Smart Travel: Short 'cruises to nowhere' gaining in popularity

Linda and Dr. Don Overend are principals in The Travel Group, a full-service travel agency.

Traditionally, cruise lines have provided cruises of seven to 10 days or longer as their most popular offerings. More recently, however, the fastest growing segment of their sales is shorter cruises three-, four- and five-day cruises.

Cruise Line International Association states that it expects 2.5 million passengers will chose these shorter cruises in the coming year.

CLIA attributes the change to a shift in North American vacation patterns which has been ongoing in the past two decades. This change reflects vacationers taking shorter vacations, but taking several during each year.

Included in this new group are clients looking for a quick escape from their everyday routine and couples looking for a romantic weekend. It also includes first-time cruisers who would like to try a short cruise before committing to a longer experience.

The cruise lines are making every effort to provide a wide spectrum of destinations for these clients, including cruises to close destinations and "cruises to nowhere," in which the ship puts to sea for two or three days, then returns to the home port without other ports of call.

Celebrity Cruises' newest ship, the Constellation, for example, will sail two-night cruises to nowhere round trip from Fort Lauderdale in November.

Carnival Cruises sails three-day jaunts to the Bahamas from Miami and four-day cruises to Baja Mexico from Los Angeles. Carnival also provides four- and five-day cruises in the Caribbean from Galveston, Miami, Tampa and New Orleans, as well as a group of short Bahamas cruises from Port Canaveral, Charleston and Norfolk, and Canada Cruises from New York.

Holland America Line's short cruises sample the Pacific Northwest, sailing three-day itineraries round trip from Vancouver with visits to Seattle, Victoria, British Columbia, and cruising Puget Sound.

Norwegian Cruise Line offers a three-day Pacific Coastal cruise from Vancouver to Los Angeles.

Radisson Seven Seas Cruises is sailing three- to four-night cruises starting in Ft. Lauderdale, San Juan or West Palm Beach and visiting a variety of Caribbean ports.

In addition, Crystal and Silversea are offering passengers the option of choosing short segments of longer cruises, embarking and disembarking from segments as short as five days.

With this wide choice of short cruise vacations, passengers should have little trouble finding the right cruise, of the right length and at the right time.

The problem may become one of making up their minds among the wide range of choices available.

Your travel agent knows both your personal lifestyle and the amenities and services aboard all the various cruise lines and should be able to fit your wishes to the right cruise.

With this kind of an individual match, your short cruise will offer you maximum relaxation and recreation to make the best of your minimum-time vacation. And that's what short vacations are all about.