Port vs. Starboard: Which Side of the Ship is Best?
By Tully Luxury Travel | 01-29-2024 |
With so many little decisions to make when you’re planning a luxury cruise, getting expert advice from the Tully Travel Designers makes perfect, practical sense. Veteran advisor Diana Wehrle, who has been working with Tully Luxury Travel for more than 20 years, offers these expert tips on how she helps travelers choose the perfect cabin for luxury cruise vacations.
"Dock side" will change at each port
There are a number of factors relating to whether your ship will dock at its port or starboard sides at each destination – nautical terms for left and right, respectively. (A good way to remember this? “Port” and “left” have the same number of letters.) The layout of the pier, and how easy or difficult it is to enter or exit the harbor, plays a deciding role, as does the number of ships in port at any given time and pier congestion. “Everything is at the captain’s discretion,” Diana says, “All these different elements come into play concerning which side of the ship the captain is going to dock on.”
Decide on an ocean or a land view
Be it a suite or standard accommodation, people want the best views from their balcony when they’re sailing. But this choice will depend on whether you prefer ocean views or land views. “If you’re going to pay for a balcony or veranda, you want to utilize it the best way possible,” Diana says. “This is one of my first questions, a deciding factor for a lot of guests, with most preferring the land view side – except me! When I go on a cruise, I want to look at the ocean,” she says. “I don’t want to look at the hustle and bustle of the port we’re docking at. I prefer the privacy and the calmness, the water versus the land.”
With a luxury cruise to the Caribbean or through the Mediterranean, both sides of the ship may be equally beneficial. Diana adds that with last-minute bookings, you may not have the privilege of selecting a preferred suite, due to limited availability.
The trick lies in the legwork
According to Diana, thorough research on her part is key, specific to that particular journey, based on the actual cruise itinerary itself. In most cases, her clients are enquiring about land viewing, as they cruise along a coastline.
“Whether a starboard cabin or port side cabin is best depends on whether you’re traveling north or south, from what ports of call, embarkation to disembarkation and all points in-between,” Diana says. She looks at the whole itinerary to determine what is right for you, and tries to come up with the customized preferences specific to your cruise.
“Let’ use Alaskan Cruises as an example,” Diana says. “If you do the Inside Passage, you go up from Vancouver or Seattle and come back down, and within that, you have land on both sides, so it doesn’t really matter. But if you’re heading up from Vancouver northbound along the coast, you want your suite to be in the starboard side for more land viewing. And on the port side if you’re cruising south.”
Note the position of the sun
In the end, which side of the ship is best depends on which direction you’re sailing. “With a transatlantic cruise, you have to determine whether you want the sunrise or sunset coming through your windows,” Diana says. “These are all different conversations we have with our clients. If you’re cruising north and want the sunset, you’ll need to be on the port side – let’s just hope the weather cooperates so it’s warm enough to sit on the balcony on the Atlantic!”
Diana Wherle
