The cruise ships are in town and it got me wondering if it's possible to book passage and travel from one NZ port to another? I've had a look around the various websites and at the sailing schedules, but can't find any useful information so far. Understandably the sites are all geared towards buying cruise packages.
I thought it might be a fun Christmas present and a nice alternative to the usual city-break or bach getaway.
Anyone ever tried this?
I have taken a 3-day "taster" cruise in Sydney before. Basically a cruise liner stops over in a port for a week, all the travellers get off and go sightseeing, and the ship is loaded with people for about the cheapest cruise you can take. They just went up the coast of NSW almost to Newcastle and back.
We ended up where we started and never got to see another port, but it was an experience that I and my family will never forget. I don't know if any of them offer anything like that in NZ, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat if we could afford it.
Doesn't the travellers spend their nights on the ship during the port visit?
Nope, not in our case. They were all put up in hotels for the week while we were on board. Win-win for everyone, I suppose. Local hospitality venues get the business of upmarket passengers with money to burn while the cruise line gets to clip the ticket again with a whole new lot of passengers instead of being docked and idle for the week. There was a turnaround time for cleaning, restocking etc before and after, but they're pretty good at that and it was probably all done in an afternoon.
Oh nice! Yep I think I saw a 3-day taster cruise on one of the websites as well, but nothing available in New Zealand.
Wellington to Picton and then return, kinda quick but no tipping required…
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Genius :D
You might find more info by asking around on the Cruise Critic forums.
Thanks, I'll take a look :)
One way trips on cruise ships are very rare in general due to the laws and the fact they just dont do them much in the US so dont do them elsewhere. Not so much the NZ laws are the issue - but the countries the ships "flags" are from which are always weird low tax, cheap staff places. In the US for example one way trips like there are ilegal for most ships as there is a law saying for non US vessels (which they all are) are not possible unless one off repositioning and even then they need to have foreign ports involved on the trip to be legal.
So yeah pretty rare to find. You can find some in Europe but those lines dont tend to operate here much
I wish they had this option!