Destinations
Where cruises from Florida actually go
Geography does most of the work here. The Bahamas sit close enough to Florida's east coast that Miami, Port Canaveral and Jacksonville can run two- and three-night hops; the Southern Caribbean is far enough that nothing under eight nights reaches it. Tampa, alone on the Gulf side, is nearer Mexico than any of them and further from everything else. Which region you want narrows which port you should leave from more than anything else does.
Bahamas
Florida's bread and butter. Two-, three- and four-night runs to Nassau and the private islands — Coco Cay, Half Moon Cay, Ocean Cay, Castaway Cay and Carnival's new Celebration Key — leaving mostly from Miami, Port Canaveral and Jacksonville.
2975 sailings · 3–7 nights · from $139
Mostly from Miami and Port Canaveral
Other itineraries
Repositioning runs, charters, themed sailings and multi-region voyages that do not fit a single Caribbean label.
1580 sailings · 5–21 nights · from $198
Mostly from Miami and Fort Lauderdale
Western Caribbean
Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Roatán, Belize City and Costa Maya in some combination. Longer from the Atlantic ports than from Tampa, which sits on the right coast for it.
787 sailings · 4–8 nights · from $210
Mostly from Tampa and Miami
Eastern Caribbean
St Thomas, San Juan, St Maarten and Amber Cove, usually over six to eight nights. The classic week-long Florida cruise, and the reason the state's east-coast ports exist.
594 sailings · 4–9 nights · from $329
Mostly from Miami and Port Canaveral
Southern Caribbean
The ABC islands — Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao — plus Barbados and the Windwards. Eight nights and up, and almost always from Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
199 sailings · 8–12 nights · from $424
Mostly from Miami and Fort Lauderdale
Panama Canal
Partial transits into Gatún Lake and full one-way crossings, ten nights and up. Fort Lauderdale and Miami run almost all of them between them; the Gulf-coast ports barely touch the route.
122 sailings · 10–25 nights · from $789
Mostly from Fort Lauderdale and Miami
Mexico
Short Gulf runs to Cozumel, Costa Maya and Progreso. Mostly a Tampa itinerary; the Atlantic ports fold Mexico into wider Western Caribbean loops.
66 sailings · 6–20 nights · from $423
Mostly from Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral
Transatlantic
Spring and autumn repositioning voyages between Florida and Europe as ships change seasons. One-way, and long.
47 sailings · 12–23 nights · from $687
Mostly from Miami and Fort Lauderdale
World cruise
Full circumnavigations of a month or more, leaving Miami and Fort Lauderdale in late December and January and finishing somewhere else entirely — Athens, Dover, Barcelona. A world cruise has no single destination, which is the point: it is the one itinerary defined by how far it goes rather than where. Shorter legs sold out of the same voyages are listed under the region they actually visit.
25 sailings · 34–181 nights · from $5649
Mostly from Fort Lauderdale and Miami
Bermuda
Rare from Florida — the run north is long enough that most Bermuda sailings leave from the mid-Atlantic instead. A handful appear each season.
12 sailings · 8–25 nights · from $839
Mostly from Miami and Fort Lauderdale