TA... Eastbound or Westbound

[Plaid Princess]

We've decided we want to do a Transatlantic cruise in 2015 (If they ever get around to posting the itineraries ;-) )... But we can't decide if we want to do eastern or western.

We're leaning towards western, because we're planning on traveling around a bit, and then we could relax on the way home.

Anyone prefer one over the other, and why? I'm barely off my last cruise and can't wait to start planning my next.

 

[Started With a Mouse]

Westbound for the sole reason of gaining that precious hour back on an almost daily basis.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Definitely westbound -- every hour counts. Would hate to lose several hours going eastbound.

 

[UK mum of 4]

Going eastbound on a plane leaves us feeling tired and jet lagged but going eatbound on a ship be get off feeling refreshed so we would vote Eatbound

 

[Plaid Princess]

Hmmm, I never even thought of easing the time change back! I usually just muscle through it, but this will by hubby's first time going to Europe at all so I like the idea of easing our way back home. I've always found the transition home to be much harder than the transition to. Could just be the adrenaline of being on a trip.

 

[bobbiwoz]

We did Eastbound in May and had beautiful, calm seas. However, the loss of an hour a day for so many days took a toll on our 60 something bodies. We're planning to do Westbound in '15, too!

 

[Beermam42]

We did Eastbound in May and had beautiful, calm seas. However, the loss of an hour a day for so many days took a toll on our 60 something bodies. We're planning to do Westbound in '15, too!

Magic had so much bad weather coming back from Cadiz they could not work on ship to finish remodel. You will get the 6 hours back when you fly home.

 

[kaseyC]

We've done both. The WBTA in 2007 and the EBTA in 2013. Even with losing hours, I still preferred the eastbound. We traveled in Europe for a few weeks after and it was great to have our internal clocks ready to go as soon as we got to Barcelona. The Eastbound fits with our school schedule much better, it's easier to have the girls miss the last several days of school than missing at them in the beginning of the school year.

We are doing the EBTA again in May 2014.

 

[Maddie Lover]

We've done both. The WBTA in 2007 and the EBTA in 2013. Even with losing hours, I still preferred the eastbound. We traveled in Europe for a few weeks after and it was great to have our internal clocks ready to go as soon as we got to Barcelona. The Eastbound fits with our school schedule much better, it's easier to have the girls miss the last several days of school than missing at them in the beginning of the school year.

We are doing the EBTA again in May 2014.

I totally agree that it was great to have our internal clocks adjusted to European time when we arrived in Barcelona. We could hit the ground running for our Med cruise and didn't have any problems with jet lag which has been a problem in the past. We've never had any problems adjusting with the westbound flights.

I am hoping to do the EBTA again in Mary 2014 too. It was such a relaxing trip and easy to adjust to the one hour changes on several days.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Magic had so much bad weather coming back from Cadiz they could not work on ship to finish remodel. You will get the 6 hours back when you fly home.

That's DCL's story, and they're sticking with it. If you ask a crew member....

 

[gotomu212]

I think all the world's problems could be fixed with 25 hours in a day! I would definetely defintely vote westbound. When we scheduled the eastbound we thought it would be easier to only lose one hour at a time over several days, but instead we felt like we were "falling forward" for 6 days in a row. Normally I can get over jetlag/time change in one day when I just fly, but the eastbound took a toll over several days.

We also found that we were sleeping later and later and had a few days where we slept to 11 am or noon which isn't huge on sea days but we kind of felt we were sleeping part of our day away (and we're younger!!).

Either direction though a TA is great!

 

[Cdarling]

We did our last Dis Cruise in May and now want to do the repositioning in 2015 too. We want to see the itineraries before we decide. I THOUGHT for a repo they would know details by now. HAVE YOU HEARD ANY IDEA of when we can find out dates, places ect.... I really want to start planning!!

Appreciate if you have any ideas!!!!! Thanks

 

[MagicMe]

We did our last Dis Cruise in May and now want to do the repositioning in 2015 too. We want to see the itineraries before we decide. I THOUGHT for a repo they would know details by now. HAVE YOU HEARD ANY IDEA of when we can find out dates, places ect.... I really want to start planning!!

Appreciate if you have any ideas!!!!! Thanks

The repo details for the WBTA in 2014 did not come out until FEB of this year!! It is nice as they have changed the ports a bit from the 2010 and 2011 WBTA's.

As far as weather, I know that weather for both the 2010 (I was on this one)and 2011 (several friends were on this one) was phenomenal. Crossing on the 2010 was absolutely beautiful. The funny thing is when I got back to work my colleagues had followed my path and questioned the weather since they said there were so many tropical storms/hurricanes in the Atlantic but the captain found a path that never encountered any of these!

 

[Plaid Princess]

As far as weather, I know that weather for both the 2010 (I was on this one)and 2011 (several friends were on this one) was phenomenal. Crossing on the 2010 was absolutely beautiful. The funny thing is when I got back to work my colleagues had followed my path and questioned the weather since they said there were so many tropical storms/hurricanes in the Atlantic but the captain found a path that never encountered any of these!

It really amazes me how good they are at that!

 

[Meghatron]

I want to do the WBTA because the longer of the two plane flights comes first and then you gain hours back while on the ship instead of somewhere else.

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