Repositioning cruises, what are they?

If you've been looking for a cruise at any point in the last, well ever, you may have heard the term repositioning cruise mentioned. They're not common in the cruising world but they do tend to happen once or twice a year for each ship; but what actually are they?


Most cruise ships, if you look at the itineraries sail in big circles so that you can do the same cruise on different dates.
for instance Royal Caribbeans Adventure of the Seas may do multiple sailings from Malaga and back to Malaga or the P&O Azura might do a big circle leaving from Southampton and then back to Southampton.
Some cruise ships will only do this for one season though for example the P&O Azura might sail from Southampton in the summer but then sail down to the Caribbean for the winter and do sailings from Barbados.
So quite simply put a repositioning cruise is a cruise where the cruise ship is in transit from one regular port to another, in the case of the P&O Azura from Southampton to Barbados. Passengers can then book passage on that cruise as it sails from destination to another. These re positioning cruises tend to differ a bit from a normal cruise so here are some of the pros and cons..........

Pro - They are normally sold on a very cheap basis.
Con - They travel quite quickly so you wont get many ports of call; maybe only three or four on a fourteen night cruise.
Pro - Lots of sea days for those that like just chilling out.
Con - You will need to add flights to them as you will finish the cruise in a different port from the one you started on.
Pro - The ports you stop at do tend to be 'off the beaten track' and can be quite unusual.
Con - Nope I think that's about it for the cons
Pro - You get loads of time to explore and enjoy the ship without having to worry about excursions.

So in summary these cruises are perfect for anyone who likes nothing better than chilling out at sea with nothing to do but relax and explore the ship all day with the odd interesting port thrown in.
Have you ever been on a repositioning cruise? If you have why not let everyone know what you thought of it here.

Happy cruising