Ports to Avoid in High Season 2009

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Filed Under:
Cruise

Ports to Avoid in High Season 2009

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PNC Getty Images

By Heidi Sarna and Terry Ward

The couple kayaking with no one else in sight, lovers watching the sun set from a secluded corner of deck, the family frolicking on a private beach.

Dream on.

Cruise line ads work hard at trying to convey exclusivity, intimacy and seclusion. In the real world, the more than ten million people who cruise every year go to a lot of the same places. Tour buses line up at the docks like advancing armies, while sign-waving guides and freelance touts vie for passengers’ attention.

St. Thomas, for example, received almost two million tourists by cruise ship in 2006, according to research consultant G.P. Wild International Ltd. We’re talking more than 20,000 cruisers on an average day all heading for the same few beaches and attractions on this 13-mile-long, 4-mile-wide island. It’s the same deal in Nassau, where traffic jams are as prevalent as sunburns and hangovers.

Before you book your next cruise, it pays to know which ports are the most overcrowded and, perhaps, overrated. Read on to find out which destinations to avoid this season.

Read the full story on ports to avoid.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandemia/ / CC BY 2.0

Mykonos & Santorini

These two Greek isles are in the same boat. Beautiful islands both, but four or five (or more) jumbo ships anchored offshore during the July and August crush might leave you gasping for the wrong reasons. Getting that classic photo of a white washed blue-domed chapel might be a long shot, unless you don't mind your fellow shipmates sharing the field of vision.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/etiennepadin/ / CC BY 2.0

St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean

The 1.7 million cruise passengers who come here every year do so via giant white ships, often six to eight at a time during the winter months. Traffic jams into the main town of Charlotte Amalie, just a few miles from the ships, are commonplace. Considering the time and hassle it takes to get to nearby beaches like Megans Bay or Coki, you may not want to leave the ship.

Pattie Steib

Nassau, New Providence Island, The Bahamas

Ditto the numbers and scene in St. Thomas here: it’s the same story in Nassau. Rivers of passengers flow onto Bay Street, the main shopping drag, and invariably file into the seriously mobbed straw market. Claustrophobes, be warned.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65172294@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

Ketchikan, Alaska

Another marquee port on the Inside Passage Alaska run. When thousands of passengers are in port for the day in tiny Ketchikan, it can feel like a gold rush stampede. Many are beelining it to the t-shirt and souvenir emporia located close by the docks.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/galfred/ / CC BY 2.0

Cozumel, Mexico

The 2.4 million cruise passengers who visit Cozumel every year pull up to one of three docks around tourist hub San Miguel. No longer the appealing if gritty Mexican outpost it was just a decade ago, this island port is packed with six to 10 ships on most winter days. Passengers shuffle between suburban mall-style shops and hit the beer joints, unless they’re heading for the island’s beaches or the Mayan ruins on the mainland.