Caribbean Cruise

[itzmeagain]

We are hoping to book a Caribbean cruise from Florida. (Using our Virgin points for flights) for 10 nights, itinerary to hopefully include the likes of Barbados, St Kitts, Antigua, St Maartens, St Thomas, St Lucia. A few of the sites I have seen are f;y/cruise but we just want cruise only

We don't want Mexico or Bahamas.

We are fairly new to cruising, having only done a Marella cruise before.

Are there any good cruise sites to use or is it best to go to the cruise line directly.

How do you know which cruise line has the itinerary you want without having to check every cruise line individually.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[CruiserBruce]

Welcome to Cruise Critic!

 

We are not allowed to name travel agencies or websites. But you can Google search.

[shipgeeks]

OP, where would you be coming in from?  I'm guessing you might be overseas?  If so, a good starting point might be the port (perhaps in Florida? Barbados?) which is easiest/cheapest for you to get to. At least that would narrow your search.

[Essiesmom]

Go to cruisetimetables.com.  From the tab Cruises to… select ports you want to visit, and the time you want to go.  It will tell you who calls there and their itineraries.   Better than weeding through cruise line websites.  EM

[John Bull]

Hi, and welcome to Cruise Critic,

 

Your mention of Marella tells me that you have lied about your location.

Not only are you an earthling, I can pin you down to somewhere in the UK 😏.

 

Other than St Thomas, a P&O Eastern Caribbean cruise visits all those ports and more in a 14-day cruise, starting in Barbados. And they also have a Southern Caribbean alternative

 

But altho Virgin fly to Barbados you'd do better to hang on to your Virgin points, and book a P&O fly-cruise because

- aircraft are chartered by P & O, so a great deal cheaper than booking cruise & flights separately even allowing for Virgin points.

- direct flights from a choice of half-a-dozen regional airports

- everyone on the aircraft is on your cruise, your holiday has already started, and no fear of missing the ship because of a flight delay

-  you hand over your checked luggage at your UK airport & you won't see it again until its at your cabin door

- no immigration, baggage carousel, customs etc at Grantley Adams airport - you don't even go into the terminal !!! Your aircraft taxis to the end of the apron & you walk mebbe 30 yards to your transfer bus which takes you to the ship. Your luggage follows later in a truck.

- you have a full day & evening in Barbados at the start or end of your cruise

- no long sail to your first - and from your last - port-of-call

- on your last day, except for your cabin which you have to vacate vacate by about 9am, you have the run of the ship - pools, dining, bars, etc until your transfer bus is called. No getting kicked off the ship at 9am and being burdened with your luggage in Miami til your evening flight home.

 

You don't mention which Marella cruise you've sailed, but you may have already experienced some of those advantages.

 

And certainly some of these .............

- ship's currency is sterling, no figuring out the value & no currency exchange woes

- No daily tips (around $14 pppn on US ships)

- No service charge on drinks etc (20% on US ships)

 

I very strongly recommend a Brit fly-cruise for the Caribbean, it's so easy & seamless.

 

We can't recommend travel agents, but google "cruise specialist agents, UK". One based in an arctic house is good.

Check out their websites, then phone. You can get some great info from them, and mebbe talk them into an extra discount or a freebie like airport parking or on-board credit.

 

I suggest that you consider only the "Saver" fare, not the more-expensive "Select" fare. Select includes free port shuttles (but there are none in the Caribbean) and choice of dinner sitting (there are no sittings in the Caribbean, it's all "anytime" dining). So the only advantage of the significantly higher fare is being able to choose your cabin number instead of just a guaranteed category.

 

JB 🙂

 

[Toofarfromthesea]

8 hours ago, itzmeagain said:

We are hoping to book a Caribbean cruise from Florida. (Using our Virgin points for flights) for 10 nights, itinerary to hopefully include the likes of Barbados, St Kitts, Antigua, St Maartens, St Thomas, St Lucia. A few of the sites I have seen are f;y/cruise but we just want cruise only

We don't want Mexico or Bahamas.

We are fairly new to cruising, having only done a Marella cruise before.

Are there any good cruise sites to use or is it best to go to the cruise line directly.

How do you know which cruise line has the itinerary you want without having to check every cruise line individually.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

There is a searchable database called CruisePlum that, among many other things, lets you specify what ports you wish to visit and then searches out itineraries that include those ports.  It also lets you specify starting and ending ports, length of cruise, time of year, and many other parameters.

[itzmeagain]

On 3/26/2024 at 2:27 AM, John Bull said:

Hi, and welcome to Cruise Critic,

 

Your mention of Marella tells me that you have lied about your location.

Not only are you an earthling, I can pin you down to somewhere in the UK 😏.

 

Other than St Thomas, a P&O Eastern Caribbean cruise visits all those ports and more in a 14-day cruise, starting in Barbados. And they also have a Southern Caribbean alternative

 

But altho Virgin fly to Barbados you'd do better to hang on to your Virgin points, and book a P&O fly-cruise because

- aircraft are chartered by P & O, so a great deal cheaper than booking cruise & flights separately even allowing for Virgin points.

- direct flights from a choice of half-a-dozen regional airports

- everyone on the aircraft is on your cruise, your holiday has already started, and no fear of missing the ship because of a flight delay

-  you hand over your checked luggage at your UK airport & you won't see it again until its at your cabin door

- no immigration, baggage carousel, customs etc at Grantley Adams airport - you don't even go into the terminal !!! Your aircraft taxis to the end of the apron & you walk mebbe 30 yards to your transfer bus which takes you to the ship. Your luggage follows later in a truck.

