What's the farthest you'd travel for a cruise?

[Jamesszy94]

I know there are MANY ports around the United States where Royal Caribbean ships dock/leave from

But what's the farthest you guys would be willing to travel for a cruise? There's only really two cruise ports that RCI sails from here in Australia; Sydney & Brisbane - well technically there's a third; Perth, but I've never seen RCI ships leave from there, so I don't really count that one.

Brisbane is great, but it's also a 1.5 hour plane ride, which in the grand scheme of things doesn't seem that long, but the second closest port that isn't Sydney or Brisbane is Singapore... which is 8 hours away. 

[WAYNO]

In the U.S., most of the cruise ports are on the East Coast or deep South.  From the West Coast, that could be a 5 hour flight, but problem is, there are few non stop flights.  So, it's not unusual for us to have to fly 5 hours to New York, Washington DC, or many other airports, just to switch planes and fly 3 or 4 more hours to Florida.  With layovers, it's often a 12+ hour day.  Compounding that, we're flying against the clock with a 3 hour time zone difference. It's difficult to impossible to leave Portland and get to the cruise ship in time to board, on the same day as the cruise.  It requires getting there the previous day, which could still be midnight or later, and sleeping the rest of the night in a motel.

But that's what we do.

 

I would also dearly love to cruise in Europe.  That's an extreme distance for us, and would require much more travel time and hotel arrangements to make the ship.  It's not in our cards soon, but someday we'd love to, and I'm not opposed to it.

[Jamesszy94]

17 minutes ago, WAYNO said:

In the U.S., most of the cruise ports are on the East Coast or deep South.  From the West Coast, that could be a 5 hour flight, but problem is, there are few non stop flights.  So, it's not unusual for us to have to fly 5 hours to New York, Washington DC, or many other airports, just to switch planes and fly 3 or 4 more hours to Florida.  With layovers, it's often a 12+ hour day.  Compounding that, we're flying against the clock with a 3 hour time zone difference. It's difficult to impossible to leave Portland and get to the cruise ship in time to board, on the same day as the cruise.  It requires getting there the previous day, which could still be midnight or later, and sleeping the rest of the night in a motel.

But that's what we do.

Yikes, I had no idea lol.

I figured in the United States, you'd just be able to get on a plane, fly to somewhere like Port Canaveral and get on the ships pretty easily, but seems like it's as much of a hassle as it is down here in Australia lol, but also.... I just wish the itineraries for Australian cruises were more varied, it's always either New Zealand, parts of Australia (which I've already been to) or the South Pacific (at least for Royal Caribbean that is, I know other cruise lines go to Asia and sometimes there's repositioning cruises but those are far and few)

[Jamesszy94]

18 minutes ago, WAYNO said:

In the U.S., most of the cruise ports are on the East Coast or deep South.  From the West Coast, that could be a 5 hour flight, but problem is, there are few non stop flights.  So, it's not unusual for us to have to fly 5 hours to New York, Washington DC, or many other airports, just to switch planes and fly 3 or 4 more hours to Florida.  With layovers, it's often a 12+ hour day.  Compounding that, we're flying against the clock with a 3 hour time zone difference. It's difficult to impossible to leave Portland and get to the cruise ship in time to board, on the same day as the cruise.  It requires getting there the previous day, which could still be midnight or later, and sleeping the rest of the night in a motel.

But that's what we do.

 

I would also dearly love to cruise in Europe.  That's an extreme distance for us, and would require much more travel time and hotel arrangements to make the ship.  It's not in our cards soon, but someday we'd love to, and I'm not opposed to it.

I've tried looking at cruises that Royal Caribbean does (but cannot find anything, lol) where it's like a way one cruise so somewhere like Hawaii to Sydney and then I wouldn't have to buy a planet ticket back from Hawaii, I'd just have to buy a plane ticket there, and take the cruise back home lol.

