Where to find the back to back cruises?

[Haljo1935]

50 minutes ago, Drew B 58 said:

I understand.  I would LOVE to do an Australia cruise, but I know I could never handle that long a flight.  My dream is to do a transpacific to Australia followed by another transpacific back.  But that’s not realistic.  That isn’t how the schedule ships…

I have found some incredible deals for Australia but the flights kill me - like mortgage the house expensive. 

[Drew B 58]

For me, it’s not even mainly about cost.  I just know that six hours is the MOST I can sit on a plane before I start to completely freak out!

[Haljo1935]

14 minutes ago, Drew B 58 said:

For me, it’s not even mainly about cost.  I just know that six hours is the MOST I can sit on a plane before I start to completely freak out!

Fair enough. Layovers might be a good compromise. 

[Linsuesue]

46 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Hey @Linsuesue weighing in a bit on B2B and TAs (transatlantic) & TPs (transpacific) and answering @RobertL88 as you may have same question when (see what I did there? "When" not "if") you book your B2B.

You will get instructions for "turnaround" day - the day passengers leave & new ones get on. It will tell you when/where to meet, just follow those instructions and know you will cause an entire ship to wait for you if you don't. If you change cabins, you can pack your loose stuff, leave hanging clothes on hangers - stewards will move your stuff. There are threads on here w/very good info and lots of details.

As for the B2B - I have always built my own by searching for ports I would be willing to get to to leave from then just start expanding the filters for dates. I do not filter by number of days because it will omit the shorter itineraries that you can book to build your B2B.

@Linsuesue I would encourage you to add HAL (Holland America Line) into your search as they do a lot of European itineraries. 

We built a B2B on Princess pre-Covid flying to Athens, cruise Athens RT (round trip), turnaround day in Athens then cruise Athens->Barcelona, flew home from Barcelona. This repeated 1 port even though we were in the same area; we could have spent a week in that 1 port and still not seen it all, so repeating it was certainly acceptable. We wouldn't have repeated it, but Turkey was canceled and it was the replacement.  That was our 1st B2B and honestly back then didn't even know that's what it was called (silly, naiive us) - we just knew we thought it was easy to cruise a 2nd  week and didn't understand why more people didn't do it (again, how dumb were we). We heard people talking about how much they paid for the full cruise and were surprised as our B2B was far less than their 1 cruise. We did a HOHO (hop on hop off) around Athens on turnaround day - it was fabulous!

We have our 1st TA and TP coming up. The TA we fly to Rome cruising Spain to FLL (Ft Lauderdale) then fly home from FLL. We booked air as 2 separate 1-way tickets for far less than half what a multi-city ticket cost.

By not limiting yourself to 1 cruiseline (sorry cheerleaders and loyalists) you will have more options to avoid the long flights you are looking to avoid. We booked a RT Rome that would require us to fly both ways from Rome, but then I found a TA London->FL that left the day after the Rome returned. So a $70 flight got us from Rome->London then cruise London->FL. I did not look for a TA going the other way to prevent flying to Rome, but I likely could have found one. This does require changing cruise lines for London leg.

The TP is one you may well be interested in; I built it into a B2B as well. We fly to Japan, cruise to Seattle then cruise Seattle RT, fly home from Seattle. If you don't want to fly to Japan, there is cruise from the US to Japan; I couldn't add it because I couldn't get that much time off work.

I personally don't turn this research phase over to a TA and do not have a good PCC/PVP to do it. But I will send them what I've put together to see if they have recommendations to make it better/cheaper or have an alternative. 

Happy to answer questions or share any tips if you want to DM.

Haljo-thanks for the insights! You explained some things I had not considered. I am a big Carnival fan but have sailed on NCL too. It gets to be a bit apples to oranges when you start to compare and contrast multiple cruise lines. Keeping plane time to a minimum of discomfort and money, it seems to be worth the research to find every ship coming into every port on every day around the time you want to travel somewhere. I guess I thought it would be easier to figure out the back-to-backs/repositioning cruises, because many people on cruise critic sound so casual about all of the ones they have done. 500 people on one ship doing back-to-backs. Wow. Japan would be a 1 time bucket list item for me. I want to see as many places as I can in one trip not knowing if I will ever be able to come back again. You are correct-my B2B is a when-definitely not an if-definitely not a one time only.😀 I will DM you as I think of more things! 

