Great Stirrup Cay overnight visit question

[ldemas]

Yes, I've been trying to convince my husband to a trip to Bermuda....maybe someday. He thinks it's too expensive.

I have another question, I realize it takes a certain amount of time to travel from Point A to Point B, but why is so little time spent in ports? I'm sure there must also be a safety concern for passengers, what other reasons could there be?

[Svein]

Port costs,dock availability, schedules, bunker all these and more are factors when setting up a ship's itenirary.

[Dave]

Marketing is another aspect. People expect a cruise to hit as many ports as possible. Stay long in one place and you have to eliminate another stop.

Sure, a cruise could spend more time in a port - say Cozumel - but then they'd have to eliminate a port from the schedule. Time is time after all, and I do recall more than one cruise where we had to go full speed overnight in order to reach the next port in time.

And as Svein notes, ports charge a ship for the time in port. In some cases the pier is needed for another ship. Many factors involved.

[Dave]

And a big factor is that the longer a ship stays in port the less onboard revenue for the cruise line. And after all, they are in business to make a profit for the stockholders.