[CruisingOz]

3 hours ago, Jamesszy94 said:

what's the farthest you guys would be willing to travel for a cruise?

We live in Sydney, Australia, and are willing to fly.

This past January we flew to Barbados to board the Grandeur of the Seas for and amazing 14 night cruise. The flights were Sydney to LAX, LAX to Atlanta, Atlanta to Miami (30 hours including time between flights), four hours sleep at the Miami International airport hotel and finally Miami to Barbados (6 hours including check in and customs). I was worth the travel time.

Also done the 10 hour flight to Honolulu for the Transpacific back to Sydney, which we are doing again this year, and flew to Fairbanks Alaska, from Sydney to Hong Kong, HK to Vancouver, Vancouver to Fairbanks. Forgotten how many hours but we had a layover in HK and had an amazing 20 hours there. 

Itineraries are limited out of Sydney and Brisbane, and we try to seek out South Pacific itineraries which go somewhere different like Mare or Espiritu Santo (east coast Vanuatu), but they are rare.  Singapore is a shortish flight, and those destinations look great, so maybe consider those. I do love cruising out of Sydney as it is only a 20min train or drive, but it does get repeatitipve with the places to visit. 

 

[steverk]

3 hours ago, Jamesszy94 said:

I've tried looking at cruises that Royal Caribbean does (but cannot find anything, lol) where it's like a way one cruise so somewhere like Hawaii to Sydney and then I wouldn't have to buy a planet ticket back from Hawaii, I'd just have to buy a plane ticket there, and take the cruise back home lol.

Royal does occasional trips back to Australia.  These are repositioning cruises Alaska to/from Australia.

I'm booked on Quantum in April 2023 that goes from Brisbane to Honolulu.  Then B2B Honolulu to Vancouver.  If you're really daring, you can B2B that with Vancouver to Seattle.

Which leads me to the topic of this thread.  Since I'm flying to Brisbane for this cruise, I guess there really isn't a limit to how far I'll go.  Once I get on a plane, I'm there for the duration of the flight.

That said, Galveston is 30 minutes from my house.  I sail from there a lot.

I'll also say that I'm envious of Floridians.  A few hours by car and they have their choice of departure ports and destinations.  Galveston has very limited ports of call.

[CruisingOz]

10 minutes ago, steverk said:

I'm envious of Floridians

Yes, very jealous. Florida would be an amazing place to live with so many cruise choices. We watch a lot of home renovation shows based out of Texas and the house prices look so attractive. Texas also looks like a great place to live.  

[steverk]

9 minutes ago, CruisingOz said:

Texas also looks like a great place to live.  

It is a great place to live and I really like having a major cruise port nearby.  The ports may get repetitive, but I'm still blessed!

[Beth Davis]

28 minutes ago, CruisingOz said:

Yes, very jealous. Florida would be an amazing place to live with so many cruise choices. We watch a lot of home renovation shows based out of Texas and the house prices look so attractive. Texas also looks like a great place to live.  

Unless you moved here (FL) during the pandemic after being SO excited to be able to drive to the port. And then every cruise we’ve had booked since then has been cancelled fingers crossed cruising out of Port Everglades (FLL) in 20 days!

[WAAAYTOOO]

30 minutes ago, Beth Davis said:

Unless you moved here (FL) during the pandemic after being SO excited to be able to drive to the port. And then every cruise we’ve had booked since then has been cancelled fingers crossed cruising out of Port Everglades (FLL) in 20 days!

This story sounds familiar....

[Jamesszy94]

1 hour ago, CruisingOz said:

We live in Sydney, Australia, and are willing to fly.

This past January we flew to Barbados to board the Grandeur of the Seas for and amazing 14 night cruise. The flights were Sydney to LAX, LAX to Atlanta, Atlanta to Miami (30 hours including time between flights), four hours sleep at the Miami International airport hotel and finally Miami to Barbados (6 hours including check in and customs). I was worth the travel time.

