PappyFam Posted July 6 #1 Share Posted July 6 Hi! We are travelling this fall from Toronto to Cape Liberty Cruise Port, NJ with young kids by car. What is your advice on whether to drive or take a bus? My kids are both under 10yo. Is it better to stay at a hotel and leave your car there for the week, or just park directly at the cruise port? Any tips will be greatly appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host Kat Posted July 6 #2 Share Posted July 6 2 minutes ago, PappyFam said: Hi! We are travelling this fall from Toronto to Cape Liberty Cruise Port, NJ with young kids by car. What is your advice on whether to drive or take a bus? My kids are both under 10yo. Is it better to stay at a hotel and leave your car there for the week, or just park directly at the cruise port? Any tips will be greatly appreciated! Hello @PappyFam and welcome to Cruise Critic and the message boards! Thank you for your first new thread on the Cruise Blogs & Websites forum. However, it is the forum where our members post their personal travelogue-type of cruise-related blogs or websites. Your inquiry is off topic there. To help you out your first new thread has been moved to the Canadian Cruisers forum where it will be on topic. It is a forum where Canadians can share cruise chats and information. Browse through the thread titles in this forum looking for threads of interest. You may find your fellow Cruise Critic Canadian members have already posted questions and received answers that may be of interest to you. The Cruise Critic website and message boards are both great resources for new as well as experienced cruisers and we are so glad you found us! Please feel free to browse the Cruise Critic Community categories list of the various forums. I suggest you put the page link in your browser's Favorites for quick & easy access in the future. Please read a few threads in the different forums to get a feel for what each forum is about. Make sure you read any pinned threads (aka stickies) on the top of the first page of threads in most forums. You will find very important instructions or information there. 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You will see a large amount of "How to..." pinned threads toward the top of the forum's first page. Also, browse through the threads in the forum looking for threads of interest. Again, you may find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that may be of interest to you. So sorry this is so long, but I sincerely hope this will be helpful to someone new to posting on our message boards. We are glad to have you aboard Cruise Critic! Happy sails, Host Kat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fouremco Posted July 6 #3 Share Posted July 6 @PappyFam, welcome to Cruise Critic and to the Canadian forum. I've no related experience upon which to draw, but here's a thread that should be of interest: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare CDNPolar Posted July 6 #4 Share Posted July 6 9 hours ago, PappyFam said: Hi! We are travelling this fall from Toronto to Cape Liberty Cruise Port, NJ with young kids by car. What is your advice on whether to drive or take a bus? My kids are both under 10yo. Is it better to stay at a hotel and leave your car there for the week, or just park directly at the cruise port? Any tips will be greatly appreciated! I am stuck on this part.... "Whether to drive or take a bus" Do you mean a bus from Toronto to NJ? Leave your car at home and hop on a bus? With kids that young, I think you would want and need the flexibility of being able to stop when you need to at full-blown rest stops over having to deal with kinds and a small airplane sized lavatory while the bus is moving. I see the drive from where I live in West GTA as slightly over 7 hours, so doable in a day with stops if you personally have the stamina. Parking at this port is $30 USD per day. Me - I would drive to the port directly and park. This however would still prompt me to want to arrive at least a day in advance of the embarkation because you never know what may happen on the road that could delay you. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lx200gps Posted July 6 #5 Share Posted July 6 (edited) Welcome to Cruise Critic ;o) When sailing from the US Northeast, we always prefer to drive over flying. Far easier and less stressful, not to mention much cheaper. As stated above, it would be about 7.5 hours plus any stop times, an easy day's drive. As you have never driven down there, and are unfamiliar with the local area and the port, I would definitely agree with driving down the day before and staying at one of the many NJ hotels in the immediate area. No way would I ever drive down the day of a cruise. You would then have a leisurely short drive on Embarkation morning to the ship from your hotel, and have an easy time parking at the port. Edited July 6 by lx200gps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
em-sk Posted July 14 #6 Share Posted July 14 On 7/5/2024 at 5:06 PM, PappyFam said: Hi! We are travelling this fall from Toronto to Cape Liberty Cruise Port, NJ with young kids by car. What is your advice on whether to drive or take a bus? My kids are both under 10yo. Is it better to stay at a hotel and leave your car there for the week, or just park directly at the cruise port? Any tips will be greatly appreciated! With kids, I would pick the train over a bus. It is 12 hour train ride from Union Station to Pen Station. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooklyn1119 Posted July 23 #7 Share Posted July 23 We have done this trip multiple times with our 2 small children (now 4 & 7 but we have been doing it since they were 2 & 5) Its a nice & easy drive, we choose to head down the day before the cruise and stay a hotel in the "Parsippany" area as its about 45 minutes to Cape Liberty and hotels are reasonably priced. We park at the cruise terminal because by the time you factor in Ubers to & from the port converted into Canadian, it ends up not being worth it. We leave our house about an hour north of Toronto about 5am to put us at the border about 6:30a-7a where we never typically wait longer than 15 mins crossing over. The drive home is just as simple, we are usually off the ship around 8ish and home by dinner time. We just made this trek in May for the NCL Joy and will be heading out again in Sept for the Symphony of the seas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooklyn1119 Posted July 23 #8 Share Posted July 23 ooooooh *also* there is a costco right by the cruise ship port in Bayonne and we stop there before the cruise and fill our vehicle with gas cheap so we are ready to go the day we get off the ship 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PappyFam Posted July 23 Author #9 Share Posted July 23 Thank you for the tips. We are sailing on the Symphony of the Seas as well, on Sept 8 - maybe we’ll be on the same ship! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Middleager Posted July 24 #10 Share Posted July 24 When our kids were young, we drove the day before and stayed at a hotel for 2 nights. The day before cruise, we took public transit to tour New York city. The next day, drove to park at port -- much easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fouremco Posted July 24 #11 Share Posted July 24 1 hour ago, Middleager said: we drove the day before I'm guessing that you mean that you drove 2 days before.😇 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Middleager Posted July 24 #12 Share Posted July 24 12 minutes ago, Fouremco said: I'm guessing that you mean that you drove 2 days before.😇 Yes, typed too fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fouremco Posted July 24 #13 Share Posted July 24 Just now, Middleager said: Yes, typed too fast. LOL. My fingers and my brain frequently compete to see who will finish first when I'm at the keyboard! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooklyn1119 Posted July 25 #14 Share Posted July 25 On 7/23/2024 at 5:23 PM, PappyFam said: Thank you for the tips. We are sailing on the Symphony of the Seas as well, on Sept 8 - maybe we’ll be on the same ship! We are sept 29-Oct 6th where we could have snow or it could be +25 lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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