Since she converted to the Catholic faith 12 years ago, Penelope Williams has traveled the world, immersing herself in the history of the Church, from Rome and the Holy Land to North American shrines and St. Paul’s route across the Mediterranean.

Going on pilgrimage, in the company of fellow Catholics on organized group tours, has been a great way for her to journey more deeply into her faith, she told the Register.

“I just can’t get enough,” Williams said.

Along the way, she’s made a conversion of another kind. The traditional pilgrimage — bouncing from hotel to hotel, suitcase in tow — has its charms. But given the choice, Williams, who retired seven years ago, now prefers to go on a pilgrimage cruise.

Seeing Catholic sites on a traditional pilgrimage often means traveling between cities by motorcoach and staying in a different hotel every night or two, she explained.

“You’re constantly packing and unpacking,” the 71-year-old Carlsbad, California, resident said. “If you’re a really savvy traveler and you’ve got one little bag, that’s one thing. But I’m not. I like different clothes and different shoes, so I struggle with my luggage.”

Williams is not alone. For Catholics seeking spiritual renewal, rest and fellowship — all while exploring new destinations from the comfort of a floating hotel — cruise pilgrimages are becoming an increasingly popular option.

The only drawback? Demand is so strong that cabins often must be reserved a year or more in advance.

But fortunately, the growing demand has led to an expanding number of Catholic cruises to choose from. The Register assessed options for Catholics interested in getting on board this trend.

Catholic Answers Cruises

Catholic Answers, a media ministry dedicated to explaining and defending the Catholic faith, has been offering cruises since 2002. This May, Catholic Answers will lead a 12-night Rhine River cruise through Amsterdam, Cologne, Strasbourg and Basel, visiting Catholic landmarks including the cathedrals in Cologne, Aachen, Trier and Strasbourg.

“There’s a ton of magnificent history in the Catholic Rhine Valley,” Christopher Check, president of Catholic Answers, told the Register.

The talks on board and on land, given by Catholic Answers hosts and apologists, help put the sites into context, illuminating the history of the expansion of Christianity into Europe and the rise of Christendom in the Middle Ages, from Charlemagne through the Thirty Years’ War, Check said.

“We do, I think, a very fine job of harmonizing a coherent program with the region that we’re going to. It’s a total experience: historical, spiritual, sentimental, and social too,” Check said, noting that this year they’ve chartered the entire 156-passenger AmaSiena river cruise ship. Daily Mass will be held at one of the historic churches, if possible, and with a Catholic priest on board, confession will be available as well.

Williams, the Catholic convert from California, who has also gone on a Catholic Answers cruise along the St. Lawrence Seaway in New England and Canada, told the Register that she has really enjoyed traveling with similarly inclined, fellow Catholics.

“You’re with this group who’s all Catholic, and it’s just very freeing in this polarized, disjointed world to be with a whole group of people who have the same religious affiliation,” said Williams, who is looking forward to the Rhine excursion.

The Good News Cruise

The Good News Cruise, a voyage catering specifically to Catholic married couples, has sold out every year since its inaugural launch in 2020. This February, for the first time, its popularity prompted organizers to charter the entire 1,800-passenger ship, Holland America’s Eurodam.

Billed as a “Catholic cruise that will change your marriage forever,” the Good News Cruise also attracts travelers with its lineup of well-known speakers and recognizable figures from Catholic radio, clergy, and music and the arts.

Many of the talks and presentations touch on topics related to growing in faith as a couple, but some presentations are unabashedly just for fun — such as a beer-tasting session with Father Mike Schmitz, host of The Bible in a Year podcast, and a Super Bowl party with former NFL player Matt Birk, as well as nightly themed parties including a “Yacht Rock” night and daily exercise classes with a “Catholic fitness guru.”

Teresa Tomeo, host of the syndicated EWTN Radio show Catholic Connection, has been a regular presenter on the cruise, along with her husband, Deacon Dom Pastore. The couple share their testimony about their marriage and their reversion back to the Catholic faith.

Tomeo told the Register that what makes the Good News Cruise unique is the “very healthy combination of faith and fun.”

“There is so much fellowship that occurs when we’re all together in one location. You know that you’re not alone and that there are actually a lot of couples who love each other and their Catholic faith,” she said.

Onboard this year’s cruise was Archbishop Samuel Aquila of the Archdiocese of Denver as well as Bishop Joseph Coffey of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and 25 priests.

With so many members of the clergy onboard, passengers have ample opportunities to go to Mass (there are as many as five Masses offered each day) and confession and join fellow Catholics for morning and evening prayer, as well as Eucharistic adoration and praying lectio divina.