Also done the 10 hour flight to Honolulu for the Transpacific back to Sydney, which we are doing again this year, and flew to Fairbanks Alaska, from Sydney to Hong Kong, HK to Vancouver, Vancouver to Fairbanks. Forgotten how many hours but we had a layover in HK and had an amazing 20 hours there. 

Itineraries are limited out of Sydney and Brisbane, and we try to seek out South Pacific itineraries which go somewhere different like Mare or Espiritu Santo (east coast Vanuatu), but they are rare.  Singapore is a shortish flight, and those destinations look great, so maybe consider those. I do love cruising out of Sydney as it is only a 20min train or drive, but it does get repeatitipve with the places to visit. 

 

Yeah, I looked at the South Pacific and the New Zealand ones and I actually considered booking those, but not sure about the current COVID protocols, especially in the smaller South Pacific ports. 

 

1 hour ago, steverk said:

Royal does occasional trips back to Australia.  These are repositioning cruises Alaska to/from Australia.

I'm booked on Quantum in April 2023 that goes from Brisbane to Honolulu.  Then B2B Honolulu to Vancouver.  If you're really daring, you can B2B that with Vancouver to Seattle.

Which leads me to the topic of this thread.  Since I'm flying to Brisbane for this cruise, I guess there really isn't a limit to how far I'll go.  Once I get on a plane, I'm there for the duration of the flight.

That said, Galveston is 30 minutes from my house.  I sail from there a lot.

I'll also say that I'm envious of Floridians.  A few hours by car and they have their choice of departure ports and destinations.  Galveston has very limited ports of call.

Funnily enough, I actually did have a look at the Honolulu to Sydney Transpacific cruise, I would just need to fly into Honolulu and then cruise back home to Sydney, just deciding if I want to sail on Enchantment or Ovation (I've already sailed on her back in 2017)

But also I don't know if I want to go solo or with someone. 

[Spang1974]

I usually fly from UK to USA to cruise.

[joshgates]

Depends, at best I'm a 6-8 hour drive from the nearest cruise port so usually end up flying anyways, and not much difference between going to NY, FL, or LA at that point.  The more I cruise though the more I'm willing travel for an itinerary, so far the furthest is a couple out of Barbados but that's about to change.  I've got a southbound Alaska trip, two out of Australia (New Zealand and South Pacific), and a major bucket list trip, Antarctica expedition out of Ushuaia Argentina booked over the next couple years.

Still enjoy the Caribbean ones that I'm only a couple hours flight from, but don't mind some long travel days if that's what it takes to get to a great destination.

[Cakemeister]

I live in Texas. I would fly anywhere in the continental U.S. for a 7-day cruise, but for Europe I would want something longer. This is because of the extra travel cost.

[ChessE4]

We won't drive more than about 600 miles or so (e.g., from North Carolina to Orlando but not Miami).  We will fly to Australia or Papeete for a special cruise, such as when our son did a semester abroad at Wollongong.  For Europe, I prefer at least 10 nights to justify the expense, as noted above, but we are trying an eight-night cruise this October with a couple of days in Barcelona tacked on to get over jet lag.

[Traveling Mike]

Here is some that I have done or have scheduled.  I live in Fresno California USA.  Looks like there is no limit for any cruise.

Cruising out of Los Angeles 220 miles

Cruising out of Vancouver Canada 1, 100 miles

Cruising out of Florida 2,900 miles

Cruising out of Tokyo 5,300 miles

Cruising out of Copenhagen 5,500

Cruising out of Spain 6,000 miles

Cruising out of Sydney 7, 511 miles

 

[Ampurp85]

Well, I flew to Egypt to cruise, so I would say that no place is far to me. I live in the Midwest, so I have to fly to any and all ports if I want to cruise. That means at least a 2.5/3hr flight, not including all the other time spent traveling and waiting to the airport. 

