P&O Cruises Australia Up To Five Ships – More Sydney Harbour Celebrations From Royal Caribbean – One Out One In For China

The Cruise Examiner for 30th November 2015

Statendam and Ryndam have kept their basic Holland America Line livery as P&O Australia’s Pacific Eden and Pacific Aria.

Last week was a great week for Sydney-siders, as two separate cruise events were held in their scenic harbour. Not to be content with the Wednesday arrival of all five of the P&O Cruises Australia fleet for the christening of its two newest units, Pacific Eden and Pacific Aria, Saturday saw the arrival of the two largest cruise ships serving Australia in Royal Caribbean International’s Explorer of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas. Elsewhere, one Chinese ship has been withdrawn while other Chinese owners have acquired a third ship.

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Aranui 5 Prepares For Her Maiden Voyage – Change Of Ships At Celestyal – CMI Leisure Takes FleetPro’s Ocean Fleet

The Cruise Examiner for 23rd November 2015.

The new Chinese-built Aranui 5 has 254 berths on offer for those who want to cruise the South Pacific in a supply ship

November 9 saw the arrival of the new Aranui 5 at Papeete, Tahiti, where she is preparing to take up her supply role to the Marquesas and Tuamotu Islands next month. A product of Huanghai Shipbuilding in Shangdong, China, she is one of the world’s last mixed passenger and cargo ships. Elsewhere, Celestyal Cruises will be taking on a replacement for its third ship and mounting a program of 7-night cruises from Turkey. Meanwhile, the newly formed Miami-based Cruise Management International has taken over the ocean operations of the Swiss-based FleetPro Group.

 

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New Monthly California-Europe Cargo-Passenger Service Begins Between Long Beach and Oakland And European Ports

This service has now been taken over by the m.v. Leto and operates every 56 days.

The NSB container ships MSC Cordoba and MSC Monterey are phasing in to MSC’s “USA West Coast Express” service with immediate effect. The full round voyage is 56 days, and while other ports can also be booked, as examples the voyage from Felixstowe to Long Beach is 26 days while that from Oakland to Felixstowe is 28 days.

The port rotation for this new service is Felixstowe – Bremerhaven – Antwerp – Rotterdam – Le Havre – Sines (Portugal) – Panama Canal – Long Beach – Oakland – Manzanillo (Mexico) – Balboa – Panama Canal – Cristobal – Sines – Felixstowe.

Each ship can carry six passengers in one Owners Cabin and two Doubles. They are 4,870 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container) capacity vessels and single passengers are carried at a very modest single supplement of €15 per day on top of the normal fare.

A full US visa is required for all non-US and Canadian citizens and embarkation and disembarkation is not allowed in Sines, Portugal, nor in Panamanian ports except for touring.

For further details please call The Cruise People Ltd in London on +44 (0)20 7723 2450 or e-mail Miri Lopusna on cruisepeopleltd@aol.com.

Be Among The First To Sail The Ovation Of The Seas, Singapore To Australia, November 30, 2016. You Can Be In Sydney By Christmas

Through its membership in Cruiseco, The Cruise People is pleased to be able to offer its clients a once in a lifetime opportunity to be among the first to sail on board Ovation of the Seas, Royal Caribbean International’s third Quantum Class vessel, on its inaugural voyage to Australia.

The 4,180-berth ship will depart Singapore on November 30, 2016, with a spectacular itinerary showcasing four beautiful Australian ports including Fremantle, Adelaide, Hobart and Sydney.

Amber Wilson, Cruiseco’s International Marketing Manager, said: “Sailing on an inaugural voyage into Australia is an extremely special and memorable occasion. We are thrilled to offer our guests the opportunity to do just that with Cruiseco’s exclusive Ovation of the Seas charter. Cruising through Australia’s crystal waters is a lifetime goal for many UK travellers, and with the added advantage of concluding the voyage in Sydney, within view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, I encourage guests to book early to secure their spot before cabins sell out.¨

The following itinerary options are available for Ovation of the Seas‘ debut Australian voyage, with fares shown per person based on twin share:

• Singapore to Fremantle: 6-night voyage, with fares starting from £530.
• Singapore to Adelaide: 11-night voyage, with fares starting from £1,025.
• Singapore to Hobart: 13-night voyage, with fares starting from £1,220.
• Singapore to Melbourne: Ovation of the Seas will not visit Melbourne, but guests wishing to travel from Singapore to Melbourne can disembark in Hobart and fly to Melbourne. Fares for this 13-night option start at £1,275 per person, including transfers to Hobart airport and a one-way economy class flight from Hobart to Melbourne.
• Singapore to Sydney: the full 15-night voyage, with fares starting from £1,415.

For further details on any of these cruise options please contact The Cruise People Ltd in London on +44 (0)20 7723 2450 or email cruisepeopleltd@aol.com.

Dream Cruises, New Upmarket Brand For Asia – Vancouver Returns To Growth – Odds and Ends

The Cruise Examiner for 16th November 2015.

