Thread: Why do you choose an embarkation port?

I picked OTHER (surprise! ) for a few reasons. I live less than 5 miles away from the Baltimore cruise terminal....I'm so close I hear the ships horn if the wind blows in the right direction, however we've never been inclined to cruise out of here due to the selection of ships and the time it takes to leave the Chesapeake to get out to the ocean. That probably won't change due to the size of the ships being able to get under the bridges and the fact there are only two companies cruising out of the Port of Baltimore at this time.

Also, we usually fly out of Miami because airfare is fairly cheap from Baltimore as we are a major hub for SWA. All the other airlines try to meet or beat their prices. Normally we fly American because they have actually been cheaper than SWA, not to mention all of our airline points. We would consider driving (and probably in our Miata) as well if it were a last minute cruise. We've both learned out to pack fairly efficiently for a cruise and we have cases that fit in the trunk and a luggage rack.

airfare is a huge chunk of the cost for us so we tend to use miami as it's got good air connections with us in the u.k.

We don't have any embarkation ports that are close to us -- so we choose by ittinerary that we are interested in.

Our first look is for an embarkation port within reasonable driving distance, which is not very great when you live in the Midwest! Mobile was the nearest and it's now closed. NOLA is next, however the last cruise we booked from there was canceled because of Katrina.We've driven to Tampa and Port Canaveral a couple times each so we now are only looking at cruises from those two ports.

We would prefer to always cruise from out home port but that has serious limitations. Now that cruises out of LA and San Diego are limited, the situation is not improving. We do not like taking the long flights to the east coast but when we do it does not matter what port we to to back there.

Living in Florida, we are blessed with several major Departure Ports at least down to the Caribbian. Till now we startet all our Cruises from here. Maybe in the Future we will also need to flight the one or other time...

I choose a local one so that I don't have the added expense of air fare. I have, however, booked a Transatlantic cruise for next year when I will have to fly to Spain to take the cruise. It was a good deal on a new ship that I really wanted to sail. Less air fare costs lets me cruise more often & lkove cruisin'