Legendary Letters Applied to New Queen

 

Pictured above: Welders secure the steel letters that spell out the legendary name of Cunard’s newest ocean liner at Fincantieri’s Monfalcone yard in Trieste, Italy

For more than 70 years, Cunard ships graced with the name Queen Elizabeth have been a significant part of maritime history, and British heritage. Now, with less than a year to go until her maiden voyage, the legendary letters that will identify the newest addition to Cunard’s fleet have been welded onto the bow of Queen Elizabeth at the Fincantieri yard in Trieste, Italy.

“It is a rare honour for any ship to bear the name Queen Elizabeth, and as I saw the famous name being welded to the bow, I was overcome by the historical significance,” said Peter Shanks, president of Cunard Line. “A milestone such as this only continues to build on the already wide anticipation of the debut of our gracious new Cunarder.”

Limited space is still available on voyages for Queen Elizabeth’s inaugural 2010 season, comprised of six legendary voyages, calling on 32 distinct ports in 18 countries. Her Maiden Voyage, now sold out, will depart from Cunard’s homeport of Southampton, on 12 October 2010, en route to the Atlantic Isles.

For more information about Cunard and to book a voyage aboard Queen Elizabeth, contact your The Cruise People, Ltd. on 1-800-268-6523 or cruise@thecruisepeople.ca

Cruising to (and from) Cuba

While Americans have not been able to cruise to Havana for forty-seven years, other nationalities are able to travel there freely, and ships from some of these countries have been making cruise calls in Cuba over that period. For example, four lines that are offering calls at Havana this winter include Compagnie du Ponant, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and Thomson Cruises, with the latter actually making Havana an embarkation port for some cruises.
Meanwhile, although the Obama administration has made it easier for some Americans to travel to Cuba, and charter flights have begun from US airports, there is no obvious sign that US-based cruise lines will be calling there soon. So let’s have a look at who goes now to this tropical isle with more than 2,000 miles of coast line located just 90 miles from Florida.

Havana’s Glory Days
One of the icons of early American television was a comedy couple called Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, who in a November 1957 programme entitled "Luci Takes a Cruise to Havana," filmed partly in Cuba just a week before the Castro revolution, recounted how they had met when she took a cruise to Cuba in 1940. Although war had broken out in Europe by 1940, it had not yet stopped cruise ships from sailing from New York and Miami.
Havana first developed as a popular cruise port in the 1920s with the Ward Line, whose ships sailed from New York and had names such as Havana, Orizaba, Siboney, Mexico, San Jacinto and Monterey. Soon, others joined them, and most particularly the Cunard Line, which at the end of1928 began advertising a departure from New York for Havana every Saturday with its Transatlantic liner Caronia.
Cunard used the tagline "A West Indies Cruise Is Either Cunard Or It Is Not Cunard" and soon other Cunard ships were also sailing to Havana. The Ward Line soon retaliated however with its celebrated 1930 duo of Oriente and Morro Castle, but the latter became an infamous fire loss off the New Jersey coast in September 1934.
Florida ports also saw regular sailings to Havana, from the American P&O (Peninsular & Occidental Steamship Co), with daily overnight sailings from Tampa and Key West, and later from both P&O and the Clyde Line, with nightly sailings from Miami. These were followed in the 1930s by regular 7-night cruises from Miami that called in both Havana and other Caribbean ports.
Although war put a stop to activities after 1940, by the 1950s the trade had returned, with reports indicating that sometimes two-thirds of cruise passengers sailing to Cuba were single working women from New York seeking adventure and romance. Cunard Line confirmed this observation. The centre of action was a Havana bar called Sloppy Joe’s, a popular location frequented by tourists.
But while hit movies such as Guys and Dolls (1955) stressed Havana’s bars, casinos and romance there was also an undertone of US mob-controlled crime, however, supported by a corrupt Cuban regime. All this ended in September 1962, when cruise ships stopped calling in Havana. The last ship to leave, the ferry City of Havana, took with her 287 passengers, 237 of whom were Cubans with US residency certificates and the balance employees of the US State Department. Since then, no cruise ship has sailed to Cuba from any US port.

To-day: A Door Slowly Opens
Since President Obama came to power in the USA there has been a slight loosening of the reigns, at least for exiled Cubans wishing to return to visit relatives. Charter flights to Cuba now leave from New York, Miami and Los Angeles, and one Miami-based operator claims to have carried more than 10,000 passengers to Cuba this summer.
In September, Cuban exile Armando Ruiz, revealed that his company, Florida Ferry International, had applied to the US Treasury Department to operate a 600-cabin cruise ferry between Miami and Havana. And while cruise lines have been developing new ports in Haiti, Honduras and the Turks and Caicos, none has spoken publicly about sending ships to Cuban ports.
Eight years ago now, in March 2001, an American shipping company, Crowley Liner Services, was granted a licence to carry eligible commodities to Cuba in weekly service from Port Everglades and Jacksonville to Havana, which is, after all, a city of 3.7 million people.
Four weeks ago, on October 28, a vote at the United Nations saw 187 nations vote against the US embargo of Cuba as against to only 3 for – which included the United States, Israel and Palau, a tiny nation of 21,000 people. This almost unanimous vote is the first such vote to take place since President Obama came to office.

