Cruising Close to Home
You’re three hours away from the Eastern Caribbean island of your dreams. The journey has been languid and carefree: always a fresh cocktail on hand when you need one, fellow travelers friendly but never near enough to crowd you, the weather breezy and bright, the food plentiful…
By now you’ve guessed, this lovely little scenario does not involve any vehicle with wings. Not even the most luxurious commercial jet could provide travelers with such simple but crucial perks--which is why savvy vacationers are increasingly opting for a cruise ship instead.
The first compelling argument for cruise travel comes straight out the starting gate: Instead of squeezing into a tiny airplane seat for 8 hours of guaranteed claustrophobia and paranoia, cruise travelers head to an onboard bar or relax on a deck chair the minute they clear the customs line. In today’s time-crunched world, that head start counts for a lot. Cruises have become more popular in recent years as people’s leisure time becomes increasingly rare, says David Gevanthor, VP of Travel for AAA Western and Central New York. “Americans typically only have two weeks vacation time a year, so we want to help make that time truly memorable,” he commented. “Cruising is a great value today. The best cruise lines in the world are offering the lowest rates I have seen in 20 years. Now is a great time to take advantage and visit places you have always dreamed to see.”
Easy access to new places is another main tenet of the cruiser gospel. As anyone who’s ever done fly/drive tours of multiple destinations can attest, country-hopping isn’t easy. Unless you’re cruising, in which case you simply wake up each morning in a new country, flash your passport, and head off to explore. Back in the day it was mainly the Caribbean and Mexico, but lines continue to expand their itineraries as destinations enthusiastically build bigger ports to accommodate. For example, Holland America is offering a 7-day itinerary that departs Boston and heads to remote little ports in Nova Scotia and PEI, Atlantic Canada.
The real key to cruise travel’s climb, however, may not be where the ships are traveling, but where they’re coming from. The big lines have entered a slew of new departure cities, and one of them is probably near you. “New York used to be the only departure city in the Northeast,” says Gevanthor. “With cruise ships being home-ported in the smaller drive markets of Boston, Bayonne (New Jersey), and Baltimore, the entire area opens up.”
Nearly every major cruise line has increased their presence in one of these three ports for 2009. Holland America’s MS Maasdam departs from Boston on its aforementioned Atlantic Canada voyages. Carnival recently made Baltimore buzz by announcing its intention to dock Carnival Pride there year-round. Starting in fall, Celebrity will be big in Baltimore too: its 12-night Eastern Caribbean cruise departs from there; as does its closer-to-home 9-day Southern US/Bahamas cruise. Celebrity also has 13- and 14-night New England/Canada cruises departing from Bayonne this fall. And Royal Caribbean is positively ubiquitous, with ships in all three ports, traveling everywhere from Atlantic Canada to the Caribbean to Bermuda, on cruises ranging from 5 to 9 days.
Although the industry terms these cities as “drive markets,” the delightful irony is that you usually don’t even have to drive around these historic cities—mass transit has you covered. Arrive two days early in Boston, and spend time re-tracing our forefather’s patriotic paths before you set sail for the rugged Canadian coastline. Give yourself a full day to explore the cultural museums of Baltimore before you hop aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas for an idyllic 12-night cruise to St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Maarten and other Caribbean ports. If all the saints start to blur together some time after the 3rd day, so be it. You’ve done your due diligence on the cultural front.
Bayonne, New Jersey is not as much of a cultural or historic hub, but that doesn’t really matter because this ever-more-active port is a mere 45-minute drive from New York City. Take the train in and spend a few days going to Broadway shows, taking photos in Times Square, dining in world-class restaurants and fighting aggressively for taxis before—whew!—either catching a PATH train or calling a car service to whisk you to Cape Liberty.
Knowing people’s increasing desire to just relax once they’ve left the city rush, some cruise lines have started to simplify their itineraries, staying overnight in certain destinations to give people more time to disembark and explore. A shining example is Royal Caribbean’s 5-night Bermuda itinerary: it spends two nights in Kings Wharf, Bermuda, allowing guests to shop, snorkel and play a round of golf without worrying that they’ll miss the boat home. This isn’t just a “have your cake and eat it” vacation—it’s more like, “Have as many kinds of cake as you want.” Figuratively and literally.
And with current rates as low as they were decades ago, there’s never been a better time to help yourself.
