This is a sponsored post for Holland America Line.
A transatlantic cruise is one of those holidays that sounds either deeply relaxing or mildly horrifying, depending on how you feel about spending several days in a row with no land in sight.
For some cruisers, that’s exactly the appeal. No early alarms for excursions, no rushing back to the ship before sailaway and no pressure to cram a new destination into every day, so the whole trip settles into a much slower rhythm.
For others, that same rhythm can feel a bit too slow, especially if the ports are usually the main reason they cruise.
I’ve done a transatlantic crossing with nine sea days, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to! But I also came away thinking that this style of cruise is very much about knowing what kind of holiday you actually enjoy.
So, are you the type of cruiser who’ll love it?
You’ll Love It If Sea Days Are Your Favourite Part Of Cruising
This really is the clearest sign of them all! If you already look forward to sea days because they give you time to sleep later, sit over breakfast, read, swim, go to the gym, join a quiz or simply do very little without feeling guilty about it, a transatlantic gives you so much more of that.
The difference is that you stop treating sea days as a gap between ports and start building your holiday around them instead.
You find a favourite coffee spot, start recognising the same people at breakfast and somehow become very committed to a trivia team you only met three days ago.
The days can still feel full, but they’re full in a much less frantic way. You’re not constantly checking the time because a coach leaves in 20 minutes or because the ship sails at 5pm.
If that sounds relaxing rather than boring, you’re already halfway there, and I really think you’d love this type of cruise!
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You Might Struggle If You Cruise Mainly For The Ports
Some people choose a cruise by looking at the ship first, while others barely glance at it because they’re far more interested in where it stops.
If you’re firmly in the second camp, a transatlantic can be a difficult sell. There may be ports before or after the main crossing, and some itineraries include a stop along the way in the Azores, but there will usually be a substantial stretch where your destination each morning is simply “Atlantic Ocean”.
That works brilliantly if you enjoy the journey itself, but it can feel a little underwhelming if you normally spend your cruise ticking off cities, beaches and landmarks.
If your favourite part of cruising is getting off the ship at 8am and returning just before dinner, I’d probably look carefully at how many consecutive sea days the itinerary includes before booking.
You’ll Love It If Food, Music And Evenings Are A Big Part Of Your Cruise
Transatlantic cruises are great for people who actually enjoy being onboard in the evenings, because there’s much less pressure to call it a night early.
When you haven’t got an excursion meeting in the theatre at 7.15am, dinner can run a little longer, you can stay for another drink and there’s no need to keep checking the clock.
Food also becomes a bigger part of the experience, simply because you have more time to enjoy it.
You might try speciality restaurants you’d normally skip, have a proper sit-down lunch instead of grabbing something quickly between activities, or discover that a sea-day afternoon is vastly improved by cake.
This was one of the things I liked about crossing with Holland America Line. Their cruise ships aren’t trying to turn every hour into a major event, but the food and live music gave the evenings plenty of shape without making the whole day feel scheduled.
That balance works very well on a crossing, where having enjoyable things to do matters, but being constantly entertained isn’t really the point.
You Might Struggle If Warm Weather Is A Big Part Of The Dream
A transatlantic cruise can absolutely deliver sunny days, blue skies and time beside the pool, but it isn’t automatically a floating beach holiday. The route, time of year and direction of travel all matter, and some crossings can be quite cool for large parts of the journey.
That doesn’t necessarily make them less enjoyable, but it does change the type of holiday you’re having – and that’s something to bear in mind.
If you’re happy sitting somewhere indoors with a book when the weather turns grey, you’ll probably be fine. If your idea of cruising begins and ends with eight hours on a sun lounger, you’ll want to choose your sailing carefully.
This is also where ship design suddenly becomes more important, because features such as an indoor pool, comfortable lounges and plenty of good indoor spaces are far more useful when the Atlantic isn’t cooperating.
You’ll Love It If You Want To Properly Use The Ship
On a port-heavy cruise, it’s surprisingly easy to spend very little time actually enjoying the ship – you wake up, have breakfast, head ashore, return late in the afternoon, get ready for dinner, watch a show and go to bed, then repeat the whole thing the next day.
