The slow boat to Europe

The Transatlantic Cruise: Crossing the Atlantic by cruise boat

There are two major ways to cruise the Atlantic between the Old World and the New: regularly scheduled transatlantic cruises, and season-end repositioning cruises.

First, scheduled transatlantic cruises. Now that the fabled QE2 (QEII, technically, refers to Her Majesty Elizabeth, Queen of England; QE2 refers to the big boat) is headed for a retuirement moored in Dubai, the premier ship crossing the Pond is her neice, the Queen Mary 2.

The main differences between the Queen Mary 2 and repositioning cruises:

Frequency: The Queen Mary 2 journeys happen every week from April through October. Positioning cruises only happen at the beginning and end of the season (and only in one direction).

Duration & variety: The Queen Mary 2 makes the trip in a swift six nights, with no ports of call between New York and Southampton. Repositioning cruises—though some speed it along in eight days or so—usually take a leisurely two weeks (sometimes even longer), throwing in ports of call along the way, often at boths ends: a few in Europe and/or North Africa, a few in the Caribbean and/or South America.

End points: The Queen Mary 2 always shuttles between New York and Southampton, England. Repos cruises tend to focus on Florida on this end, and may end up anywhere in Europe on the other (though the Mediterranean is popular).

April through October, she criss-crosses the Atlantic Ocean between New York, NY and Southampton, England on six-night journeys starting as low as $947 per person in a cabin for two (plus about $400 per person for the one-way airfare, and another $50 or so in taxes and fees) when booked via a broker such as CruiseDirect (www.cruisedirect.com).

Then there's the repositioning cruises. Most crusies ships spend half the year (the winter) on this side of the Atlantic (mostly cruising the Caribbean) and the other half (the summer) on the European side, cruising the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, and North Sea. That means, twice a year, they have to reposition the boats from one side of the Pond to the other.

These globe-trotting cruise ships tend to head over to Europe in March and April and come back in September and October (some linger into November and even December), when hurricane season is winding down and Carribbean cruises come back into high demand. Rates for these repositioning cruises start around $800 per person for two sharing a cabin. A few examples of cruises and per-person prices from the fall 2007 repos season:

Civitavecchia (near Rome), Italy to Miami, FL on Carnival: from $799 (inside cabin) for 14 nights; sails via Livorno (near Pisa); Malaga, Spain; and Madeira, Portugal.
Barcelona, Spain, to Miami, FL on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Dream: from $799 (oceanview stateroom) for 15 nights; sails via the Canaries, Alicante, Ceuta, Madeira, and the U.S. Virgin Islands’ St. Thomas.
Southampton, England to Ft. Lauderdale, FL on the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas: from $849 (inside cabin; ocean-view cabins from $899) for 12 nights; sails via Le Havre, France (with enough time for a quick daytrip into Paris); La Coruna, Spain; and Madeira.
Civitavecchia, Italy to Ft. Lauderdale, FL on Holland America’s Westerdam: from $957 (inside cabin) for 16 nights; sails via Lipari in Sicily’s Aeolian Islands; Monte Carlo; Marseille, France; and Barcelona, Valencia, and Almeria in Spain.

Of course, these cruises are one-way, leaving it up to you to find airfare to or from Europe and also to or from Florida (or wherever the domestic end of the cruise is).

Where to find and book transatlantic cruises

CruiseDirect (www.cruisedirect.com)

- One of the top cruise discounters in the business, consitently underselling the higher rack rates you'll see posted on the web sites of the cruise companies themselves. CruiseDirect.com even have a last-minute page with discounts on soon-to-leave ships.

Cruise Compete (www.cruisecompete.com) - You know the commercials for LendingTree.com? That whole "When banks compete, you win..." spiel? Well this the same thing for cruises. You put in the date and destination and ship (any or all of those), and it sends your cruise request to a whole bunch of cruise brokers and discounters. Each of them then contacts you with a quote on how little they can do that cruise for you. Basically, it does the shopping around for you, pretty cool, huh?

Cruise Critic (www.cruisecritic.com) - Independent Website devoted to cruising in all its forms.

Small Ship Cruises (www.smallshipcruises.com) - Just what it sounds like: booking with dozens of outfits that offer cruises, usually on smaller ships, often those cool tall masted ships.

This material was last updated September 2007. All information was accurate at the time.

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