Five ‘uniquely’ cruise itineraries. What would your top five be?

There is literally a whole worlds list of holidays that anyone could do out there, cruises are just one of many ways you can take a holiday, with many pro’s in its favour and a few cons too of course!

I’ve done a few holidays in my 33 years but there are some which are only made easy with a cruise itinerary in my humble opinion. Some of the cruises below are totally impossible to do without spending days and weeks travelling and just generally a lot of messing around in an airport. This and the expense or even the possibility of doing things that are just not on airline route maps, ferry routes full stop.

My top five in descending order below of itineraries, which even a hardcore independent traveller would find at the least very difficult in the timescale it can be done on a cruise.

So before anyone says “well these can be done by plane, boat, tuk tuk…” these cruises itineraries are unique in their general user friendliness and accesibility, as well as the incredible places they go to.

5: Hawaii

Stairway to Heaven – Hawaii

Hawaii is somewhere that it is very hard to get to from the UK simply because it is half way round the world and a set of islands. These islands, notwithstanding regular, cheap flights between each, are a long way apart and not easy to get to. You would wear yourself out getting between them all in a one week period. With a cruise you can knock of Maui, Oahu, Big island and more, all in one hit and in a matter of days.

On the Royal Caribbean itinerary below you can even end up in Vancouver, where you could hop on the Rocky mountaineer as well. Its just all that darn flying to get to Hawaii in the first place!!!

Radiance of the Seas Hawaii-Vancouver cruise

4: Pacific islands from Australia

Now this is definitely my cup of tea. A bit far afield for most people maybe, but I’ve done a bit of this with a trip to New Caledonia and to Tahiti on separate holidays and these are some of the most gorgeous places on earth and very, very relaxing.

Me on holiday on the Isle of Pines New Caledonia.

If you can handle the flight time to get out to Australia to pick up a cruise its well worth it.  The cruise market down under is growing quickly and ships regularly sail out of Sydney, Brisbane and even Perth. You do also get ships cruising from Auckland NZ from time to time too, as well as Melbourne.

One of the many beautiful beaches on Moorea, French Polynesia

These places in the South Pacific are good enough in themselves but you can get quite quickly out to places like Vanuatu and New Caledonia and their outlying islands from Sydney. Its also only a fairly short hop from here to Fiji. Tahiti is a little bit further so a lot of cruises only stop here on relocation sailings but for the ultra luxurious there are Paul Gauguin cruises that sail around the French Polynesian islands and atols!

The sort of cruise below with Royal Caribbean would be my pick for Pacific island cruises.

Cruise with New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji

3: Transatlantic crossing

You can fly between the UK and North America but a cruise is the only way you can do this without flying or a real explorers streak.

Looking down on central park from the top of the Rockefeller centre New York!

The route from Southampton to New York is dominated by Cunard’s Queen Mary which does this regularly. New York is a place I have been and even just this fairly basic itinerary opens up one of the worlds greatest cities to the UKs non flying population.

There are however all manner of interesting itineraries that you can do taking in far flung Atlantic islands like the Azores or Bermuda or even going up via a very popular destination at the moment, Iceland.

Add to that that some cruise line like NCL or Royal Caribbean do the trips across the Atlantic from places like Barcelona and there is a veritable smorgasbord of options available to people who dont mind a bit of time at sea. Some of the fares are pretty incredible on this sort of cruise as well.

Crown Princess Southampton via Iceland to Halifax!

2: The eastern med, Greek islands and Turkey.

I’ve heard tales from my uncle of island hopping in Greece in his youth in the seventies but having been to Athens I’m not sure its so easy nowadays. Also with Greece’s precarious finances I’m not sure doing this independently would be particularly reliable for the average holiday maker. If you tie this in with being able to go to the lovely Dalmatian coast of Croatia and the wonders of Venice and some of the eastern Italian cities, the question is actually  why would you do this any other way? I’ve been to Croatia a couple of years ago and it has beaches, history and scenery in abundance and Greece is one of the most popular destinations for British holiday makers but rarely do these two go together on a standard holiday itinerary. They do on a cruise…..

On the city walls in Dubrovnik

At the Parthenon, with a bit on construction going on! Athens

This 12 night cruise on Pacific Princess is the perfect example of some of the cool places you can go to in one hit on a cruise itinerary, barely seeing airport security!

Pacific Princess Adriatic cruise

1: The Caribbean

This itinerary has got to be number one, try getting flights from say St Lucia to Grenada for example, you will find there just isn’t a daily flight to do it. That is not even taking into account smaller destinations like St Maarten that you just simply, couldn’t replicate the itinerary of a cruise to get to and from islands in the Caribbean by flying or any other way.

The beautiful mountain scenery and volcanic beaches of St Lucia or the white sand of Barbados or Antigua are possible within a few days on a cruise. The majority of cruises go from the US so you can even factor in starting off in an amazing city like New York or going to see Cape Canaveral space centre from Port Canaveral (or Disney at Orlando nearby)  if you wanted.

St Maarten all lit up!

Nassau – Bahamas

This 7 night cruise with NCL is all inclusive and goes down to the Bahamas and stops at the aforementioned Port Canaveral as well!

NCL cruise from New York

Do you think Im right with the order of these, what would your top five be or,  even just your own personal wish list!?

Discuss….