A transatlantic gives you time to use everything you’ve paid for. You can finally go to the gym instead of admiring it from the corridor, spend an afternoon in the library, join activities you’d normally skip and find the quiet corners that never make it onto the deck plan highlights. Or you can enjoy plenty of fun times in the onboard casino!
This is one reason choosing the right ship matters so much more on a crossing.
You don’t necessarily need the ship with the most attractions, but you do need one where you actually like spending time.
Holland America works well for cruisers who enjoy things such as live music, quizzes, games, fitness, dining and comfortable public spaces. There’s tons of variety and some really fulfilling talks and entertainment, but without compromising on the premium feel of the fleet with additions like water slides or rock climbing walls.
That won’t suit everybody, but on a crossing it can be a real strength because the pace of the ship matches the pace of the itinerary.
You Might Struggle If You Need Every Day To Feel Different
Even if you enjoy sea days, there’s still something to think about here. On a transatlantic, you’re waking up on the same ship, eating in many of the same places and looking out at broadly the same view for several days in a row.
For some people, that becomes wonderfully relaxing. You stop caring what day it is, stop checking the itinerary every five minutes and fall into a routine that makes the whole trip feel very easy.
For others, repetition starts to grate. They want a new skyline outside the window, a different city to explore and the feeling that every morning brings something completely new.
If novelty is a huge part of what you enjoy about travel, a long run of sea days can feel a little too samey, even when there’s plenty happening onboard.
You’ll Love It If The Journey Itself Appeals To You
There’s something quite different about travelling across an ocean rather than simply flying over it.
You leave one continent behind and spend days gradually making your way towards another, which makes the journey feel like a proper part of the holiday rather than something to get through before the holiday starts.
It’s slightly old-fashioned in the nicest possible way.
You notice the clocks changing, the weather shifting and the sense of distance much more than you ever would on a plane.
That feeling won’t matter to everyone, but if the idea of actually crossing the Atlantic appeals to you, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the experience even before you start thinking about the ship itself.
You Might Struggle If Being Far From Land Makes You Uneasy
You don’t need to be nervous about cruising generally to find this one a little strange.
There’s a psychological difference between a normal sea day, where another port is usually coming tomorrow, and knowing you’ve still got several more days before you see land.
Some people barely think about it but there will be others who suddenly become very interested in where the ship is on the map and how far away the nearest coastline might be.
If the idea of being out in the middle of the Atlantic makes you uncomfortable now, I wouldn’t assume that booking the cruise will magically make that feeling disappear. It could well do – plenty of people will just get sucked into enjoying the cruise and completely forget about it, but you can’t guarantee it.
There are plenty of brilliant itineraries where you’re never very far from the next port, so a transatlantic doesn’t need to be something every cruiser tries.
You’ll Love It If You Have Plenty Of Time And Want Good Value
Transatlantic cruises can sometimes offer a lot of days onboard for the money, especially when ships are repositioning between seasons.
That can make them a tempting way to try a cruise line or ship that might normally stretch the budget. But the headline fare doesn’t tell the whole story, though.
A longer cruise means more days of drinks, WiFi, gratuities and anything else you’re paying for separately, while the one-way nature of many crossings can make flights more expensive or awkward.
But if you have the time available and you genuinely enjoy sea days, the value can be very good.
That was part of the appeal when I booked my Holland America crossing, because the transatlantic fare made a premium cruise line much more accessible than some of its more conventional itineraries.
You Might Struggle If Your Holiday Time Is Limited
A transatlantic makes much more sense when you’ve got time to spare, but if you only have seven or ten days of annual leave available, spending a large chunk of that time crossing the ocean may not feel like the best use of it.
Someone with more flexibility can look at a 12-night or 14-night sailing and think, “Great, two weeks away.”
Someone squeezing the trip around work, school holidays or other commitments may look at the same itinerary and see five or six days where they’re not actually visiting anywhere.
Neither view is wrong, but the calculation is very different. If your holiday allowance is precious, make sure you actually want the sea days rather than simply tolerating them because the fare looks good.
You’ll Love It If You Enjoy A More Sociable Cruise
Long crossings can develop a really nice community feel because everybody stays onboard and starts seeing the same faces over and over again.
