2 Cruises at the same time?!?

[Xalthon]

I was perusing cruises for summer 2025, when I came across the Allure's Mediterranean cruises.

7-day Round Trip out of Barcelona, departing:
June 1
June 8
June 15
June 22
June 29

But the Allure was also scheduled to make 7-day Round Trip cruises out of Rome on the following dates:
June 5
June 12
June 19
June 26

I thought this had to be an error, so I called RCCL. The person said that it is correct because the stops of the cruises coincide (e.g., for the June 1 cruise, it will be stopping in Rome on June 5 and so on). I had never heard of this for a cruise ship before. I was wondering the logistics of this. Has anyone experienced this firsthand? Seems very odd to me. Clearly, there could be no mention of which cruise day it is since half will be on Day X and half will be on Day X+4. Also, would one be unable to sleep in on the other group's debarkation day (because of the shipwide announcements "Group Y can now depart"). Anyway, I am flabbergasted that this set-up exists. If anyone has experience, it would be great to hear.

Thanks!

 

[hrhdhd]

I have not heard of RC doing this, but the Costa ship that sank was on a schedule like this. Some of the passengers had boarded that day and hadn't had a muster drill, so there was more confusion than there should have been about where to go, etc.

Debarking announcements shouldn't be broadcast into rooms.

 

[sam_gordon]

While I've never been on this cruise, I have been reading about it on Cruise Critic for years.

 

[ScooterScott44]

Doesn't MSC do the same? They have a 7 day Med that allows differ embarkation/disembarkation points as it makes the loop(s). It is not quite as novel as it seems to us in the US.

 

[lilsonicfan]

We went on an MSC cruise in Europe and embarked in Barcelona. That cruise was a multi-embarkation cruise and guests embarked/disembarked at: Barcelona, Rome, Genoa, and Palma de Mallorca (I think). Everyone was on their own 7 night cruise. I did not find it chaotic at all, these cruise lines are used to managing the multi-embarkation cruises and it does seem to be far more common in Europe, probably due to no strange Jones Act/PVSA rules. I did see groups of guests having their muster drills at different times, obviously that is a rule now.

 

[ucf_knight]

I was perusing cruises for summer 2025, when I came across the Allure's Mediterranean cruises.

7-day Round Trip out of Barcelona, departing:
June 1
June 8
June 15
June 22
June 29

But the Allure was also scheduled to make 7-day Round Trip cruises out of Rome on the following dates:
June 5
June 12
June 19
June 26

I thought this had to be an error, so I called RCCL. The person said that it is correct because the stops of the cruises coincide (e.g., for the June 1 cruise, it will be stopping in Rome on June 5 and so on). I had never heard of this for a cruise ship before. I was wondering the logistics of this. Has anyone experienced this firsthand? Seems very odd to me. Clearly, there could be no mention of which cruise day it is since half will be on Day X and half will be on Day X+4. Also, would one be unable to sleep in on the other group's debarkation day (because of the shipwide announcements "Group Y can now depart"). Anyway, I am flabbergasted that this set-up exists. If anyone has experience, it would be great to hear.

Thanks!

My wife and I have been on a Royal boat that did this in the Europe before. It was really unusual when we started interacting with guests and found out people were getting on and off the ship on different days. It didn't impact our enjoyment on the cruise but it was certainly different.

 

[peacefrogdog]

Was on the Wonder that did this. We boarded in Cvitavecchia - was nice because we had the windjammer to ourselves on embarkation day while most guests who boarded in Barcelona were on Rome based excursions. You don’t notice anything negative. You are still expected to do muster drills when boarding.

 

[Lewisc]

Barcelona, Rome, Genoa, and Palma de Mallorca (I think). Everyone was on their own 7 night cruise. I did not find it chaotic at all, these cruise lines are used to managing the multi-embarkation cruises and it does seem to be far more common in Europe, probably due to no strange Jones Act/PVSA rules.

3 of the 4 embarkation ports you mentioned are in different countries. Jones Act PVSA isn't really a fair comparison.

 

[peacefrogdog]

Now that I think of it, we weren’t able to book things on the app. They told us that it was because we boarded in Rome but the days of the trip was based on embarkation in Barcelona.
The ship was new then so hopefully that got straightened out by now

 

[ronandannette]

The 7 day we took on the Freedom in 2018 did this. We boarded in Barcelona and didn’t even notice, really. I do seem to remember that there were no big “Welcome Aboard” or “Last Night of Vacation” events, as you might see on other itineraries.

 

[jimmymc]

MSC does this a lot on their Med cruises. Every big city is a possible embarking or debarking point. I've heard it makes getting on and off the ship easier, because there aren't nearly as many people.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

At least what is common on Seabourn is they will sell long chunks as well as shorter chunks but they could (and often do) overlap. So this will cause passengers to still be on the ship while others depart and new ones get on. That said I think the exact type of situation in the OP isn't as common because they don't do as much round trip cruises as I think other lines do. I mean they do do them (dover to dover, barcelona to barcelona) just it's more common to do one way from what I can see.

On our 2025 cruise starts March 27th in Lisbon ends on April 8th in Monte Carlo and is a 12 day cruise. There is a cruise that is also a 12 day one that goes from Barbados on March 15th and ends in Lisbon on the 27th (our embarkation date). However, there is a cruise that goes from Barbados and connects with our cruise on the 27th and ends the same date as ours on April 8th in Monte Carlo for a total of 24 days. So if someone books that one it will block off a room for that whole time. It's all the same ship just different segments being sold, this isn't something that Seabourn started with as far as the comments from decades long customers say but has been around for long enough.

IME people on Seabourn tend to do much longer cruises so I guess this comes up a lot where passengers are still on the ship continuing on with their cruise while new passengers are just starting theirs. Last year we were commonly asked are you on the Athens or Istanbul cruise because the one we booked was Venice to Athens (7 day) but there was an option to book Venice to Istanbul (14 days), while I didn't pay attention last year I'm sure there was a 7 day Athens to Istanbul cruise as well.

They also just launched where you can purchase a side trip through them which passengers did before like for instance getting off the ship in Africa to do a several day safari then reconnecting with the ship at a different port but now you can just do it all through them. They are now doing pre and post side trips as well.

 

[pangyal]

We are on Oasis now and about one quarter of the passengers are doing Rome to Rome, which the rest of us are Barcelona to Barcelona. Apparently, this has been the way it’s worked for quite a while.