- you have a full day & evening in Barbados at the start or end of your cruise

- no long sail to your first - and from your last - port-of-call

- on your last day, except for your cabin which you have to vacate vacate by about 9am, you have the run of the ship - pools, dining, bars, etc until your transfer bus is called. No getting kicked off the ship at 9am and being burdened with your luggage in Miami til your evening flight home.

 

You don't mention which Marella cruise you've sailed, but you may have already experienced some of those advantages.

 

And certainly some of these .............

- ship's currency is sterling, no figuring out the value & no currency exchange woes

- No daily tips (around $14 pppn on US ships)

- No service charge on drinks etc (20% on US ships)

 

I very strongly recommend a Brit fly-cruise for the Caribbean, it's so easy & seamless.

 

We can't recommend travel agents, but google "cruise specialist agents, UK". One based in an arctic house is good.

Check out their websites, then phone. You can get some great info from them, and mebbe talk them into an extra discount or a freebie like airport parking or on-board credit.

 

I suggest that you consider only the "Saver" fare, not the more-expensive "Select" fare. Select includes free port shuttles (but there are none in the Caribbean) and choice of dinner sitting (there are no sittings in the Caribbean, it's all "anytime" dining). So the only advantage of the significantly higher fare is being able to choose your cabin number instead of just a guaranteed category.

 

JB 🙂

 

Thank you for all your advise. Sorry I should have also mentioned that the cruise is only part of our holiday. We are also doing Miami, the Keys Orlando and other parts of Florida, so the PandO fly and cruise wouldnt work for us 

[John Bull]

3 hours ago, itzmeagain said:

Thank you for all your advise. Sorry I should have also mentioned that the cruise is only part of our holiday. We are also doing Miami, the Keys Orlando and other parts of Florida, so the PandO fly and cruise wouldnt work for us 

 

Then Miami or Ft Lauderdale or Port Canaveral or Tampa make sense.

 

Have a good one

 

JB 🙂

Edited March 30 by John Bull

[crystalspin]

On 3/25/2024 at 2:45 PM, itzmeagain said:

Are there any good cruise sites to use or is it best to go to the cruise line directly.

How do you know which cruise line has the itinerary you want without having to check every cruise line individually.

Actually, you can get an idea by clicking "Find a Cruise" on the very top banner of Cruise Critic pages. The results may not be all-complete or providing to our UK siblings. But I see people going to great ends to recommend other sites when we have a resource right to hand.

 

Good luck with your research!

[Nebr.cruiser]

I almost never see flight/cruise combos here in the US.  I s that common in the UK?  You should be able to google most large cruise agencies to see stand alone cruises, where flights aren't included.

 

However, I don't know if there is some reason you can't do this in the UK.  With your itinerary you should easily be able to find a cruise from one of the Florida ports that hits the islands you mentioned and a schedule that works for you.

 

I wish I could mention the name of the online agency that lists almost every cruise, dates and itinerary around the world but it's against the rules! It's so great for research, we don't always use them to book.

Edited April 1 by Nebr.cruiser

[John Bull]

6 hours ago, Nebr.cruiser said:

I almost never see flight/cruise combos here in the US.  I s that common in the UK?  You should be able to google most large cruise agencies to see stand alone cruises, where flights aren't included.

 

However, I don't know if there is some reason you can't do this in the UK.  With your itinerary you should easily be able to find a cruise from one of the Florida ports that hits the islands you mentioned and a schedule that works for you.

 

I wish I could mention the name of the online agency that lists almost every cruise, dates and itinerary around the world but it's against the rules! It's so great for research, we don't always use them to book.

 

Cruise-only are certainly available in the UK - google "cruise travel agent UK" or similar and,  same as filters for destinations, cruise lines, etc., most have filters to search "fly-cruise" or "cruise only". There's one in particular which is excellent for research - as per CC rules we can't name it, but not difficult to find because there are less than a dozen cruise specialist travel agents.

 

Fly-cruises involving chartered aircraft as opposed to scheduled flights are limited to destinations where there's sufficient demand to fill aircraft - with very rare exceptions  only the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. Three mainstream cruise lines offer these from several UK airports - P&O, Marella and sometimes Fred Olsen plus rarely other cruise lines  (Princess used to, and we recently sailed a Caribbean fly-cruise with MSC, who also offered the same from mainland Europe).

 

I don't see cruise-only offered for cruises listed as chartered fly-cruises because demand would be low and possibly cruise-only bookings would affect the balance between aircraft seats & berths, but on a P&O Caribbean fly-cruise last November for reasons I won't bore you with we wanted a switch of UK airport - aircraft seats from there were booked-out but P&O allowed us to switch to scheduled BA flights with no fare adjustment.

So anyone flying in from elsewhere or perhaps living near the embarkation port can probably book cruise-only even though it's not advertised.

 

I guess the US is too big to warrant chartered aircraft, but I know there have been chartered Caribbean fly-cruises from eastern Canada so US cruise lines have probably considered doing likewise

 

JB 🙂

[Nebr.cruiser]

John Bull, I do understand why it might work well to do a fly/cruise combo from the UK in a charter.  I don't especially see how it would work in the OP's situation where they are spending a lot of extra time in Florida.

 

And I have heard of charter cruises here in the US from major population areas.  We live about 2.5 hours from a major city, and even then Omaha does not have the type of airport/air traffic that normally warrants charter flights.

 

That said, wayyyy back in the 70's we took our very first cruise on a charter flight from Omaha to San Juan for some ridiculous price like $249pp.  Started our love of cruising.  I just wish we could sometimes find well priced charter vacations from Omaha!  Not impossible, but rare and usually pricey.