Mike Ritchie and his wife Carole, residents of the Detroit suburbs, have been on every Good News Cruise. Ritchie told the Register that the cruise is a lot of fun, but packs a “powerful punch in terms of faith.”

He said that he and his wife have seen many couples come aboard in which one spouse is a “tagalong,” agreeing to the cruise out of love for their husband or wife despite not being particularly active in the Catholic faith. By the end of the voyage, he said, many are surprised by what they encounter.

“We went last year with a couple of my wife’s sisters and their husbands,” he recalled. “At our final dinner, we were all crying. They said their lives were changed forever by being on the boat.”

Steve Ray’s ‘Footprints of God Pilgrimage’ Cruises

Steve Ray, a Catholic apologist, pilgrimage leader and frequent EWTN guest, also offers Catholics pilgrimage/cruises. In 2026, he and his wife Janet will once again lead a group of Catholic pilgrims on their “In the Footsteps of St. Paul” Mediterranean cruise to Thessaloniki, Philippi, Ancient Corinth, Ephesus and Patmos.

Ray has recently expanded his offerings of pilgrimages to river cruises, including one along the Rhine River in 2027, which will include excursions to churches and shrines and talks on the Catholic heritage of Europe. There are also wine tastings and “all kinds of fun things like that too,” Ray told the Register.

He said that the cruises he leads attract a “special” type of traveler.

“They’re people that want Bible teaching, what they can touch and feel — where is this in the Bible? Why is it important to us as Catholics?” explained Ray, who hires local guides to help facilitate travel but gives the talks on biblical history himself.

On a recent trip to the site of the ancient city of Philippi, Ray recalled, he had the bus driver stop so everyone could get out and walk on the 2,000-year-old Via Egnatia, literally in the footsteps of St. Paul.

Ray’s tours, he said, are “distinctly Catholic.” At least one priest accompanies the group, celebrates Mass at ruins where holy sites once stood or in churches or cathedrals in cities they visit. The group often prays the Rosary together en route to the next site.

While back on board the boat, there are opportunities for fellowship as the group sits together at dinner each evening. The pilgrimage sometimes leads to a conversion of heart of those who are just going along for the ride, Ray said.

“One guy said, ‘I don’t want to be here on this trip because I’d rather be somewhere else, but my wife went fishing with me last year, so this is my payback year,’” Ray recalled.

“Well, two or three days into the trip, he came back to me with tears in his eyes. He said, ‘I’m not reluctant anymore because I just realized where I am,’” Ray recounted.

Bonded by Faith

Ray’s cruise, as well as the Good News Cruise and the Catholic Answers cruise, are all coordinated by the same tour operator: Corporate Travel Service.

Based in Northville, Michigan, CTS has been a family-run, full-service travel company for more than 50 years. Its current owners, brothers-in-law John Hale and David DiFranco, have expanded the company to six divisions, encompassing pilgrimages, educational tours, performance tours, themed cruises, leisure travel, and event management.

Hale told the Register that the success of the company’s themed cruises, such as the Grand Ole Opry Cruise, suggested that a Catholic theme might work, as well. The results speak for themselves. The fact that the Good News Cruise took over the entire ship for the first time this year marks a major milestone for the company.

Sharing a common faith, Hale believes, creates a special dynamism onboard these cruises.

“A very important part of the experience is the community that's formed,” he explained.

“You're there to be Christ for others, and others are there to be Christ for you. And there are friendships, lifelong friendships that are formed through these experiences. The onboard experience is so enhanced by the witness and the joy of others,” he said.

“There have been some tremendous — all by God's grace, nothing to do with us, but all by his grace — a lot of really incredible stories of people who've had just life-changing experiences.”

Parish Cruises

It’s possible to go on a Catholic cruise with your parish or small group — all it takes is someone to organize one.

For the last two years, Steve Hayes, a parishioner at Holy Family Catholic Church in Brentwood, Tennessee, has used 206 Tours, a tour company specializing in faith-based travel, to help put together pilgrimages for his parish. In September of 2026, the group will travel to Budapest, take a seven-day cruise down the Danube, and end in Prague, stopping at Catholic sites along the way.

Hayes has taken the parish group, along with their pastor, to the Holy Land and on the Camino in Spain and will be going to Italy in May. He said he’s been very pleased with 206 Tours, which arranged the parish’s other pilgrimages.

“It’s a first-class experience every time we use them. And the fact that’s all faith-based is what’s so attractive to us,” he said.

“They plan all the details and the sites to see, and you have Mass and Rosary each day. It’s just a beautiful way to see the world that God created.”

For Hayes like, other fans of Catholic cruises, it’s a chance to grow in fellowship.

“We get to do it with like-minded people who have a lot of fun together and who are also praying together and trying to grow in our faith together.”