Destination GuideTransatlantic & Repositioning

Cunard celebrated its 185th anniversary in 2025 (the line was founded in 1840), with a flagship anniversary transatlantic crossing and events across its fleet. Queen Mary 2's 450th transatlantic crossing is scheduled for November 10-17, 2026, with heritage programming planned onboard — a notable milestone if your sailing dates happen to land near it.

Queen Mary 2 is due for a refurbishment in spring 2027 that reportedly adds roughly 30 new staterooms, including converting part of an outdoor sundeck into suites. No disruption to the regular transatlantic schedule has been reported beyond the refit window itself. One enthusiast blogger has raised concerns about whether the changes affect the ship's original stability-focused design -- treat that specific concern as one commentator's opinion, not an established engineering finding.

Several luxury lines have recently expanded longer relocation-style itineraries sold as immersive adventures rather than discounted logistics -- Regent Seven Seas launched a new collection of 60-plus-night voyages in this vein, and Cunard's own Grand Voyages (segments of its round-the-world itineraries, sometimes 30 to 80-plus nights) follow the same pattern. These are priced like luxury cruises, not repositioning discounts, even though the ship is technically doing the same job of relocating between regions.

Cunard's flexible air program includes a late-arrival protection benefit that rebooks you onto the ship at its next port if your flight to embarkation is delayed — but that protection explicitly does not apply to transatlantic crossings, because a QM2 crossing has no next port to rebook you onto. If you miss embarkation on a crossing, there's no mid-ocean recovery option.

Mainstream repositioning cruises do stop at places like the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, so in theory a missed embarkation could be recovered by flying to the first port of call. In practice, these islands have far thinner flight connections than a normal Caribbean or Mediterranean port, and the ship may already be days into open ocean before its first stop -- so treat this as a weak safety net, not a real one, rather than assuming you can always catch up.

We found no evidence that a one-way relocation triggers a different regulatory process than a same-day port call -- the same passport, visa and any applicable UK ETA or EU EES/ETIAS rules apply either way. What is different is the experience: disembarking for good means a full immigration process at your final port, not the lighter handling a shore-excursion day-tripper usually gets, so budget more time for it than you would for a normal port day.

Bermuda appears occasionally on northern-route repositioning itineraries, but its real identity is a short, dedicated round-trip cruise season covered in full by this site's separate Bermuda guide. If Bermuda itself is the goal, that's the guide to read; this one treats it only as a minor waypoint some relocations happen to pass.

The only ship running this exact product, on a genuine ocean-liner hull, with formal nights, a full-scale planetarium, and roughly one scheduled crossing each way per month from April through December, rather than a single seasonal migration. This is a category of one, not an underserved shortlist.

All three regularly reposition ships between the Caribbean and the Mediterranean each spring and fall, with a somewhat more upscale onboard experience than the mass-market lines below at a similar repositioning discount.

All three run frequent repositioning sailings alongside their regular seasonal deployments, generally the mass-market end of this list on price and onboard experience, with broad enough scheduling to fit most date ranges.

Regent Seven Seas recently launched a dedicated Legendary Journeys collection of 60-plus-night voyages built around this exact idea; Silversea runs comparable long luxury itineraries. Both bundle airfare, shore excursions and gratuities into the fare, and both price the trip as a destination in itself rather than a discounted way to relocate a ship.

Cunard sells its own long Grand Voyage segments (roughly 30 to 80-plus nights) on Queen Mary 2 and its sister ships, distinct from the standard Southampton-New York crossing covered above. These segments string together multiple regions in one extended sailing and are priced and marketed as a bucket-list journey, not as a cut-rate way to reposition a ship.

Repositioning cruises commonly run roughly a third to half cheaper than a same-length regular cruise covering similar ground, since the line has to move the ship either way and would rather sell the cabins than sail empty. The trade-off is real: more sea days, fewer ports, and one-way airfare to arrange, which is sometimes pricier than a round-trip fare into and out of the same city.

Because it's a scheduled liner service rather than seasonal repositioning logistics, a Queen Mary 2 crossing is priced like the bucket-list product it's marketed as -- interior fares commonly start in the $1,500-$1,800 range for a 6-7 night crossing, rising well past $8,000 for top suites, comparable to or above a regular Caribbean or Mediterranean week on a per-night basis.

Nearly every other cruise category on this site is a round trip; this one usually isn't. Compare one-way airfare into your embarkation city and out of your disembarkation city before you commit, since one-way fares are often pricier than round-trip ones, and add a buffer night on both ends to protect against flight delays and jet lag rather than cutting it close.

Both QM2 crossings and long grand-voyage segments skew toward retirees and experienced cruisers who enjoy the sea days rather than tolerating them — expect a more formal, adult-leaning atmosphere on QM2 in particular, with fewer of the family-oriented activities a Caribbean sailing offers. Mainstream repositioning cruises run during spring and fall school terms, which naturally thins out family bookings without excluding them outright. Cancellation policies follow each line's standard fare rules rather than anything specific to repositioning or crossings, so check the individual line's terms rather than assuming special flexibility because the itinerary is one-way.