FOR…

is such a little word and yet it can be such a minefield in the cruise world! It would not be an exaggeration to say that I think it should probably be banned from Cruise Itineraries!

 Because FOR will almost certainly mean that the port itself is large, industrial and nothing at all to write home about.  Although luckily it appears to be very close to somewhere that you have always wanted to visit, somewhere you just have to see, somewhere you really can’t miss… Southampton FOR London, Livorno FOR Florence, Le Havre FOR Paris… You see these cities on the itinerary and you imagine yourself gliding through Tower Bridge or down the Seine…..

Now look - if this is a small ship or a river cruise then its possible that you will do exactly that but if the dreaded FOR word is there then you won’t and planning to visit that city will almost certainly mean a long, hot, expensive, tiring day spent sitting on coaches and driving on motorways! Just to visit this wonderful city that you absolutely MUST see, because we will be in Le Havre and ‘everyone else’ will be going on a trip to Paris.  The pressure builds…  you log into your Cruise Personaliser and it starts  - ’book your excursion now’  - ‘don’t miss out’  - ‘ the most popular trips get booked first’ … You may not know the expression FOMO, an extremely successful advertising strategy but it is being used on you as you read your personaliser for the first time - encouraging and promoting a Fear Of Missing Out on visiting this one special place! 

Now obviously if you live in New Zealand and this is your one and only trip to Europe - true “Trip of a Lifetime’ that means your childhood dream of visiting Paris and Florence can finally be realised, then you are going to go to see them, that is a given and all you have to do is find the least stressful, most time efficient way of doing it. 

 But if that isn’t the case, if you live in the UK say or travel a lot, then just take a moment to stop and think. If you really really want to visit Florence, then how expensive would a cheap flight and an overnight hotel be for a weekend? Check it out, it might be that you could get a weekend break for not much more than the cost of two seats on a Cruise Excursion- seriously!! If you factor in that you would be in Florence at least three times longer it might be worth considering as a City Break like that means you get a second holiday too!

On a recent trip to Le Havre we worked out that we could actually get to Paris by train quicker from our home in Kent than we could from the port!

The quickest way to put things into perspective is to take a  step back for a minute look in a specialist cruise excursions site to see what is offered from your nearest home port, wherever that may be.  Once you see what they are promoting I guarantee that you will start to see cruise excursions in a different way!  For instance if I was in Southampton and I wanted to go to London and back before teatime I wouldn't do it by coach and I definitely wouldn’t go via Stonehenge or Windsor!  When you read about somewhere you know it suddenly becomes apparent how little quality time you may be going to ge

So if you chose not to go to the  FOR destination then what else could you do? Experienced Cruisers know that although it may not read this way in the Personaliser but the real answer is

ANYTHING YOU LIKE!!  Truly!! 

So firstly you don’t HAVE to go with the cruise company tours (there are lots of other options of which more to follow) but secondly you really don’t have to make a decision now. - unless you are actually going next week. 

Its odd but as more and more people cruise we demand higher standards from cruise companies but we also put a lot of stress on ourselves by creating imaginary ‘must sees’ - we imagine that the five options offered by the cruise company are the only attractions worth seeing and panic that St Marks Square might be ‘full’!  Again, look at your home port - what would you actually do with a day in Southampton? Hop on a train and spend day in the New Forest? Maybe wander round the town, its museums and galleries and do a little light shopping? A car or train to Winchester or Bath for a bit more history? A ferry to the Isle of Wight? A little foot ferry across to some maritime history and ships in Portsmouth?

You get the idea - use your Cruise Planner to brainstorm all the options for each port. This is really what portExplore is all about - check out our portProfiles in our talkExplore Facebook group for lots of ideas for an alternative day ashore.

And of course once you’ve booked a cruise you have lots of time to plan what you want to do, not just at the FOR port but on all the other days as well. Grab a Cruise Planner and use the Cruise Arc Planner - look at all the ports you will be visiting and how many sea days you have - work out a plan for the whole cruise.  How tired or jet lagged will you be at the start? Will you be desperate to just get off and get some real exercise after two sea days in a row? Do you just fancy a day at the beach or even ( shock! horror!) a day spent quietly on board taking advantage of special offers in the Spa…

So when I see FOR I try very hard to fight down the FOMO - life is so busy nowadays and a cruise is YOUR time.  So do what you want, there is no need to turn it into a never ending round of coaches and culture unless you want to! 

Remember FOR means you COULD not you MUST!

I hope you enjoyed reading my thought on Cruise Ports FOR somewhere completely different! Please share this Blog on Facebook or Twitter so your friends and family can read too or maybe pin it for future reference on Pinterest.

Happy portExploring!

Love Cathy xx

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