Golf Cruise Holidays

Golf cruises have become one of the most popular holidays in the cruise industry. While some cruise lines have included golf tours on their itineraries for many years, more cruise lines than ever before are in competition to draw golfers from around the world into their family of cruising golf enthusiasts.

Prices for a cruise offering a dedicated golf programme normally include the cost of the cruise, accommodation, meals, drinks, snacks, green fees, shoes, clubs, clothes and lessons from a PGA Pro. There are areas on board for golfers to practice throughout the cruise and they can seek advice from the Pro.

The onshore courses chosen are links, parkland and heath land courses designed by professional golfers such as Jack Nicklaus, Robert Fream, David Feherty, Robert Trent Jones and several others. Golfers will face courses with tight fairways, heavy roughs, signature holes, water hazards, and manicured greens and they will battle many holes, which will both challenge and entertain them.

Some Cruise & Golf holidays include state-of-the-art computer and video presentations on golf during lessons taught by PGA Pros. There will be time for questions plus suggestions and guidance for each golfer who wants help to improve his or her game. At the end of a golf day golfers return to the ship for dinner and evening festivities; sharing golf stories over drinks in one of the bars, or they may go to the opera, spin the wheels in the casinos, head to the local beach or maybe get a spa treatment.

Fred Olsen Lines has a dedicated golf programme offering Cruise & Golf Cruises, including 88 pro golf courses in the Caribbean, United Kingdom, the Baltics, the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean and Key West, Florida. While the golfers play golf, non-golfing cruisers will enjoy non-golf activities onboard or on shore. There are usually at least four professional 18 hole- golf courses visited during a seven night’s cruise.

The Fred Olsen Cruise Line offers some great trips for golfers. Men and women golfers can relax and enjoy cruising before playing golf on some of the world’s most challenging courses. They can practice onboard, take lessons from the ship’s onboard PGA Pro golfer and get tips on their swing, and more.

Among the courses used are Club de Golf La Envia-Agadir; Almeria Gold Club; Alicante Golf Club; Club Golf Playa-Serena; Glyfada Golf Course-Athens; Club de Golf Masia Bach-Barcelona; Mohammedia Royal Golf Club-Casablanca; Fota Island Golf Club- Cobh; Hørsholm Golf Club-Copenhagen; St.Margaret’s Golf Club-Dublin and Espoo Ringside Golf Club in Helsinki.

The Cunard Cruise Line has had a dedicated golf programme, called GolfAhoy, for the past twenty years. In 2010, three GolfAhoy cruises are part of the voyages of their newest cruise ship, the Queen Elizabeth. On 12 October 2010 a select group of GolfAhoy golfers and non-golfers will sail away from Southampton for 13 days of cruising and golfing in the Canary Islands, Portugal and Spain.

A second GolfAhoy voyage will leave Southampton on 25 October 2010. This cruise will take GolfAhoy’s private group of golfers to the Mediterranean to play golf at some the world’s greatest courses. Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Florence/Pisa, Rome, Naples, Capri, Pompeii and Cartagena are on the itinerary.

A third cruise will head for the Caribbean golf courses sailing from Southampton on 16 December 2010 for 22 days of sun and fun. The Queen Elizabeth will carry this special GoldAhoy private group to Madeira, Tortola, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia and Antigua. Spending Christmas Day in the sunny Caribbean will surely be a day they will never forget.

Carnival Cruises offers possibly the best dedicated golf programme, conducted by Elite Golf Cruises. Carnival has an arrangement with Calloway Golf to promote their golf clubs onboard. The programme begins with an analysis of each golfers swing followed by personal instructions from a professional golfer. A series of golf excursions at each port of call takes the golfers to some of the most difficult and beautiful courses in the world.

Some Holland America ships, two Costa ships and four Silverseas ships are among those contracting with Elite Golf Cruises to provide a professional golfer programme onboard their cruise ships. For information go to www.elitegolfcruises.com for current and future golf cruises under the direction of Elite Golf Cruises’ professional golf instructors.

Most of the cruise lines offer golf cruises however not every line offers golf cruises on all of their ships. Golf cruises include many non-golfers and the activities on board and onshore tours at ports of call continue for them as the golfers leave the ship for a day of golf.