[Linsuesue]

1 hour ago, Haljo1935 said:

I have found some incredible deals for Australia but the flights kill me - like mortgage the house expensive. 

Messaging in this board is disabled, and I have one question about the B2B you did. You said that you paid less for the B2B than some people paid for just one of the cruises. How does that happen? From info I am getting on here you have to book each leg of the B2B separately and then Carnival will link the 2 cruises together and each leg has its own reservation #. If that is the case, how do you get a better deal booking 2 separate legs? I have seen killer deals on Australian cruises but a $2,000 cheap seat on a 15 hour flight?! 😮 

[CGinMTL]

I think you need to find a good travel agent. But I just googled " repositioning cruises" and you get different websites that have different search engines that you may want to play with.

 

Normally these are at the end of a season when ships move from one zone to another, they include many sea days and are less expensive

 

Ships that are in the Caribbean for the winter will move either to

Alaska

Europe

East coast for the summer.

.

Example. Holland America has one ship that goes from Florida up to Montreal early May.

That ship then does Montreal to Boston for the summer. ( This year was the Zaandam ).

 

Think of were the ships are which month, and when they would move back.

.

If you are set on carnival. Look 1 ship at a time for a one year period. You will soon see the pattern.

Which I could give you more info, but the rules don't allow it 

[Etta1213]

1 hour ago, Linsuesue said:

Haljo-thanks for the insights! You explained some things I had not considered. I am a big Carnival fan but have sailed on NCL too. It gets to be a bit apples to oranges when you start to compare and contrast multiple cruise lines. Keeping plane time to a minimum of discomfort and money, it seems to be worth the research to find every ship coming into every port on every day around the time you want to travel somewhere. I guess I thought it would be easier to figure out the back-to-backs/repositioning cruises, because many people on cruise critic sound so casual about all of the ones they have done. 500 people on one ship doing back-to-backs. Wow. Japan would be a 1 time bucket list item for me. I want to see as many places as I can in one trip not knowing if I will ever be able to come back again. You are correct-my B2B is a when-definitely not an if-definitely not a one time only.😀 I will DM you as I think of more things! 

You probably picked up this tidbit already, but cruisers refer to "side to side," meaning they change ships. It obviously provides one with more options. In small ports like Galveston, it wouldn't be a super big deal. It could involve two different cruise lines or just two ships of same line. Be sure to let us know what you book! I'm so excited for you!🤗

Edited July 9, 2023 by Etta1213

[Linsuesue]

7 minutes ago, CGinMTL said:

I think you need to find a good travel agent. But I just googled " repositioning cruises" and you get different websites that have different search engines that you may want to play with.

 

Normally these are at the end of a season when ships move from one zone to another, they include many sea days and are less expensive

 

Ships that are in the Caribbean for the winter will move either to

Alaska

Europe

East coast for the summer.

.

Example. Holland America has one ship that goes from Florida up to Montreal early May.

That ship then does Montreal to Boston for the summer. ( This year was the Zaandam ).

 

Think of were the ships are which month, and when they would move back.

.

If you are set on carnival. Look 1 ship at a time for a one year period. You will soon see the pattern.

Which I could give you more info, but the rules don't allow it 

Great information—Thank you so much! I have been checking out some websites that have repositioning cruise information on them. I would enjoy sailing on other cruise lines and need to be more diligent to check out their prices and itineraries. 

[FastShip24]

3 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

If the first part of your cruise is Seattle to Alaska-it has a stop in Victoria, Canada, and then back to Seattle-that is fine. The second part would be Seattle to Hawaii-that would be problematic with no foreign port stop. I am thinking maybe one of the ships could go from Seattle to Australia, or Seattle-Hawaii-Ensenada-California. 

