Save Money by Driving to Your Cruise Ship

by Steve Dasseos on October 30, 2009

We’ve seen the growing trend of cruisers driving to their cruise ships. It’s always made sense to me that a Floridian would drive to the port, but now we’re having clients as far away as Canada drive to their cruise ports.

Just this week, I personally spoke with Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Canada, New York, Nevada, Missouri and Ontario residents all driving to their cruise ports.

What reasons are they giving for driving?

  1. The number one reason is that it’s substantially cheaper to drive especially when you have a group of people.
  2. The frustrations of bad service, delays and the higher nickel and dime charges from the airlines (think checked bag fees & food charges) seals the deal.

In addition, many say they used to use frequent flier tickets to save money, but the problem of trying to get tickets for their whole family added to the frustration of flying is ruling out that option.

Just this morning I read an article from Everett Potter on this same trend. His article is called Sea Change: Drive to Your Cruise Ship.

Here’s how Everett’s article starts:

Over the past six years, however, there’s been a tidal wave of so called homeport or homeland cruises. You can now board a Caribbean bound cruise ship in nearly 20 American cities, such as Boston, Baltimore or Norfolk. Others like Mobile, Alabama, and Tampa, Florida, have joined the ranks of Miami and Fort Lauderdale as Caribbean cruise ports. You can take a Mexico bound ship from San Francisco, or depart Galveston, Texas, to explore the Yucatan coast of Mexico. New York City has become a cruise mecca, with ships leaving for the Caribbean, Canada and New England.

The latter itineraries, once confined to fall, now run in summer as well and offer affordable ways to explore places like Bar Harbor, Maine, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. In short, cruising from U.S. ports is easier and cheaper than ever before; depending on where you live, you can drive to the piers and eliminate the cost of airfare.

You can read Everett Potter’s article here.

I hope this helps you save money on your next cruise. Now that we’re in Kansas City, we’ve got a lot more options available to “drive to the cruise” than we had when we lived in Minnesota.

I hope this makes sense. If you want the right travel insurance advice, call us at 1-888-407-3854 and we'll help you figure it all out.

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