Meanwhile, opportunities do exist with European-owned lines to cruise to and from Cuba. This is despite the fact that Italy’s Costa had to stop its ships calling on Cuba and give up on plans for a $62 million Havana cruise terminal after it became part of the Carnival Group, and Spain’s Pullmantur had to drop its own Cuban cruises after Royal Caribbean acquired that company.

Le Levant To Spend Christmas in Cuba
Compagnie du Ponant’s 90-guest megayacht Le Levant will visit Havana this winter, with a Christmas cruise leaving Fort de France, Martinique, and sailing by way of St Barthelemy, Virgin Gorda, and the Dominican Republic ports of La Samana, Cayo Levantado and Cayo Arena to Cuba’s Santiago de Cuba (on Christmas Day), arriving December 27 at Cienfuegos, where passengers will disembark for a visit to Havana and dinner at the Tropicana cabaret.
From Cienfuegos, Le Levant will make her way to Cancun by way of Cuba’s Cayo Largo, then Belize City, Half Moon Caye and Calabash Caye, all in Belize, meaning a full turnaround at Cuba’s south coast port of Cienfuegos, but these will be the only Cuban calls this winter.
Braemar To Call at Havana and Santiago
This winter, Fred. Olsen’s Braemar is offering a series of 14-night "Caribbean and Cuba" Friday departures from Barbados that include an overnight stay in Havana from Sunday to Monday in the middle of each cruise. The first departure has recently left (November 12) and subsequent departures will be made on December 10 and February 18. These cruises also call at Curacao, Aruba, Ocho Rios, Costa Maya and Cozumel before Havana and then proceed to Grand Cayman and Montego Bay before returning to Barbados.
Two more cruises, leaving on March 5 and April 2, will make a daytime call at Santiago de Cuba, calling at St Lucia, St Martin and Grand Turk before Santiago and then Bonaire and Grenada before returning to Barbados.
Two Hapag-Lloyd Ships Call on Cuba
Hapag-Lloyd’s top-rated 408-berth flagship Europa has called many times at Havana and other Cuban ports and this year will be no different.  Europa will make four calls in Cuba this year, at Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, Isla de la Juventud and Havana during her December 5 cruise from La Guaira to Progreso, Mexico.
Before arriving in Cuba, calls will also be made at Antigua, St Barthelemy and Jost van Dyke and she will then finish her cruise in Mexico after a full week spent cruising in Cuban waters, with an overnight stay in Santiago de Cuba and two nights spent in Havana.
Hapag-Lloyd’s other main line cruise ship, the 420-passenger Columbus, whose charter has just been renewed until 2011, will be making a turnaround in Havana. Columbus will turn at Havana after her Christmas cruise, that starts on December 21 in Progreso, Mexico, and arrives in Havana on January 5 for an overnight stay.
Calls will also include Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos in Cuba, after cruising by way of Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, Virgin Gorda, Antigua, St Barthelemy and Santo Domingo. Columbus will leave Havana, after another overnight stay, on January 7, 2111, bound for Callao via Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Belize City, Puerto Cortes, Roatan, Puerto Limon, San Blas and Esmeraldas in Ecuador.
Thomson Dream to Sail from Havana in 2011
Ironically, although Costa had to give up its Cuban dreams when it became part of Carnival Group, it is a former Costa ship, the 1,500-berth Costa Europa, to become Thomson Dream in April, that will not only be offering regular opportunities to visit Havana on overnight calls but will also be boarding some of her passengers in Havana. This will be a first for Thomson, part of the TUI Travel Group.
During the winter of 2010/11,  Thomson Dream will operate three 14-night itineraries – the Cuban Adventure, the Caribbean Experience and the Classic Caribbean cruise, with two or three days in Havana on each itinerary. The Cuban Adventure sails from Montego Bay to Barbados, with a two-night call in Havana. The Caribbean Experience sails from Barbados to Havana, with an overnight stay. And the Classic Caribbean cruise sails from Havana to Montego Bay. The ship will actually be sailing on a repeating 21-day itinerary that will be divided into 14-night segments.
So for some of the more fortunate on three dates in 2011, Havana will be serving as a turnaround port for  Thomson Dream, offering chances to stay or visit other parts of the island such as Varadero or the Isle of Juventud, once know as the Isle of June. Direct flights will be operated from the UK to Havana, Barbados and Jamaica by Thomson Airways.
There will be four sailings from each of Barbados and Montego Bay and three from Havana, the first time Havana departures have ever been offered by such a large ship. Over the years Thomson has also been improving its product it now has a reputation as a more traditional style cruise operator. The only exception to this in its fleet of five ships (three of which served with Holland America not so long ago) is its "ultra-casual" Island Escape, which has been taken over from First Choice and is operated as a sub-brand..

