Top 10 Cruise and Rail Holidays
If you love to travel, and the chances are that you do if you love to cruise, it will be likely that you also enjoy traveling by rail.
Whether that is onboard a regular service train or on a special journey such as onboard a steam train on a heritage rail, train journeys really give you the opportunity to sit back, relax and take in the scenery as it goes by.
Just as a cruise holiday allows you to explore long distances at ease, a train journey allows you really see the best of a specific location, so why not combine the two and enjoy a rail and sea getaway?
For the purpose of this list, we have included long distance rail journeys that culminate at a cruise port that you can enjoy before or after your cruise and incredible rail journeys that can be enjoyed at popular cruise port of calls.
Our Top 10 Cruise and Rail Holidays
Rocky Mountaineer and Alaskan Cruise
The Rocky Mountaineer is one of the most famous trains in the world thanks to the incredible natural beauty of the Rocky as you and the iconic blue and gold trains that wind their way past huge mountains, fast flowing rivers and take you to such incredible destinations as Banff.
Best of all is the fact that the trains headquarters is in the Canadian city of Vancouver, which just so happens to be one of the leading cruise ports for journeys up to Alaska or down the Pacific coast of the USA.
That allows you to enjoy a once in a lifetime cruise, followed by an incredible rail journey and then you have even more memories to make in destinations such as the incredibly stunning Lake Louise.
Orient Express and Adriatic Cruise
Although the historic Orient Express that we have all seen on documentaries and in films ended in 2009, a similar service using period carriages and operating on the fromer routes of the original service still runs as the Venice-Simplon Orient Express.
The service still offers an ultra-luxury experience from a number of stations across Europe, including the chance to start in London, before ending in destinations such as Venice, from where you are just a short connection to a number of cruise ports offering trips in the Adriatic Sea and around the Mediterranean.
Oslo To Bergen and Norwegian Fjords Cruise
The Oslo to Bergen railway is one of the great journeys in Europe and allows you to see some of the most stunning scenery available on any train journey in the world.
The Bergensbanen train is a regular service and takes around 7 hours to traverse the 180 tunnels and 22 stops between the two biggest cities in Norway.
Best of all, both Bergen and Oslo are cruise ports from where you can enjoy exploring the Norwegian Fjords or the Baltic Sea.
White Pass and Yukon Railroad and Inside Passage Cruise
A highlight of any cruise of the inside passage is the chance to retrace the route of early gold prospectors and see the beautiful scenery of the Yukon on the US/Canada border.
The historic White Pass and Yukon Railroad winds its way up and around mountains, where you are sometimes just inches away from the cliff edge from its starting point just a short stroll from where your cruise ship docks.
Eastern & Oriental Express and South East Asian Cruise
The Eastern and Oriental Express runs between the city state of Singapore, through Malaysia and onto the Thailand capital city of Bangkok.
The historic carriages are the ideal base for seeing the beautiful scenery found throughout your journey, where everything from rainforests to the skyscrapers of Kuala Lumper can be enjoyed from your window.
Both Singapore and Bangkok are developing themselves as popular turnaround cruise terminals offering a vast array of itineraries that take in the highlights of Asia.
Bullet Train and Round Japan Cruise
The Shinkansen, known in the west as the Bullet Train, is one of the most iconic modern trains in existence thanks to its unique design and the incredible high speeds it reaches.
It is possible to explore much of Japan onboard a bullet train and enjoy views of the fabled Mount Fuji before or after a cruise around the Japanese islands that can easily done from Tokyo.
Blue Train and South African Cruise
The Blue Train is billed as a “magnificent moving five-star hotel” by its owner and it certainly lives up to the billing as one of the most luxurious trains in the world.
The train, which as you would likely have guessed is mostly blue in colour, travels between Pretoria and Cape Town, with a stop in Johannesburg that allows you to fly into Joburg before enjoying a luxurious train journey to Cape Town before setting sail around the coast of South Africa on a cruise holiday to remember.
Indian Pacific Train and New Zealand Cruise
The Indian Pacific train route is one of the longest in the world and takes around 65 hours the traverse the full length of it, but it is a journey that will live long in your memory and is a must for any rail fan.
It is possible to start your journey in the western Australia city of Perth before traversing the full width of the country and ending your journey in Sydney.
From there, there are a number of cruises available including heading north to Asia, out to the Pacific Islands or to make the most of your time in the region, why not set sail across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand?
Alaska Railroad and Alaskan Cruise
The biggest problem with an inside passage cruise from the US or Canada is that it often ends far too quickly.
Just as you feel at home amongst the mountains, waterfalls and glaciers of Alaska, it is time to head south to your port of departure.
Thankfully there is a way to spend even more time in the most northernly state and that is by starting or ending your cruise holiday in the port of Seward, but unfortunately the port is some way from the nearest major international airport in the city of Anchorage.
That would be a huge problem if it was for the Alaskan Railroad that links the port to Anchorage via some of the best scenery on offer anywhere in the world.
Caledonian Sleeper and Southampton Cruise
Many overseas visitors enjoying a cruise out of Southampton (or other south coast ports such as Dover and Portsmouth), will enter the UK at one London’s major airports and that makes it easy to enjoy a journey pre or post cruise onboard the Caledonian Sleeper.
The train journey, that starts at Euston Station in the heart of London and ends in the Scottish Highlands is the longest train journey available in the UK and allows you to see much of the beautiful English countryside, before skirting the edge of the Lake District and then heading north to the beautiful Highlands via Glasgow or Edinburgh.
