Land programs take place immediately before or after a cruise and are distinct from pre- or post-cruise hotels in that they include an organised-tour element, such as local excursions and meals. Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, has an option to extend seven-day Alaska cruises with a two-night stay in Seattle, while on some of its Mediterranean cruises you can tack on three nights in Barcelona. Uniworld has rail partners, so not even landlocked destinations are off-limits.
There are benefits to extending your cruise onto land. You have more time to explore arrival or departure ports, and everything is organised, including transfers from ship to hotel. There may be privileged access to museums, or activities such as cooking classes.
The popularity of cruise-tours is booming. Before 2023, Norwegian offered cruise-tours only in Alaska and Hawaii; now it has 22, in destinations from Cape Town to Tokyo. The company’s overall cruise-tour capacity has increased by 1000 per cent since 2019.
Norwegian isn’t alone. Viking has six new three-night extensions for the 2024-25 season in Barcelona, Istanbul, London, Rome, Stockholm and Venice. Lines such as Oceania, Seabourn and Silversea, meanwhile, even offer mid-journey overnights, with passengers re-joining the ship at the next port.
Even more interesting is that add-ons can take you to startling places not connected to the sea at all, such as the Taj Mahal, the Borneo jungle for orangutan encounters, or Iguazu Falls on the Argenti.
