Cruising there and back and avoiding air travel

[pgf54]

Hello i am hoping i am posting in the right area.  I do find it difficult to find cruises which will link or take me back home again.  I have a phobia re flying and thus a one way cruise is no good, but how do i find one coming back when its all a bit overwhelming.

I live in Perth Western Australia and want to leave from Fremantle our departure port and head to the uk or somewhere in Europe I can get a train to England.

I would like to spend 2 or three weeks there then cruise home.  If possible i would like a couple of weeks in Athens on my way back.  Any suggestions.  I wont be going until 2024. Would it be easier to just ask a travel agent to sort it all out for me.  Not fussy re cruise lines at all .  Thank you Paul

[ColeThornton]

4 minutes ago, pgf54 said:

I wont be going until 2024. Would it be easier to just ask a travel agent to sort it all out for me. 

 

 

Absolutely.    If you are finding the planning overwhelming a good TA can make your life much simpler.

[CruiserBruce]

Agree, asking a travel agent experienced in cruises is a great idea.

 

Cruises like you desire are usually repositioning cruises, so they are done only when a ship is moving from one cruising market to another,  or possibly as part of a world cruise. This means the return cruise may not be many months...perhaps a year.

[SargassoPirate]

15 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Agree, asking a travel agent experienced in cruises is a great idea.

 

Cruises like you desire are usually repositioning cruises, so they are done only when a ship is moving from one cruising market to another,  or possibly as part of a world cruise. This means the return cruise may not be many months...perhaps a year.

 

We've used a variety of cruise lines to get to or from Europe when a repo cruise fits with a planned land trip there.  We've even spent time in Australia on land and then cruised home.

 

It just takes a lot of research - and enough that even a good travel agent may not want to spend the time on unless they are booking the entire package.  

[Essiesmom]

You have ships in Australia that only do downunder.  You have ships there for your summer season that reposition north, to Alaska for their summer season.  From the west coast of the US you could take a train across to NYC and catch QM2 to Southampton on one of her regular crossings.  I don’t believe you will be able to do this unless you leave from Sydney.  Fremantle is not a major port for cruising.  You have one regular ship that home ports there, and a few that call there on segments of their world cruises.  I suggest you go to www.cruisetimetables.com and explore departure ports (cruising from…), ports of call (cruising to…) and various ships that you come across.  One problem you have to start is that many lines do not have their 2024 schedules out yet.  But you might experiment with trying to patch something together for 2023 to see what might be possible.  EM

[lissie]

24 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

You have ships in Australia that only do downunder.  You have ships there for your summer season that reposition north, to Alaska for their summer season.  From the west coast of the US you could take a train across to NYC and catch QM2 to Southampton on one of her regular crossings.  I don’t believe you will be able to do this unless you leave from Sydney.  Fremantle is not a major port for cruising.  You have one regular ship that home ports there, and a few that call there on segments of their world cruises.  I suggest you go to www.cruisetimetables.com and explore departure ports (cruising from…), ports of call (cruising to…) and various ships that you come across.  One problem you have to start is that many lines do not have their 2024 schedules out yet.  But you might experiment with trying to patch something together for 2023 to see what might be possible.  EM

You can catch the train from Sydney to Perth... 

 

Frankly OP it would be worth spending some money sorting out your  fear of flying because doing anything else out of one of the most isolated cities in the world (I used to live there) - is going to cost an lot of time an money 

 

Cunard does  repositioning and world cruises which include Fremantle - the cruise I'm doing to Singapore in my sig continues on to Fremantle and Sydney. But of course these only happen every 6 months or so... 

[navybankerteacher]

With tremendous flexibility it could be possible - but because there simply are not that many long distance itineraries to/from a given port, you would have to adjust the time frames.  I do a fair amount of trans-Atlantics by ship -but that is a lot easier because there are many eastbound repositioning in the spring and westbound in the fall - which can be paired with Cunard’s QM2 sailings to from New York — I doubt you would have much date flexibility on Australia-Europe sailings .

[Joebucks]

The real solve is confronting your fear of flying. Some people absolutely cannot. Some just have some unfounded thoughts in their head that can be overcome or dealt with. 

 

I wish you luck. It truly unlocks many travel possibilities when you travel by air. It is also proven to be safer than to travel by car. 

[navybankerteacher]

30 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

The real solve is confronting your fear of flying. Some people absolutely cannot. Some just have some unfounded thoughts in their head that can be overcome or dealt with. 

 

I wish you luck. It truly unlocks many travel possibilities when you travel by air. It is also proven to be safer than to travel by car. 

Good advice - particularly in context of your wanting to travel between Australia and Europe —- which, if even possible by ship, would be very expensive both in money and time.   Investing in therapy (there are many programs) would easily pay for itself.

[chengkp75]

The other option would be taking a freighter, as these types of passages are common.  The problem is that since covid, I'm not sure any container lines are taking passengers.

[AmazedByCruising]

 There is a web site that does the scanning the sea for you, and let's you select for instance "Australia to "England" or "Australia to Italy". There are very few options, and then you're only half way. 

 

As @chengkp75 says, a freighter might be an option. MSC Ilona does sail back and forth every 7 weeks and hopefully in 2024 Covid isn't less a problem than it is now.

[LHT28]

There is  a 56 day  cruise from Sydney to Dover UK  April 30th  2024 Coral Princess  a lot of sea days

 Then you would need to see if any ships  return to Australia  departing in July

 as mentioned the full schedules are not out yet 

You may need to take multiple cruises to get back home

[AmazedByCruising]

On 6/21/2022 at 1:45 PM, pgf54 said:

I do find it difficult to find cruises which will link or take me back home again. 

 

I even bought cruise data to find out which combos would get you where, hoping that I would be able to make a website that would show you exactly what you want. After spending a nice car on just cruise data (which is somehow not publicly available), and programming the stuff, (in port X hop on ship 1, hop off and spend max 2 days in a hotel, hop on the next ship and get to port Y) it turns out, it gets you nowhere. Not even in high season, perfectly reasonable trips from Amsterdam to Rome cannot be constructed without for instance spending 4 days in Porto waiting for a 1 night part of a 14 day cruise. All while a quick look at Marine Traffic shows that the ships are everywhere. It's easier for Australia to Europe and back again because that are maybe 10 cruises a year of which many would lead you to Alaska and Argentine before reaching the destination.

 

And even it would work, the ships don't want you to hop on or off. That's too many empty rooms that should be filled with people buying drinks and bingo, and too much ado with authorities. 

 

With a quite large number of people who won't fly, who can afford the time and money, I wonder why travelling by ship is a thing of the past, but it is as it is.

 

Maybe there's useful info in the thread I started a long time ago. 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by AmazedByCruising

[Essiesmom]

It would be somewhat easier once you make it to Europe.  There are cruise ferries all over Europe: North Sea, Baltic, Med…and trains in Europe, too. But essentially, the odyssey would take you a year, and a bundle of money.  EM