With the increasing popularity of Mediterranean cruises one would expect a port somewhere in the Mediterranean to be British cruise lovers’ favourite. Even the virtually undiscovered Chinese cruise market might eventually become a favourite for British cruisers.

Until recently Venice held the top spot as the favourite port among UK cruise lovers. It does come as a bit of a surprise, therefore, to learn that this exotic destination has now been ousted by none other than the Big Apple.

After holding the top spot for two years, the latest survey carried out by the Passenger Shipping Association found that Venice had to give way to New York. The survey was published as part of National Cruise Week.

The preference is by no means unanimous: only 20% of adult UK cruisers named the Big Apple as their cruise port of choice. Thirteen percent still preferred Venice. For third place there was a three-way tie between Singapore, Rome and Barcelona – each of which received 7% of the total votes.

According to the PSA 1.7 million Britons will go cruising in 2011. Fifty-seven percent of those who responded quoted the chance to visit a number of different destinations in a single journey as the main attraction of cruising, while the majority of the rest said the convenience of only having to unpack once was their main reason for choosing a cruise holiday.

A few other reasons quoted were the fact that you could wake up in a new port every day and that a cruise holiday held fewer unexpected expenses than other types of holidays.