The Genting Dream is the first of two 3,364-berth upmarket cruise ships being completed for Dream Cruises by Meyer Werft

Last week saw an announcement by Genting that it would be using the two ships it has on order at Meyer Werft for delivery in 2016 and 2017 to launch Asia’s first premium class cruise line. To be called Dream Cruises, the line’s new ships will have a passenger space ratio about 5% higher than Celebrity’s Solstice class vessels. Meanwhile, in Canada, the Port of Vancouver is slowly recovering from the onslaught it received from Seattle several years ago after newer and faster ships saw more Alaska cruises sailing the extra distance from Seattle. Finally, we have updates on previous stories on Crystal River Cruises and Thomson Cruises.

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Crystal River Cruises To Open In 2016 – Phoenix Reisen To Charter Deutschland – AIDA Cruises Announces AIDAbella for China

The Cruise Examiner for 9th November 2015.

Artist’s conception of one of the new Crystal River Cruises river yachts

This week sees two former Deilmann ships going to new operators. First, the Danube river cruiser Mozart has been purchased by Crystal Cruises for its nacent river yacht operation and second, the ocean-going Deutschland has been chartered from its US owners by Germany’s Phoenix Reisen for five summer seasons. Crystal has also announced orders for two new river yachts from Lloyd Werft. At the same time, AIDA Cruises followed Carnival Cruise Line last week with an announcement that it would be basing its AIDAbella year-round in Shanghai from the spring of 2017.

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Australians Outstrip Canadians In Their Own Port of Montreal

Montreal’s cruise season opened in May with Haimark Line’s 210-berth Saint Laurent (below) and closed last week with the Regent’s 490-berth Seven Seas Navigator.

In all, Montreal recorded 73 cruise ships visits this year, 29 more than the 44 received in 2014. Preliminary figures indicate that more than 92,000 passengers and crewmembers transited the cruise terminal this season, a near 30% increase over 2014 and a 94% hike since the creation of the Montreal Cruise Committee in 2011. The committee was established with a brief to attract more international cruise lines to the Canadian port.

The St Lawrence River cruise season generally runs from May through October, with the busiest months being September and October, for the autumn leaves. According to data collected by the Montreal Cruise Committee, clients are primarily American (72%), Australian (8.5%), Canadian (7.5%) and English (4.5%).

Like Quebec, Montreal has adopted a bad habit of counting crew members along with passengers. The cruise lines regard crew as a cost centre and passengers as the revenue centre. If we take a ratio of say 2.5 passengers to every crewmember, then 92,000 represents about 66,000 passengers and 26,000 crew.

Holland America Line’s Maasdam departing Montreal on a cruise. She is Montreal’s most frequent caller. 

Reducing the passenger number further means about 5,600 Australian passengers outnumbered the roughly 5,000 Canadians who took a cruise over Montreal by 12 to 13%, which is quite ridiculous. Montreal is inside in a country with a population of 35 million, while Australia has only 23 million. And Sydneysiders have to travel 10,000 miles to get to Montreal!

Perhaps as well as attracting foreign cruise lines, the Montreal Cruise Committee should start working on attracting more domestic passengers to their local port, which is just down the street, along the highway or less than a half-hour drive away from Trudeau Airport.Essentially, this research means the number of Canadians cruising through Montreal numbers only one in every 7,000 of the country’s population and the nearby Americans outnumber them almost ten to one.

By comparison, this year Vancouver is expected to handle some 805,000 cruise passengers to Montreal’s 66,000, or about twelve times as many as its St Lawrence sister port, with 228 calls compared to Montreal’s 73.

If you want to cruise from Montreal next year, The Cruise People Ltd highly recommends Cruiseco’s charter of the Azamara Quest from Montreal to New Orleans, a voyage of 32 nights, next September and October, with 19 ports and 9 overnights.  Further details of the Montreal to New Orleans cruise can be found here. 

Ironically, this cruise is being offered by the Australian group Cruiseco, who will be bringing several hundred more Australian passengers to Montreal next year.

One way to reach this cruise will be a Transatlantic sailing from Southampton from September 9 to 24. Further details of this Atlantic crossing can be found here. 

For further details on these or any other Montreal cruises call us in London on 020 7723 2450 or email cruisepeopleltd@aol.com.

Carnival Miracle and Splendor Earmarked For China – Australians Outstrip Canadians In Their Own Port! – Variety Cruises Acquisition

The Cruise Examiner for 2nd November 2015.

Ridiculous but apparently true – more Australian cruise passengers used the Port of Montreal this year than Canadians

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The recent news that Carnival Corp & plc was forming a new Chinese-based cruise line was followed last week by an announcement from Carnival Cruise Line that it would be moving its own 2,124-berth Carnival Miracle to China in 2017, to be followed in 2018 by the 2,974-berth Carnival Splendor. Elsewhere, statistics published by the Montreal Cruise Committee last week underlined a weakness in the Canadian cruise market. The much smaller country of Australia, with a population two-thirds of Canada’s, and located 10,000 miles away, generated more passengers over the Port of Montreal this year than Canada did. Meanwhile, in a surprise move, Variety Cruises announced that it was taking over the 34-berth motor yacht Callisto.

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