Cruising close to home is the hottest trend in the $20 billion-a-year business, say industry observers. And travelers have a wider choice of itineraries than ever before. A few of the newer options: tour Cozumel on a ship from New Orleans. Board in Baltimore for a 10-day Caribbean excursion, with a stop in Charleston. Jump aboard a boat at Galveston for a visit to a fancy new facility at Belize City, and then on to Mexico, where you can catch a bus to Merida and explore Mayan ruins. Leave for the Bahamas from New York, with stops at Miami and Port Canaveral, Fla.
Carnival Cruise Lines, the nation’s largest, was working on the “drive and sail” alternative to the old “fly and sail” strategy even before September 11. “Expanding our presence in homeland ports was a very important part of our planning,” says president Bob Dickinson. “We wanted to make cruising more accessible.” Not just geographically accessible–the new cruises are often cheaper, too. “Lately, people want to plan a cruise only a few months in advance,” says Houston cruise specialist Emerson Hankamer. “The cruise lines get nervous if the ships aren’t full close to the sailing dates. So you can get a bargain on a last-minute cruise and not have to worry about those expensive air fares.”
For folks like Houston’s Cunningham, cruising close to home is a way to enjoy a favorite activity on a more frequent basis. Cunningham also appreciates the “regional camaraderie” on the hometown voyages. “Cruising out of Galveston, the ship was full of people from here in Texas or Louisiana, Arizona, Oklahoma and our neighboring states,” she says. In other words, now you can get away from it all without getting away from it all.