[Pattycruise]

1 hour ago, Cakemeister said:

I live in Texas. I would fly anywhere in the continental U.S. for a 7-day cruise, but for Europe I would want something longer. This is because of the extra travel cost.

I did a Europe cruise in 2017 definitely extend your stay on either side. I have one booked for July but Covid  testing is the risk preventing me from exploring Barcelona for a few days. Instead I’ll test here and land the day before the cruise. At the end of the cruise we’ll stay 2 days in Venice  then have our mandatory test to return to the US  I’m assuming we’ll  test positive so those “extra 10 days” will be in a hotel room, otherwise we could have allowed for more time to explore Europe.  

[Shari]

I live in Texas and we have flown to Sydney Australia for a transPacific as well as to Rome for a Mediterranean.  So I guess you can say we would fly halfway around the world for a cruise we wanted to take.

[Johar4469]

We live in Alabama and are driving 12 hours to Texas for our first cruise.  We have never flew before or even been to a airport.  

[PurdueFlyer]

Feb 2020 flew Atlanta-> Dubai for a 7-night Persian Gulf sailing on Jewel.  that's a hike.  Was originally booked on a 9-nighter Singapore to Hong Kong, so that would have been further to travel, but we cancelled it a few weeks prior to sailing as covid was starting to become a "thing" in mainland China and we got skittish.  swapped to the Dubai sailing instead during the same time frame.  

I'm glad we did it though, as Royal has since pulled out of Dubai. we are becoming more interested in more exotic destinations which means longer sailings and / or further to get to the departure ports.  it's a trade-off but the vacation bank is limited in America.  

[teddy]

We’re embarking from Ravenna in October 2023 and live in Maine, so I guess that’s how far we’re willing to travel. 
 

 

[NapTime]

Flew from California to Spain cruised Spain, France, Italy worth every penny 

[Jamesszy94]

I guess I'd be willing to travel more overseas if I had someone to go with me on cruises...but also there's the issue of money for me

Hoping one day to do a round trip of Europe!

The only time I travelled overseas for a cruise was when we did a 7N to Alaska from Vancouver on Celebrity Infinity WAY back in 2017

[WAYNO]

37 minutes ago, Jamesszy94 said:

I guess I'd be willing to travel more overseas if I had someone to go with me on cruises...

 

Us too.  We love cruising, but it's that much better when somebody joins us.

[Pattycruise]

You buy, I’ll fly! (And cruise!)

[twixieshores]

Honestly, get the price right and the distance doesn't matter if the itinerary is interesting 

[Jamesszy94]

There's so many cruises I want to go on, but plane tickets literally cost an arm and a leg just to get to that port...

[Linda R]

I live in Montana and anywhere I take cruises in the US are 3 or 4 flights.   To go to Florida to cruise it takes 12-14 hours including the airport and plane time. I do fly also to Europe for cruises at least once a year, usually twice.  Those are longer yet, but worth it.    You just kinda get used to it.

[Jamesszy94]

1 hour ago, Linda R said:

I live in Montana and anywhere I take cruises in the US are 3 or 4 flights.   To go to Florida to cruise it takes 12-14 hours including the airport and plane time. I do fly also to Europe for cruises at least once a year, usually twice.  Those are longer yet, but worth it.    You just kinda get used to it.

I guess before now, I hadn't really thought about it, because I didn't really have money to go on cruises. But now that I'm working and have money, I am willing to actually spend money to cruise...

Must be so expensive though, having to fly to different ports each time or are domestic flights within the United States a lot cheaper?

[EmersonNZ]

Well I guess since I've traveled from Dunedin New Zealand to Port Canaveral, USA I guess 13,631km (8,470mil) is the answer

[FireFishII]

I have traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (4900 miles)  for a cruise to Antarctica. I returned via Valparaiso, Chile (5200 miles). 

[Linda R]

20 hours ago, Jamesszy94 said:

I guess before now, I hadn't really thought about it, because I didn't really have money to go on cruises. But now that I'm working and have money, I am willing to actually spend money to cruise...

