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I'm honestly finding it extremely difficult to find details about this particular method of travel. As of right now this is simply a hypothethical as I'm not going to move the Netherlands yet, but it was interesting - I had heard from a friend that some boats go on so-called "relocation" trips long-distance, even across the Atlantic, such as Miami-Amsterdam. But whenever I google these terms - "relocation trip Miami-Amsterdam", "Miami-Amsterdam cruise ships", "cruise ship florida to netherlands", I'm inundated with a whole bunch of information from various unreliable sources and no real way to know what's real.

What's the correct way to approach researching cruise ships? What are the reliable sources of information? Where can they actually be booked? A lot of sources assume you're travelling for pleasure rather than one-way to actually reach a destination, so finding things catering to that niche seems even more difficult.

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    Have you checked the websites of cruise lines? E.g. Royal Caribbean has a search filter for repositionings (although mainly around the US). This kind of travel is not a niche anymore.
    – dunni
    Commented Jan 5, 2020 at 23:39
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    You may also get better results searching for the actual industry term "repositioning" rather than "relocation".
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 0:11

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It is a sort of art.

On cruise search engines, you could use as "cruise region/destination": "transatlantic", "transpacific". One of the most used site is CruiseCritics, but you may have seen much more sites. i think I once saw also a site which were specialized on repositioning cruises, but I do not think I could find it again quickly.

In this manner, you will find most of cruises. On cruise lines you may find a PDF catalogue, and there you may find some other repositioning cruises (usually at the end of catalogue, but check where they display "transatlantic".

The art is about finding the other repositioning cruises (which in my opinion are the better: more exotic destinations). For these there is no easy way: look for a specific ship, and check when it change the home port(s). Check for November/December (and they you have an idea for the journey in the other direction).

So you may find some other kind of repositioning: Suez Canal, "North" (Caribbean/Alaska) to South America, Arabic peninsula to Pacific, etc., or also just the change of port, from northern ports in (US) East Coast to the more southern ports.

Sometime you discover that a cruise is a repositioning cruise just by seeing the lower prices (and that you cannot use standard promotions, perks, ...)

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You will find such cruises marketed as one of Transatlantic, Transpacific, Repositioning and sometimes World. They are very popular.

They are often seasonal, meaning eastbound transatlantic in the spring and westbound in the fall.

The best search engine I've found is vacationstogo.com. You can make the above selections in the All Cruise Regions drop-down. You may have to make other criteria selections to limit the result.

Be aware, you will likely not find a cruise that matches your exact city pair. For example, you may have to embark in Ft. Lauderdale or Tampa and sail to Rotterdam.

Any travel agent can book these, or you can book directly with the cruise line. Transoceanic cruising is one of my favorite leisure activities.

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