Whither Cuban Cruising?
By no means are these the only cruise ships to have called at Cuba. Over the years, ships such as Alexandr Pushkin, Deutschland, Spirit of Adventure, Hebridean Spirit, Vistamar, AidBlu and others have called as well. In fact, one ship, Airtours’ Sunbird (now sailing as  Thomson Destiny) set a record on New Year’s Day 2003 when she brought 1,414 passengers to Havana.
In 2005, Cuba saw 102,440 passengers visit on 122 calls at its ports. But this dropped to just 11,000 in 23 port calls in 2007 after Pullmantur had to withdraw its Holiday Dream in October 2006 after being bought by Royal Caribbean. And ships that do call in Cuba cannot then call on a US port for the following six months because of the Torricelli Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.
Nevertheless, an island country with 289 named beaches and the potential to take 3 million American tourists when the trade is re-opened also stands to be very good cruising ground. If a small island like Cozumel can attract 2.5 million cruisers, then there is a huge future for cruising in Cuba when that day finally does arrive. And it won’t be just large ships, but small ships and sailing ships too will want to be able to take advantage of Cuba’s huge coastline. One interesting question is whether the Cuban register might be able to add some opportunities in future.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Dutch Cruise News

The naming this weekend of the new 3,434-ton 110-berth expedition vessel Plancius at Vlissingen adds to the variety of Dutch-flag vessels available on the high seas, and her operator, Oceanwide Expeditions of Vlissingen, made more news when it was also named the World’s Leading Polar Expedition Company 2009 at London’s World Travel Market last week.
Elsewhere, Holland America Line’s latest Nieuw Amsterdam, the fourth of that name, due to enter service on July 4, 2010, was floated out at Fincantieri’s Marghera yard a fortnight ago. Meanwhile, work proceeds on the new Cruise Hotel Rotterdam, being prepared on board Holland America Line’s last purpose-built Transatlantic liner, the 38,645-ton Rotterdam of 1958, a ship that is still almost in her original form.
This week we take a look at Dutch contributions to ocean cruising, both past and present.

An Expedition Ship With Great Views
Built in 1976 as the Royal Dutch Navy’s oceanographic research ship Tydeman, Plancius has been totally rebuilt over the past two and a half years into a top-notch ice-class passenger vessel capable of operating in polar regions. On touring the ship, one of the first things that strikes one, compared to many ships previously used in Antarctic and polar waters is the excellent views that can be had not only from her main observation lounge, forward on deck 5, but also from the windows either side of her dining room aft on deck 3.
Both rooms double as lecture halls when it comes time to learn about wildlife, geology, Antarctic base camps and local history. And off her main lounge is a library stocked with various reference materials. The ship’s decor is very pleasing, with grey leatherette banquettes featuring in both lounge and restaurants while the ship is carpeted throughout in blue.
Companionway bulkheads are decorated with very good still wildlfie photography.
Deck 3 outside is laid with teak and contains an embarkation area and zodiac boarding area on the starboard side while the port side contains the ship’s galley. Aft there is a rather attractive teak-laid barbecue area with views over the stern. The upper decks are quite extensive and on certain decks it is possible to walk completely round the superstructure, making for superb viewing of wildlife and scenery.
Forward of the main lounge is an accessible open deck area and from here passengers can reach the bow. Passengers are also allowed onto the bridge, where views are possible in most directions, although the forward view is obscured somewhat by the layout of navigation instruments and controls that cover the lower window area, so there are better views from the open bridge wings.
The new ship’s cabins have been simplified into three basic types of accommodation, all en suite. Ten superior cabins located on the top two decks, 5 and 6, contain double beds, and thirty-nine twin cabins on decks 2, 3 and 4 contain twin beds, while four triple cabins have an additional third, upper, berth and are located on the lowest deck, 2. In addition to the double bed, the superior cabins feature a sofa and double windows.
Being a former oceanographic ship, Plancius has attractive hull lines and is quite a good-looking ship. It is also obvious that much thought has been put into her new internal layout for carrying passengers. She will be staffed by an experienced Russian crew recruited from  Professor Molchanov and Professor Multanovskiy, two ships that Oceanwide have been operating on charter for many years while the expedition team and hotel manager will be from Oceanwide’s own experienced personnel.
This year is the second time Oceanwide has won the World’s Leading Polar Expedition Company award as it received the same award in 2005. As well as Plancius, it operates the 2,180-ton 84-berth Chilean-owned Antarctic Dream, a ship that was built in the Netherlands for the Chilean Navy, in the Spitsbergen season, and the 1,753-ton 50-berth Professor Molchanov and Professor Multanovskiy, in the Antarctic season.
The fleet is rounded out by the two-masted schooner Noorderlicht, a historic vessel that dates to 1910 and now carries 20 passengers around Spitsbergen.