 

2 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Hey @Linsuesue weighing in a bit on B2B and TAs (transatlantic) & TPs (transpacific) and answering @RobertL88 as you may have same question when (see what I did there? "When" not "if") you book your B2B.

You will get instructions for "turnaround" day - the day passengers leave & new ones get on. It will tell you when/where to meet, just follow those instructions and know you will cause an entire ship to wait for you if you don't. If you change cabins, you can pack your loose stuff, leave hanging clothes on hangers - stewards will move your stuff. There are threads on here w/very good info and lots of details.

As for the B2B - I have always built my own by searching for ports I would be willing to get to to leave from then just start expanding the filters for dates. I do not filter by number of days because it will omit the shorter itineraries that you can book to build your B2B.

@Linsuesue I would encourage you to add HAL (Holland America Line) into your search as they do a lot of European itineraries. 

We built a B2B on Princess pre-Covid flying to Athens, cruise Athens RT (round trip), turnaround day in Athens then cruise Athens->Barcelona, flew home from Barcelona. This repeated 1 port even though we were in the same area; we could have spent a week in that 1 port and still not seen it all, so repeating it was certainly acceptable. We wouldn't have repeated it, but Turkey was canceled and it was the replacement.  That was our 1st B2B and honestly back then didn't even know that's what it was called (silly, naiive us) - we just knew we thought it was easy to cruise a 2nd  week and didn't understand why more people didn't do it (again, how dumb were we). We heard people talking about how much they paid for the full cruise and were surprised as our B2B was far less than their 1 cruise. We did a HOHO (hop on hop off) around Athens on turnaround day - it was fabulous!

We have our 1st TA and TP coming up. The TA we fly to Rome cruising Spain to FLL (Ft Lauderdale) then fly home from FLL. We booked air as 2 separate 1-way tickets for far less than half what a multi-city ticket cost.

By not limiting yourself to 1 cruiseline (sorry cheerleaders and loyalists) you will have more options to avoid the long flights you are looking to avoid. We booked a RT Rome that would require us to fly both ways from Rome, but then I found a TA London->FL that left the day after the Rome returned. So a $70 flight got us from Rome->London then cruise London->FL. I did not look for a TA going the other way to prevent flying to Rome, but I likely could have found one. This does require changing cruise lines for London leg.

The TP is one you may well be interested in; I built it into a B2B as well. We fly to Japan, cruise to Seattle then cruise Seattle RT, fly home from Seattle. If you don't want to fly to Japan, there is cruise from the US to Japan; I couldn't add it because I couldn't get that much time off work.

I personally don't turn this research phase over to a TA and do not have a good PCC/PVP to do it. But I will send them what I've put together to see if they have recommendations to make it better/cheaper or have an alternative. 

Happy to answer questions or share any tips if you want to DM.

It's Seattle to the Caribbean via Panama canal

[Linsuesue]

11 minutes ago, Etta1213 said:

You probably picked up this tidbit already, but cruisers refer to "side to side," meaning they change ships. It obviously provides one with more options. In small ports like Galveston, it wouldn't be a super big deal. It could involve two different cruise lines or just two ships of same line. Be sure to let us know what you book! I'm so excited for you!🤗

Thank you! I really enjoy the planning phase of a trip. Today is the first time I have ever heard of a side by side. It sounds quite fun-as long as the itineraries weren't carbon copies of each other. I am so grateful for the Cruise Critic boards. I have found out so many great tips and tricks on here. This was the first place I found out about Spirit Class aft wraps-that later became Vista Views, the 4K Inside obstructed view cabins on deck 4 of the Spirit ships, the Grand Scenic Ocean view cabins on the Splendor-and other ships, what Port Valet was in Seattle…

[Haljo1935]

1 hour ago, Linsuesue said:

... I have seen killer deals on Australian cruises but a $2,000 cheap seat on a 15 hour flight?! 😮 

True - I see incredible deals for Australia cruises but the airfare is ridiculous!

