World Cruises & World Cruise Sectors

Southampton, on England’s southern coast, is renowned as the busiest port for cruise ships in the United Kingdom. Many leading operators use it as the starting point for their world cruises.

For anyone embarking on a world cruise from the UK, there is every chance the voyage will start from Southampton. The port’s state of the art Ocean Terminal, which enables travellers to register and be onboard their vessel within half an hour, makes Southampton popular with voyagers and operators alike. This has made it a favoured starting point for a wide range of cruises, including world cruises.

Residents of the British mainland can access Southampton via plane, train, coach or car, making it one of the most convenient embarkation points for a world cruise.

The range of world cruises from Southampton will depend on the operator being used. But as can be expected there will the widest possible choice of places to visit, as well as new experiences for holidaymakers as the world’s cruise liners dock at ports around the globe.

Cruises from Southampton head off into all oceans and to all continents. A voyage taking in Alaska will allow travellers to view the 49th state’s wonderful landscape, including its forests and mountains as well as its glaciers and fjords. And those on a summer cruise may be lucky enough to view humpback whales in the Alaskan waters.

Cruises around Africa and into the Indian Ocean will provide the holiday of a lifetime. South Africa is becoming an increasingly attractive spot for tourists. After a fascinating sail down the continent’s west coast, your ship will arrive in Cape Town. At its heart, it is a modern and vibrant city, with beautiful bays and seaside towns close by, and what better way to remember this leg of the cruise than by taking the cable car up to the top of iconic Table Mountain?

For a truly relaxing cruise, the Indian Ocean is hard to beat. Itineraries in this region follow the Arabian and Indian coastlines and can go on to include stops at Singapore, the Maldives, and Seychelles, all providing the most memorable of cruise holidays.

A cruise through the Far East provides an intoxicating range of experiences, taking in China, Vietnam, and Japan. And for a truly exotic cruise the South Pacific, with Hawaii and Tahiti on the itinerary, is certainly an enticing prospect.

The United Kingdom has many ties with Australia and New Zealand, and there can be no better way to visit these countries ‘down under’ than via a world cruise departing from Southampton. Most cruises to Australia visit its east coast ports of Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. These offer further access to some of Australia’s famous landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House, the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Great Barrier Reef.

While a complete ‘world voyage’ will often visit over 30 ports in a typical three-month duration, world cruising can be broken down into segments where you'll fly to meet the ship whilst she is en-route at a particular port, and undertake the next leg of the journey. The world is your oyster!