A Fourth Nieuw Amsterdam
Elsewhere, while Cunard Line is building a new 92,000-ton Queen Elizabeth, named after the 83,673-ton ship of that name that entered service in 1940, Holland America Line is building an 86,200-ton Nieuw Amsterdam, named for the 36,287-ton ship of that name that entered service in 1938. Next year will thus see the introduction of two large new cruise ships carrying the names of two famous two-funnelled ocean liners of the past.
Just over two weeks ago, on October 30, the fourth Nieuw Amsterdam was floated out from her building berth at Fincantieri and moved to her nearby fitting out berth. A sister ship to last year’s Eurodam, the new liner will be a slightly shorter version of the new Queen Elizabeth, with a different funnel configuration and interior design, but both based on the same original "Vista" class platform developed by Carnival Shipbuilding.
P&O’s Arcadia, a third Carnival group ship named for an earlier liner, is also of this class, but topped off with a P&O funnel.
Nieuw Amsterdam having been the name the Dutch explorers first gave to New York City, the interiors of the new ship will reflect this New York theme, with a Manhattan restaurant and a skyscraper theme to start with. More details will follow on the latest addition to the Holland America fleet.

Holland America Line in Holland To-day
Because of its unique place, along with Cunard, as being one of few surviving Transatlantic lines (Costa operated to South America), Holland America Line, which dates back to 1873, has retained its independence in Europe even though acquired by Carnival Corp in 1989.
Cunard and P&O now make up Carnival UK and Costa Cruises, Germany’s Aida Cruises and Spain’s Ibero Cruceros all report to Costa headquarters in Genoa, but Holland America, managed from Seattle since 1977, has maintained its own autonomy.
In the UK, it has a marketing office that it shares with Carnival Cruise Lines and Costa in London, away from Carnival UK in Southampton. The line does work very closely however with Carnival Shipbuilding in Southampton, which oversees ship design.
Since 2007, Holland America has had its own reservation and sales office in the Netherlands, this year booking a number of cruises from Rotterdam where 95% of the passengers were Dutch. In 2010, the Dutch-flag line will offer half a dozen round-trip cruise departures from Rotterdam or Amsterdam and five cruises between Amsterdam and the UK, as well as five round-trip cruises from the UK.
The Benelux cruise market numbered only 42,000 in 2005, but increased by half to 64,000 in 2006 and then almost doubled from 2005 to 2007 when it reached 82,000. Benelux cruisers numbered 92,000 in 2008, enough to fill  Nieuw Amsterdam forty-three times, making it the seventh largest cruise market in Europe. But for a population of about 28 million, it is still a small market, although showing signs of growth. Scandinavia, by comparison, with a population of about 25 million produces 123,000 cruisers, or a third more than the Benelux.
Meanwhile, four important corporate roles at Holland America fall into Dutch hands. Newbuildings are under the control of Pieter Rijkaart, the line’s director of new build ships. Mr. Rijkaart, now based in Seattle, began his Holland America career on the freighter Soestdijk, named after the birthplace of Queen Beatrix, in 1963, but soon moved to the line’s second Nieuw Amsterdam.
Eventually, he became chief engineer of the line’s last North Atlantic liner, Rotterdam (of which see more below), before coming ashore to look after the line’s newbuildings. First among these was the line’s third Nieuw Amsterdam, which now sails as  Thomson Spirit. And two week ago, Pieter’s wife Hana acted as patron for the latest Nieuw Amsterdam.
Holland America Line’s ship registry has been back in the Netherlands since 1996, after many years under offshore flags. With the delivery of the Nieuw Amsterdam next year Holland America Line will have a fleet of fifteen cruise ships, all registered in the Netherlands. And staffing, particularly the fleet’s well-known Dutch navigation, engineering and hotel officers, still come largely from the Netherlands, while the traditional Indonesian crew have been added to with Filipinos.
Yet another function, ships’ decoration, while also now sourced out to firms such as Fincantieri Design in Italy and Yran and Storbraaten in Norway, has been greatly influenced by Frans Dingemans’ VFD Interiors in Utrecht, which has worked with Holland America for 35 years. Many of the antiques and much of the artwork used in Holland America Line ships and even the ships’ chairs have traditionally been sourced in the Netherlands.