You are welcome to email me telizking at yahoo.com 

[JimmyTheSaint]

10 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

Did you have to spend some days in Lisbon, or did the cruises mesh so well that they arrived and departed on the same day. I love the Pride and the Spirit class ships. How long was the flight to Rome?

Pride is a great ship, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles or dining options of the newer ships but there's a nice flow to the layout of the ship. I'd like to go back on board now that she's been updated following the recent drydock. 

The B2B we did and that most people refer to have the first cruise finish on the same day that the second cruise starts. We didn't have to disembark the ship in Lisbon, we had a leisurely breakfast and then proceeded to the theatre to get our new sail and sign cards for the second cruise. After that we were free to spend the day in Lisbon. 

We live in Europe so the flight to Rome isn't very long for us.

[JimmyTheSaint]

I'm not sure if this counts as side to side but at the end of the Transatlantic cruise on Pride that finished in Tampa we boarded Mardi Gras on the same day for a seven night Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral. We booked an Uber to take us across Florida as it was the cheapest and most convenient option.

You won't find B2B cruises on a website, we booked the Transatlantic cruise through Carnival's website, you can find them in the Sail To box, and then the rest of the planning and booking fell into place very easily. We knew the date of the sailing so looked for the previous one and what date we'd arrive in Florida so looked for a sailing on that date. Sometimes it's easier to find a cruise using a cruise comparison website with multiple search options such as search a specific date and then find it and book it on Carnivals' website.

[jam19872016]

18 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

Is there such a thing as a transatlantic that will leave the US and get you to Rome, then you could book the Rome to Tampa and not need to have transatlantic airfare?

Freedom is doing round trip transatlantic cruises this fall with about a three week gap while she gets her new whale tail installed. 

 

There are lots of us onboard doing both legs and spending time in Europe for the time in-between. 

 

I'll be doing five days in Barcelona followed by 14 days on Cunard for the bargain price of $899 pp.

 

The return TA is currently sold out but final payment is coming up soon and I bet some rooms open up then as they did on the outbound TA. 

 

If that is too soon, Glory has a spring TA next year which you could combine with another ship heading to Europe around that time.

[Linsuesue]

1 hour ago, jam19872016 said:

Freedom is doing round trip transatlantic cruises this fall with about a three week gap while she gets her new whale tail installed. 

 

There are lots of us onboard doing both legs and spending time in Europe for the time in-between. 

 

I'll be doing five days in Barcelona followed by 14 days on Cunard for the bargain price of $899 pp.

 

The return TA is currently sold out but final payment is coming up soon and I bet some rooms open up then as they did on the outbound TA. 

 

If that is too soon, Glory has a spring TA next year which you could combine with another ship heading to Europe around that time.

Thanks for the examples! This year is too soon, as we have 2 trips planned this fall. Next year is chunked up with 3 cruises booked. I am going to shoot for fall of 2025, because I found a B2B that would add up to 29 days. Your European trip sounds great! My first thought is that all of that time in Europe between the cruises sounds expensive. Having never been there though, but I figure hotels, gas, and transportation is high. What a unique way to avoid flying across all because of a whale tail!😃

[Linsuesue]

3 hours ago, JimmyTheSaint said:

I'm not sure if this counts as side to side but at the end of the Transatlantic cruise on Pride that finished in Tampa we boarded Mardi Gras on the same day for a seven night Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral. We booked an Uber to take us across Florida as it was the cheapest and most convenient option.

You won't find B2B cruises on a website, we booked the Transatlantic cruise through Carnival's website, you can find them in the Sail To box, and then the rest of the planning and booking fell into place very easily. We knew the date of the sailing so looked for the previous one and what date we'd arrive in Florida so looked for a sailing on that date. Sometimes it's easier to find a cruise using a cruise comparison website with multiple search options such as search a specific date and then find it and book it on Carnivals' website.

I guess traveling from one side of Florida to the other makes it a supersized side2side!😃 Thanks for the tip. Traveling across a state from port to port is real thinking outside of the box!

