Unusual cruise ports

[islandwoman]

I've been cruising since 1963 (yes, I'm that old) and have visited most of the usual cruise ports of call.  I won't attempt to list them all here so as not to take up too much space and time.  For my next cruise, I'm looking for something different.  If you liked a port of call that's unusual for cruise ships to visit, please post it here, along with the cruise line that goes there if possible.  I'd love to hear your experience and opinion.

[SbbquilterUT]

We really enjoyed our sailing this summer - NY then along then Canadian coast with stops at Halifax, St. John's .  Greenland and then 3 Iceland stops.  Excellent itinerary.  We flew on to the UK to board a sailing back to the US.  Being retired has it's perks.

[thinfool]

Ponant sails to several out of the way places....we saw their ship in Ushuaia in South America.  Nice stop.

Several lines attempt to stop in Stanley in the Falkland Islands.  If the weather cooperates it is a great place to visit, especially if you like penguins.  Turns out that there is somewhat of a market in the UK for those sailings for UK folks to visit battlefields from the Falklands War with Argentina.  We actually saw the skeleton of a burned out helicopter as we were enroute to one of the many penguin rookeries.

I cannot exit without commenting on the expedition sailings available.  National Geographic, Lindblad and several others offer sailings for the hardy soul to places that are out of the way/hard to get to.  The ferries of the Alaska Marine highway are something that I personally find alluring.  Rather spartan but exciting going to tiny places on the map that exist but are rarely if ever seen by the average cruise traveller.

Edited October 11 by thinfool

[Hlitner]

One of our strangest port calls was when HAL's Prinsendam once docked in downtown Bordeaux.  While going to that port is not uncommon, the way it was done was a bit "different."  The pilot came aboard via helicopter, a few miles before we entered the river.  Our ship sailed all the way to the park, just outside of the main downtown area where we docked on a long sea wall that ran along the public park.  When we tried to put out our gangway, it was blocked by a railed fence that protected the walkway from the river.  Two of our crew jumped off the ship and started to dismantle some of the rails (this was a simple matter of removing a few bolts).  As we watched the police walked up to our crew and had "words."  The crew took their tools and reboarded the ship (without removing the rails).  We then waited about an hour (nobody could debark).  Captain Gundersen finally made an announcement that the police had explained that only unionized park workers could remove those bolts and we had to wait for them to arrive.  After about 1 1/2 hours the park workers drove up, and it took them less than a minute to remove the bolts and rails!  More than a few passengers did give them some applause (a few boos were also heard).

 

Hank

[MBP&O2/O]

I have been to several ports where you would NOT want to go 😁 

There were some rank places up the Khor Musa and Shatt Al Arab rivers.

Most interesting 'off the beaten track' was, on a fully laden 44000dwt oil tanker,  probably St James in Louisiana ... way up the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

[cruisemom42]

Are you asking just about the Caribbean or worldwide?

 

Some of the most unusual ports I've visited over the years are no longer called on due to changing global situation, unfortunately. 😔

[SelectSys]

Is there somewhere you still want to go?  I would enter the name of the port into one of the cruise calendar websites and see what cruise, if any, pops up.

 

Since your name includes the Islands, I will throw out a cruise suggestion that I would like to try - Aranui 5 which goes all around French Polynesia as a combined freighter and passenger ship.

[Honolulu Blue]

16 hours ago, islandwoman said:

I've been cruising since 1963 (yes, I'm that old) and have visited most of the usual cruise ports of call.  I won't attempt to list them all here so as not to take up too much space and time.  For my next cruise, I'm looking for something different.  If you liked a port of call that's unusual for cruise ships to visit, please post it here, along with the cruise line that goes there if possible.  I'd love to hear your experience and opinion.

One of my most unusual cruise ship stops is Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala.  It's a rarely used stop on the Caribbean side.  HAL took us there on an otherwise ordinary Western Caribbean cruise a few years ago.  There is a dock there, but not a lot of cruise ship infrastructure.  I thought it was all right, but I preferred Puerto Quetzal on the Pacific side.

[veronicasmith12]

puerto quetzal is actually good 

[Aquahound]

On 10/11/2024 at 7:57 AM, islandwoman said:

I've been cruising since 1963 (yes, I'm that old) and have visited most of the usual cruise ports of call.  I won't attempt to list them all here so as not to take up too much space and time.  For my next cruise, I'm looking for something different.  If you liked a port of call that's unusual for cruise ships to visit, please post it here, along with the cruise line that goes there if possible.  I'd love to hear your experience and opinion.

 

Have you considered an expeditionary cruise?  Celebrity has a few ships sailing the Galapagos.  Small-ship cruising also gets into some small and unique Alaskan destinations.  Also, take a look at American Cruise Line.  They have some really nice Pacific Northwest cruises.  

[Airbear232]

We really loved Muscat.  Beautiful port, lovely people and great food.  We enjoyed walking through the Souk, seeing the opera house, palace and mosques. 

[lenquixote66]

Nothing unusual but we have cruised to Bermuda 12 times .

[Kwaj girl]

What about Easter Island and Robinson Crusoe Island, both in the south Pacific?  Regent's Seven Seas Mariner will go there early next year:

 

https://www.rssc.com/cruises/MAR250216/summary?source=CruiseSearch&m=2025-2_2025-3&sh=MAR

 

We will be onboard for that one.

[Sarnia 432]

Interesting thread, looking forward to seeing some good suggestions.

 

We enjoyed Narsarsuaq, Greenland, had a lovely fjord boat tour and later took ourselves off on a long hike to overlook a glacier.  Later in the cruise we enjoyed a dawn approach and sail through Prins Christiansund, which was spectacular. 
 

we went with Fred Olsen, from the U.K., but several lines go there.

[Zach1213]

On 10/11/2024 at 10:17 AM, SbbquilterUT said:

We really enjoyed our sailing this summer - NY then along then Canadian coast with stops at Halifax, St. John's .  Greenland and then 3 Iceland stops.  Excellent itinerary.  We flew on to the UK to board a sailing back to the US.  Being retired has it's perks.

Hey, don't even need to be retired! My wife and I did a similar cruise last year and we're work-from-home contractors who can do most of our work from anywhere. Ours had two in Greenland and two in Iceland, but otherwise quite similar. 

[9tee2Sea]

cruising thru the Suez Canal, and also having the ship go dark ( due to possible pirates) as we approached the coast of Yemin.  That was most unusual

[Gwendy]

15 minutes ago, 9tee2Sea said:

cruising thru the Suez Canal, and also having the ship go dark ( due to possible pirates) as we approached the coast of Yemin.  That was most unusual

 

15 minutes ago, 9tee2Sea said:

cruising thru the Suez Canal, and also having the ship go dark ( due to possible pirates) as we approached the coast of Yemin.  That was most unusual

When we went through that area we had armed guards on board.