The Hotel New York and Cruise Hotel Rotterdam
Holland America Line ships, as well as others, now sale from Cruise Terminal Rotterdam, installed in the old Transatlantic embarkation and customs hall of the Holland America Line on the Wilhelminakade. This is also where Holland America Line has located its new Benelux sales and reservations office.
But the Holland America Line tradition also carries on in other ways. The headquarters building of the old Holland America Line, for example, opened on the Wilhelminakade in 1901, and served that purpose for the decades, surviving two world wars and seeing thousands of ocean liner sailings from those docks to America. The last liner to leave the Wilhelminakade for New York, on November 8, 1971, was the 1938-built Nieuw Amsterdam, second of the name, although cargo operations continued for some years.
The former headquarters building, with its twin copper-roofed towers, was sold in 1984, after the company had moved to the United States to become one of the more important North American-based cruise lines.
Now, that same building offers a unique and interesting opportunity for a stay near things maritime in Rotterdam. Since 1993, the 72-room Hotel New York, which also has seven function rooms and a large bar-restaurant, has been operating in the former Rotterdam headquarters. Located on the old docks, adjacent to the city’s present cruise terminal, the Hotel New York, as it is now known, is also accessible for foot passengers by 8-passenger water taxis, hardwood motor boats that cross the river from the Rotterdam Maritime Museum, or by car over the nearby bridge.
The hotel and grounds have good views of passing shipping on the nearby Maas River and the historic feel has been kept by decorating hallways and rooms with antique and vintage luggage and steamer trunks.
Meanwhile,  Rotterdam, the fifth liner of that name and the last Holland America Transatlantic liner, has finally found her way back to Rotterdam, having returned on August 4, 2008, almost fifty years after her first voyage to New York in 1959. To-day, she is in the course of being converted into a floating hotel, and is now in the course of preparation for opening late next month as the 257-room Cruise Hotel Rotterdam.
With three restaurants, two bars, a theatre and many meeting and function rooms, as well as shops at her new permanent location in the port of Rotterdam in the Maashaven, she is located in the next set of docks along the Maas from the Hotel New York.
While the Netherlands also has interests in river cruising on the Rhine, its participation in the ocean field was diminished somewhat earlier this year by the failure of locally-based Club Cruise. It is good therefore to see local companies such as Oceanwide developing a new seagoing tradition while the venerable Holland America Line, although now an American company, redevelops its Dutch roots by operating cruises on Dutch-flagged and officered ships from Rotterdam, where it was founded over 135 years ago.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

A Modern Crystal Beach at Sea?

Now that ships have become destinations in their own right, the 225,282-ton Oasis of the Seas has had to set up some of her own ports of call as she’s too big to go to most other places.
A new dock has been built at Labadee and a new port is being developed for her at Falmouth, Jamaica. Recent new ports developed by the cruise lines have also included Cozumel and Costa Maya in Mexico, Roatan in Honduras and Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
These places, with their instant shopping villages, restaurant outlets and beer halls, tend to style themselves after the North American suburban mall, except for the more recent addition of theme park rides, which is bringing them more into line with theme parks.
Let’s have a look at the places the mass market lines go and examine some recent trends brought about with the advent of the jumbo cruise ship.

Now: Caribbean Theme Park Islands and Beaches
For years there were two ports in the Eastern Caribbean that most cruise ships sailing from Florida went to. One was San Juan, in the associated free state of Puerto Rico, and the other was St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Indeed, St Thomas became so large that malls were finally built right on the docks so that passengers could shop without having to go into the town of Charlotte Amalie. And of course Americans could double their duty-free purchases from the usual two bottles of spirits to four at St Thomas. However, is beginning to be the mass market cruise of the past.
Starting next month, Oasis of the Seas will run a 7-day Eastern Caribbean itinerary from Fort Lauderdale that will include St Thomas, St Maarten and Nassau, and a Western Caribbean itinerary to Labadee, Costa Maya and Cozumel. In December 2010, the new Jamaican port of Falmouth, whose opening has been delayed a year, will replace Costa Maya.
If Falmouth is anything like Cozumel and Grand Turk it will have shoreside beer bars and "retail experiences" galore, but there may yet be hope. Meanwhile, NCL’s new Norwegian Epic will sail from Miami to the same Eastern Caribbean ports as Oasis of the Seas but her Western Caribbean itinerary will include Costa Maya, Roatan and Cozumel. Although two calls in Mexico may be rather repetitive, at least Oasis of the Seas will be able to switch to Jamaica in a year’s time.
As of to-day, we have landside surfing at Grand Turk, which now has a FlowRider installation dockside that is similar to those carried on the larger Royal Caribbean ships. Opened in June 2008, this is now part of the new $50 million Grand Turk Cruise Center, which features an 14-acre shopping and restaurant complex and dates to February 2006.
Among other things, it also includes the Caribbean’s largest Margaritaville bar, restaurant and store, and 45,000 sq ft shopping centre. Previously an isolated out-of-the-way island of 3,700 souls that had not seen regular passenger service since the Clyde Line a hundred years ago, Grand Turk has now come to the fore as a Carnival Corp & PLC cruise port that is relatively close to Miami, and only thirty miles south of the Bahamas. Indeed, it is mainly Carnival, Costa, Holland America, P&O, Princess and Seabourn ships that call here except for the odd unexpected call by Crystal, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas.
Elsewhere, next week, a new elevated chairlift will begin taking cruisers from the Carnival cruise terminal at Roatan directly to the private beach at Mahogany Bay. Passengers will pay $5 for a pass for unlimited six-minute rides that travel 67 feet above the ground and the treetops. With a capacity of 1,500 passengers an hour, the four-passenger chairlift units, named by Carnival the "Magical Flying Beach Chair," look very much like a conventional ski lift.
Last year, the three-acre Roatan Cruise Port Village was opened there by Royal Caribbean, something that added shopping to the agenda where previously they had had to rely on that island’s "rustic charms.".
Royal Caribbean has gone a step further at Labadee, however, with the opening this year of a new "Dragon’s Tail" Alpine roller coaster at its private "island" beach in Haiti. According to Adam Goldstein, Royal Caribbean International president, riders will reach 680 feet and "have just enough time to catch your breath and marvel at the view before turning and whooshing down at 30 miles per hour. Racing through 360-degree turns and dips, waves and curves, riders will be able to catch glimpses of the ocean."
The ride time will be 3-5 minutes, of which about two thirds is reported to be up and about 30 seconds down. Royal Caribbean charge $35 per passenger for the ride (a child with an adult rides free), and $85 for the "Dragon’s Breath Flight Line" zip-line. There have been a number of protests that Royal Caribbean is charging too much for these installations, where they have everyone captive anyway as it is a private island (it’s actually a peninsula).
Once back on board, however, passengers can benefit from the carousel and zip-line in Oasis of the Seas, as well as a bar that rides up and down between three decks.
Not only that, but Labadee will soon boast three new features, now under development: the "retail experiences" of Dragon’s Plaza and Labadee Town Square, and the Columbus Family Beach. Dragon’s Plaza will be the heart of Labadee and will also feature the Dragon’s Breath Café and Pub, a welcome centre, and central tram station, which will ferry guests to other areas of the peninsula. Labadee Town Square will offer guests shopping, dining and entertainment, including the Haitian Cultural Museum, Café Labadee and Bar, and the Straw and Artisan Market.
This expansion, including a new pier, is all caused by Oasis of the Seas, of course, which is scheduled to make her first call there on December 3. Bringing 5-6,000 passengers a week, the existing facilities would have been hopelessly inadequate.
Meanwhile, Falmouth, a small 18th Century port on Jamaica’s north coast, is due to open in December 2010 as a new cruise port for larger vessels. Located between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, it will cater for Royal Caribbean’s new jumbo-sized Oasis of the Seas and will be developed as a heritage renewal project, based on the town’s early Jamaican architecture, plus a large shopping mall, developed from existing facilities.
Built as a planned town, Falmouth had piped water even before New York. Once home to several hundred sugar plantations, it thrived during the slave trade but has been relatively quiet since 1840 and is only now being redeveloped. One potential source of confusion, however, is that there is already a cruise port called Falmouth in Antigua.