[crzndeb]

14 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

I have found some incredible deals for Australia but the flights kill me - like mortgage the house expensive. 

This is why I use an airline mileage credit cards. I use Alaska Air card and take advantage of their bogo sales every few months. I also pay off my card monthly.

[Etta1213]

2 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

I guess traveling from one side of Florida to the other makes it a supersized side2side!😃 Thanks for the tip. Traveling across a state from port to port is real thinking outside of the box!

I've read, I think, of people doing S2S between Miami and Port Canaveral also. Haven't done it. Sounds doable though. Unless first ship gets into port late! I'd be more inclined to deal with just one port for same-day switch cuz I'm a worrier.😅

Edited July 9, 2023 by Etta1213

[TomCruise48]

More than once, we have been able to put together 22 consecutive days doing Eastern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, and Southern Caribbean from the same port in Florida as a B2B2S.  We do the B2B portion on Carnival where were get free laundry, then switch to another Carnival Ship or a ship from another cruise line for the S2S.  There are some ships that operate on a 8-day Eastern/6-day Western/8-day Southern pattern that repeats every 3 weeks making it possible to do a B2B2B with different ports.  We prefer to not spend more than 2 weeks on the same ship, so we do a B2B2S or a S2B2B.

[TomCruise48]

7 minutes ago, Etta1213 said:

I've read of people doing S2S between Miami and Port Canaveral also. Haven't done it. Sounds doable though. Unless first ship gets into port late! I'd be more inclined to deal with just one port for same-day switch cuz I'm a worrier.😅

A S2S between Miami and Fort Lauderdale is easily doable.  Since Carnival no longer sails from Fort Lauderdale that leg will need to be on a different cruise line.  Royal Caribbean will provide free transportation between these ports if you do your S2S between two of their ships. 

[Linsuesue]

9 minutes ago, TomCruise48 said:

A S2S between Miami and Fort Lauderdale is easily doable.  Since Carnival no longer sails from Fort Lauderdale that leg will need to be on a different cruise line.  Royal Caribbean will provide free transportation between these ports if you do your S2S between two of their ships. 

That is good to know. I don’t know a thing about Royal Caribbean but want to check them out.

[cellfree]

2 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

I guess traveling from one side of Florida to the other makes it a supersized side2side!😃 Thanks for the tip. Traveling across a state from port to port is real thinking outside of the box!

Our Side2Sides have been with Carnival (one Carnival ship to another, same port) and with Carnival and MSC (got off MSC ship and trudged two piers down to Carnival ship). Quite easy to coordinate Carnival and MSC dates especially out of Miami. 

[firefly333]

1 hour ago, Linsuesue said:

That is good to know. I don’t know a thing about Royal Caribbean but want to check them out.

PC, port Canaveral the rcl adventure is doing some 6/8 with interesting ports. I booked 3 on adventure about a month ago, and see prices have gone up since then. Wow. I wanted a eastern and a southern. I added the xmas cruise dec 2024 to a eastern. The 6 days in between to me not that interesting. My carnival cruise hits some nice ports the A and C of ABC islands, havent seen bonaire. My april 2025 in my signature. The dec 8 day eastern I havent been to DR and one other. 

 

I wanted more but the prices doubled since they came out. Rcl generally is cheapest when first released, unlike carnival.  So I'm waiting until nov when the next batch is released for the following year to load up. 

 

PC is the busiest cruise port in the world and prices reflect that, it's not just mardi gras. I'm moving there so will put up with the prices. I plan on mardi gras too. But it's a easy b2b, stay in the same cabin, a bit different ports.

 

My 8 day eastern, 6 day over xmas to grand bahamas (news to me ships stopped here), southern. Easy b2b dec 13, dec 21 2024. .. alternating 8 and 6 days. Eastern, western and a couple southern. 

 

VISITING:

• Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida
• Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
• Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida

 

 

VISITING:

• Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida
• Labadee, Haiti
• Falmouth, Jamaica
• Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas
• Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida