week.  Please consider scheduling ALTERNATING 7-night cruises with completely different ports.  That way, those 7-night cruisers can choose the itinerary they want...and those of us who would prefer a longer experience to stay onboard for any two consecutive cruises and get different ports for each leg.  ...and, maybe, once in a while, give us a good 14 night cruise with a variety of ports during a popular cruising season

Certainly agree.  We always sought out 14 day cruises and often did a B2B to make 21 or 28 days.

Recently we have tried cruising followed by a 1 to 3 week self drive land tour.  Then another cruise.  Loved out TA followed by a week in the Cotswolds in the UK followed by a Norway cruise pit of both Amsterdam or Southampton.

We are blessed to be retired.  In 2022 will fly to Iceland and drive ourselves about for a couple weeks then cruise to Boston.  Same 2 weeks in a hire car there then cruise to Canada.  A bit different and not for everyone as you need to be flexible.

[lyndarra]

16 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

Of the larger cruise lines, HAL tends to offer the best longer itineraries and the most different back-to-back itineraries. I am a non-loyal cruiser, have cruised with Celebrity, HAL, Princess and numerous smaller lines (including Azamara but also some very niche lines now defunct).  I have liked Celebrity for the ships but HAL for the itineraries, and itineraries are more important to me.

This is also my experience since my first cruise in 2012 on Century. Then a princess cruise, and a Carnival cruise, neither of which met the standard experienced with Celebrity. And, somewhere in there I did a 14 day Sydney/Singapore on HAL Volemdam. Since then it has usually been a choice between Hal and X. HAL usually has the edge on  itinerary.

My shortest ocean cruise has been 10 days but I prefer longer so long as there are plenty of ports, most being 14 days or more. My shortest cruise was Mississippi New Orleans/Memphis, 7 days which involved 15 hour flights there and back. To experience new ports, for me in the future, will involve flights of 10-24 hrs. I will be waiting a while now for that to happen, another year minimum by my reckoning.

 

Edited February 20, 2021 by lyndarra
typo x2

[NMTraveller]

If I end up on a different cruise line it is for the reason you mentioned.  X does not have that many 14 day cruises.  I would rather cruise on a 14 day vs 2 7 day cruises anyways.