Then: American Theme Park Islands and Beaches
In all this modern cruise port development there is something wonderfully reminiscent of America’s early theme parks in the days before Disney. A century ago many large US cities had amusement parks developed closer to home so that the population could escape their day-to-day activities, often by dedicated steamers that took millions to locales such as Coney Island from Manhattan, Bob-Lo Island from Detroit and Crystal Beach from Buffalo. Both the latter were actually in Canada (and two of the Bob-Lo steamers are still afloat awaiting refurbishment).
Coney Island itself had two kinds of steamers – as well as the ones that took the crowds from crowded piers of Manhattan and elsewhere to Coney Island, the other "Coney Island steamer" was the hot dog that was sold in Coney Island starting in 1871. And Coney Island had not only its fairground rides and hot dogs but beaches and even hotels.
There were even two Coney Islands – as well as the one in Brooklyn, Cincinnati developed its own, along with a five-deck steamer called Island Queen that could carry up to 4,000 passengers at a time from Cincinnati to their "island" escape, actually on the mainland ten miles up the Ohio River.
Much like these destinations, Cozumel, Grand Turk, Roatan and Labadee (although the jury may be out on Falmouth) are beginning to sound just a little bit like the Coney Island, Bob-Lo and Crystal Beach of a hundred years ago.
And the ships going to these new "islands" carry 4,000 or 5,000 just like the old excursion steamers used to. Labadee is even beginning to develop its own tram lines just as Coney Island once did (it had five of them).
One is somewhat tempted therefore, if one is not looking for an amusement park, to move over to Oceania, Windstar or SeaDream. Oceania’s Regatta, for example, offers a typical 12-night Caribbean cruise itinerary from Miami (for them) that includes Virgin Gorda, St Barts, Dominica, St Lucia, Antigua, Tortola and Samana (but finishes with Grand Turk before returning to Miami).
Or, further south, Windstar’s Wind Surf leaves Barbados on a 7-day itinerary that calls at Bequia, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and St Lucia, island stops that are all more familiar to the traditional Caribbean cruiser.
While these new ports for 100,000-tonners are perhaps not the kind of cruise experience one is used to, it must be said that the cruise lines are developing plenty for their passengers to do, even if it appears that they own most of the shore side cash registers too. And luckily enough, the cruise market is now large enough to be able to cater to both types of cruiser.
Courtesy: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com

A New Concept in World Cruising

Cruise West recently announced a new cruising concept that will see its Spirit of Oceanus follow in the wake of Stella Polaris, that for so many years cruised the world in luxury carrying no more than 199 guests. Now, the similar-sized Spirit of Oceanus will start a 335-day circumnavigation in March 2010 carrying just 114 passengers.