You might recognise the couple who always sit near you at breakfast, end up chatting to the same people at trivia or find yourself saying hello to somebody simply because you’ve passed them in the same corridor every day for a week.
Now that doesn’t mean you need to spend the whole cruise making new friends. Some people would much rather keep themselves to themselves and that’s fine too!
You can still disappear with a book whenever you like, but the ship often feels more familiar as the crossing goes on.
On a busy port-intensive cruise, passengers scatter in different directions every morning and regroup at dinner. On a transatlantic, everybody is quite literally in the same boat for several days, and that can create a much warmer atmosphere than you might expect.
You Might Struggle If You’re Choosing It Just Because It’s Cheap
This is probably the biggest trap, and I think it’s one you need to really mull over.
Transatlantic cruises can sometimes look like extraordinary bargains, especially when you compare the price per night with other sailings on the same ship.
But ten cheap nights are not good value if you discover after day two that you hate sea days. I would always say it’s worth looking beyond the fare and asking what you’re actually buying.
You’re buying a slower cruise, fewer ports and much more time onboard, so the ship and the style of holiday need to suit you. And if they do, the price can be a brilliant bonus.
If they don’t, you may spend the crossing wishing you’d paid more for a completely different itinerary, even if it would’ve cost a little more.
You’ll Love It If You Want To Visit The US But Hate Flying
A transatlantic cruise can also be a very clever option if you’d love to visit the US but the thought of two long-haul flights takes some of the shine off it.
Instead of flying both ways, you can build the cruise into a longer trip and only fly once. That could mean cruising to the US, spending time in New York, Florida or somewhere else you’ve always wanted to visit, then flying home afterwards. Or you can do it the other way around and get the flight out of the way first, enjoy your US holiday and cruise back to Europe at the end.
It obviously takes more time than a straightforward fly-cruise holiday, but for nervous flyers or anyone who simply finds long-haul flying exhausting, cutting the number of transatlantic flights in half can make a big difference. You still get the US trip you wanted, but only have to endure the airport-security-seatbelt-tray-table routine once.
Choosing The Right Ship Matters More Than Usual
On a normal cruise, you can sometimes get away with choosing mainly for the itinerary because you’re off the ship so often. On a transatlantic, the ship is where you’ll be spending almost all of your time for several days in a row, so the onboard experience matters much more.
That doesn’t mean you automatically need the ship with the most water slides, rides or enormous attractions. What matters is choosing one that suits the way you actually want to spend a sea day, because you’re going to have quite a few of them.
For me, Holland America Line is particularly well suited to this style of cruising. The ships have plenty of comfortable indoor spaces, good restaurants, proper libraries, pools, fitness facilities and a daily programme with quizzes, games, talks and other activities you can dip in and out of rather than feeling as though you need to follow a timetable from breakfast until bedtime.
The food is another big plus when you’re onboard for so many consecutive days, with included dining alongside speciality restaurants if you want to mix things up, while Holland America’s live music gives the evenings plenty of variety. It’s easy to have dinner, wander into a bar for some music and let the night unfold without feeling that you need to rush between huge headline attractions.
That calmer style won’t be right for every cruiser, and anyone who wants a ship packed with thrill rides and high-energy entertainment should choose accordingly. But if the whole appeal of a transatlantic is having time to slow down, eat well, listen to live music, read, swim and simply enjoy being onboard, Holland America fits the experience very naturally.
Final Word
I don’t think transatlantic cruises are difficult to enjoy, but I do think they’re difficult to fake your way through.
If you already like sea days, enjoy the ship itself and don’t need a new destination every morning, there’s a very good chance you’ll settle into the rhythm quickly.
If ports are the whole reason you cruise, you need constant novelty or you start getting twitchy after 24 hours without land, that same itinerary could feel very long indeed.
I really enjoyed the slower pace, though. After a few days, you stop thinking about what you should be doing and start enjoying the fact that there’s nowhere else you need to be.
That’s either exactly what you want from a holiday, or very much not. And that’s probably the best way to decide whether a transatlantic cruise is for you.
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Don’t miss the latest Holland America Line offers…