Must be so expensive though, having to fly to different ports each time or are domestic flights within the United States a lot cheaper?

Flights are all over the board.  I booked London flight, for cruise I took last month, for 35,000 airline miles. Unheard of.  Domestic flights are more than that using miles.

II have been looking for flights for Dec. cruise out of Miami.  It always seemed to  be about $1,000 per person.  9 days ago it was $1,150 per person and I could not use a companion ticket.. The next day, a week ago Sunday, I looked again.  The flight was $547 and I could use a companion.    Go figure.  Just saved over $1,500.  Was so excited.  You need to put in the time to get good airfares but they usually come along.  Just check often.

[CruisingOz]

17 hours ago, EmersonNZ said:

I guess 13,631km (8,470mil) is the answer

Not bad @EmersonNZ but our furthest is 19,905 km / 12,368 miles and closely followed by 18,720 km / 11,1632 miles recently

Just goes to show the lengths Australians and New Zealanders are willing to travel. I always laugh when I hear in a podcast or read in an article about people having to travel a couple hour's to cruise.  

[EmersonNZ]

8 hours ago, CruisingOz said:

Not bad @EmersonNZ but our furthest is 19,905 km / 12,368 miles and closely followed by 18,720 km / 11,1632 miles recently

Just goes to show the lengths Australians and New Zealanders are willing to travel. I always laugh when I hear in a podcast or read in an article about people having to travel a couple hour's to cruise.  

My 'worst week fo travel was LA -> Washington played a game of Waterpolo), Washington -> LA (training in moning), LA - Auckland (Played a game of Waterpolo) Auckland -> Sydney (another game), Sydney -> Perth (another game), Perth -> LA (Via Auckland as stop over, never left airport). I say a week as it was only 7 days for me but it was a bit more given time zone changes.

By the end of it I had no idea if i wa coming or going or where I was waking up each day.

[San Diego Garrett]

San Diego to Miami

[SPS]

So far the farthest we've gone is about 2000 miles (Michigan to San Juan, Puerto Rico). In August it will be close to the same distance (Michigan to Seattle)

Eventually, we want to go about 4500 miles for Italy and Hawaii (Roughly the same distance to each for us) or maybe even about 9500 miles to Sydney!

[Moby Dick]

May 11, 2022.  Home, Oxford, AL to Senoia, GA (my daughter's to spend the night and she drove us to the airport) May 12th to Atlanta Airport, to Phoenix, AZ 45 minute layover, to Oakland, CA, 2 hour layover, to Seattle.  That was a long day.  Thank God the airlines gave us those half ounce packages of mixed teeneee weeeeneeeee snacks  .  

May 21, 2022.  Then, on the way home, Seattle to Las Vegas with a 3 hour layover.  I Guess we didn't get enough of the Slot Machines on the ship, we spent almost all of the 3 hours in the Las Vegas airport playing slots (No, no luck their either).  Then Vegas to Atlanta, then to Senoia and home on the 22nd.  

HOWEVER, having spent 20+ years in the U.S. Army, I have traveled much longer distances and time, in much less accommodating aircraft/trains/bus (think cattle cars), with much less sustenance.  And all that traveling without any devices, cell phones, WIFI, Bluetooth to help pass the time away.  It seems just like a few years earlier, I was walking uphill to school both ways in the snow, with bare feet in Montreal Canada.   So, I'm not complaining, just sharing.

[Bowen]

No limit for me. Before COVID we had cruises set to go out of New Zealand (I think that was a solid 17 hour flight), Italy, and Spain. I truly hope we're able to do these one day, I would love to see those places.

[barbeyg]

Currently? 5 hour flight to Seattle, or a 10-12 hour drive to south FL or NJ. 

When we are retired, would travel farther and stay longer.  Will def fly to Europe for trans-Atlantic, and HI for partial trans-Pacific cruise.