While most world cruises typically leave in the first week of January, Princess is also experimenting with cruises that leave outside the usual sailing dates and have a 104-day world cruise planned for  Dawn Princess, for example, which left Sydney in an eastbound direction on July 5.
Seabourn will also conduct its first world cruise, a 108-day affair, leaving on January 5 next year, after they take delivery this month of its new 450-passenger Seabourn Odyssey. But unless one considers the privately-owned suites on board The World of Residensea to be the equivalent of a cruise ship, no one is doing what Cruise West is doing, taking almost a year to circumnavigate the Earth.

Two World Cruisers
An interesting comparison can be made of Spirit of Oceanus with the old Stella Polaris. Of generally similar size, both were first delivered to Norwegian owners and both powered by twin Burmeister & Wain diesel engines, even if built 64 years apart!
Stella Polaris measured 5,209 gross tons. Delivered by AB Götaverken, Gothenburg in February 1927, she had dimensions of 360.5′ x 50′ x 30′, and was powered by twin 8-cylinder B&W diesels delivering 5,250 brake horsepower and a speed of15.6 knots. She carried 199 passengers, later modified to 155. Built for the Bergen Line, Bergen, she passed to Clipper Cruises in 1952.
Spirit of Oceanus measures 4,200 gross tons. Delivered by Nuovi Cantieri Apuania, Italy, in January 1991, she has dimensions of 295.5′ x 50.1′ x 28.2′, she is powered by twin 8 cylinder B&W diesels delivering 5,000 brake horsepower and a speed of 16 knots. She now carries 120 passengers. Built for Fernley & Eger, Oslo, she passed to Cruise West in 2001.
With her yacht-like bowsprit, Stella Polaris was quite a bit longer than Spirit of Oceanus but the two ships hull dimensions would be fairly similar. Spirit of Oceanus also has a zodiac launching platform astern and a new owners suite installed on the top deck above the bridge.

The Story of Stella Polaris
After being delivered in early 1927 to the Bergen Line, a company founded in 1851. The Bergen Line would later become one of the three founders of the Royal Viking Line. On her arrival on the scene, Stella Polaris became one of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, embarking once a year on a full world cruise that left New York in January after a Christmas cruise to the Caribbean. There, along with the British-flag Arandora Star and Vandyck and Canadian Pacific’s Duchess of Richmond, she became one of the first cruise ships to call on Miami. During the summer months she cruised in Europe, usually to the North Cape and Norwegian fjords, which she did until 1939. In 1940, she was seized by the Germans and used as a recreation ship for U-Boat crews.
After the war, the Bergen Line sent Stella Polaris back to Gotaverken for an almost complete rebuild and she re-entered service on the same formula until being sold to the Clipper Line of Sweden in 1952, when her capacity was reduced to 155. In 1969, Clipper sold her to Japanese interests who used her as a floating hotel and later restaurant at Kisho Nishiura. Repurchased by Swedish interests in August 2006, she unfortunately sank in Japanese waters the next month while being towed to a shipyard to equip her for the long tow back to Stockholm, where she was to have been used as a floating hotel and restaurant.

Spirit of Oceanus The Story of Stella Polaris
Spirit of Oceanus was one of eight luxury cruise ships completed for Fearnley & Eger, Norwegian shipowners that dated back to 1869. Two sets of four ships each were built in two different shipyards for a new cruising company called Renaissance Cruises and the one that became Spirit of Oceanus was delivered as Renaissance V in 1991 . Fearnley & Eger had earlier been involved in the cruise market through a partnership in Flagship Cruises, which built two ships for the New York-Bermuda market and later purchased Swedish American’s Kungsholm. All three were later sold to P&O for their Princess Cruises division.
Fearnley & Eger had also converted one of its own roro ferries into the cruise ship Explorer Starship to trade in Alaska. This ship became better known later as Song of Flower. But the delivery of eight ships in such a short period unfortunately led to the demise of Fearnley & Eger. Renaissance Cruises would survive under different ownership until a similarly ambitious scheme to build eight larger cruise ships in turn bankrupted them in 2001.
Having been owned by Sun Cruises and then Star Cruises, Spirit of Oceanus was finally acquired by Cruise West in 2001, becoming the largest ship in their fleet of Alaska small ships.
Until now, Cruise West has been sending  Spirit of Oceanus to the South Pacific, Japan and the Far East during the North American winter season, but with the recent downturn in the Alaska market, the cruise line has come up with an entirely different programme for 2010.

