Embarking/Disembarking on Shabbat


Both embarking and disembarking are nearly impossible to do on Shabbos, if not outright impossible.

For obvious reason you cannot embark on a cruise on Shabbos. You would have too much difficulty with getting to the port, carrying your luggage to a port, giving a credit card to the cruise line (for your on board account), etc. There just is no feasible way to make that work. For these same reasons, its just not practical to have your final day of the cruise be a Saturday either.

In addition, Chazal ruled that you may not leave on a journey by sea within 3 days of Shabbos. Therefore, if you cruise goes over Shabbos it is best to look for a cruise with leaves your original destination Sunday, Monday or Tuesday.

Cruise ships do not allow you to get off in port without your cruise card and some form of ID. If you are at the cruise lines private island, however you only need your cruise card. Your card and documentation create problems, as most ports will not be within an eruv and therefore these items cannot be carried. Royal Caribbean has begun testing what they call WOW Bands, which function similarly, but are built into watches instead of a physical card. That may change things, but currently they do not allow them for getting on or off the boat.

Also when getting on or off the boat you must pass through a metal detector. You will want to make sure nothing you do would set these off on Shabbos.

In both embarkation and disembarkation, it is nearly impossible to avoid violating techumin. This law requires you to not travel more than half a mile outside a populated area during Shabbos. Although it normally does not apply to sea travel, since you are above land, it does apply to cruise that are docked during Shabbos as they have been attached to the land. During the winter a cruise may leave after Shabbos, but there are so many other concerns to think about, it’s still not possible.

In order to solve all of these issues, I suggest just looking for a cruise that has Shabbos as a day at sea, and all of these issues would be resolved, without needing to worry about missing a port. Most 7 day Sunday to Sunday cruises will have Saturday as a day at sea, so there are plenty of options to chose from.


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