Voyages of the Great Explorers
Cruise West has divided this epic voyage into six sectors that it calls "chapters," one each in relation to Marco Polo, Odysseus and the Phoenicians, Leif Eriksson, Columbus, Cook and Magellan, offering in total 24 cruises that start from $4,995 per person.
Chapter 1: Marco Polo – March 6 – May 5, 2010. Four enticing voyages recall the ancient trade routes from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. Departing Singapore, these itineraries visit Thailand and Burma before exploring the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka. Then it’s on to historic Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan and Egypt, before concluding in Alexandria.
Chapter 2: Odysseus and the Phoenicians – May 5 – July 20, 2010. These six voyages explore sun-drenched islands where gods and goddesses once meddled in the affairs of mortals. Beginning in Alexandria, the ship sails to mythic destinations in Greece and Turkey while guests can also visit Tunis, Algeria, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Spain and Portugal before arriving in Honfleur, France.
Chapter 3: Leif Eriksson – July 20 – September 8, 2010. Inspired by the heroic exploits of the Vikings, these three voyages combine glaciers, capital cities, and days at sea between two continents. Departing Honfleur, France, explore Ireland, the Orkney Isles and Scandinavia as well as the enchanting cities of Tallinn, St. Petersburg, London and Edinburgh. Crossing the Atlantic, she stops in Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands before ending up in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Chapter 4: Christopher Columbus – September 8 – November 2, 2010. Five memorable voyages bring the New World into a new perspective. Depart St. John’s, Newfoundland and cruise along the Atlantic coastline, and transit the Panama Canal. With the ease offered on a small ship, explore the tropical rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica before disembarking in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Extensions are available to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Pichu.
Chapter 5: James Cook – November 2, 2010 – January 19, 2011. Cruise the South Pacific from Easter Island to Darwin, in waters Captain Cook once charted. Unknown to many, Cook had also surveyed the waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence off Newfoundland, where Spirit of Oceanus sailed before heading south again. These five voyages feature remote islands with pristine beaches, fabulous snorkelling and fascinating local cultures in Easter Island, Polynesia, New Guinea, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia, ending in Darwin.
Chapter 6: Ferdinand Magellan – January 19 – February 3, 2011. The final chapter of the Voyages of the Great Explorers departs from Darwin bound for the port where the journey began in Singapore. Along the way explore intriguing cultures throughout Indonesia that combine Hindu, Islam, Western and indigenous influences, and wildlife ranging from the extraordinarily beautiful to the wonderfully bizarre.
Guests booking the full 335 days, visiting 242 ports in 59 countries, will also be given First Class air fare to and from Singapore. The exploration-style journey will include 85 UNESCO World Heritage sites and cross fourteen seas and oceans, and transit three canals — Suez, Corinth and Panama.
The all-suite Spirit of Oceanus is Cruise West’s most spacious and luxurious ship. Each suite offers spacious closets, a large marble bathroom, sitting area and television. Two lounges, an outside bistro and an open-sitting dining room provide a casual onboard atmosphere. Seven suite categories are offered, including fourteen with private balconies and one spacious Owner’s Suite on the ship’s Sun Deck. Both her masters come from world-circling backgrounds with Cunard Line and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, two of the earliest promoters of world cruises.

Other World Cruise Concepts
In 1999, in order to celebrate the Millennium, the World Cruise Company introduced a single ship intended to make three world cruises a year, of 127, 116 and 118 days, according to the season. Starting with Ocean Explorer I, the venture was hit by a spike in the price of oil that cost it $1 million a circumnavigation. Although the line then chartered smaller, less fuel-thirsty ships, it had not hedged against the rising cost of fuel and ended up in bankruptcy in 2000, taking associated Toronto-based adventure company Marine Expeditions down with it in 2001.
A similarly unsuccessful UK company, Travelscope, succeeded in selling out a few world cruises on out of season dates, using first  Athena and then Van Gogh in The venture, although it stumbled along for a while as Van Gogh Cruises after a ship arrest in 2007, eventually went bankrupt in early 2008. Other mooted ventures did not even get started.
Some of the more successful lines, however, have also from time to time set off on world cruises outside the usual leaving time of the first week of January.  Dawn Princess, for example, will leave Sydney once again, in a westbound direction this time, on May 21, 2010. How many from the northern hemisphere might want to join a world cruise in Sydney is an interesting point, but of course only so many book the full cruise. Dawn Princess is one of two Princess ships that are now based year-round in Australia.
While 335 days may be a bit too much for most world cruisers, Spirit of Oceanus voyage, divided into 24 cruises with 242 port calls, does offer a tremendous opportunity for explorers who might wish to see parts of the world they have never seen before. Following on the 100th Anniversary of the first world cruise, which was performed in 1909 by the Hamburg America Line’s Cleveland, it will be interesting to see whether Spirit of Oceanus will now develop a following similar to  Stella Polaris, and whether this voyage will become an annual event.

(By Kind Permission of Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Fire at The Cruise People, Ltd.

There was a major fire to-day in the building housing The Cruise People. No one was hurt but the building is in bad shape. Power and telephone lines are cut. All files and bookings are backed up. While we get communication lines reorganized we ask that you kindly communicate by e-mail. A reminder, our email address is cruise@thecruisepeople.ca

Not OASIS OF THE SEAS

With 884 articles on Oasis of the Seas now listed in Google News, we have decided that we should not write the 885th.
With plenty of coverage for the new 225,282-ton Royal Caribbean behemoth, including a brief stop in the UK to disembark workers as she heads for Florida, we have decided to cover some other stories today.

This week we look at Southampton threatening Liverpool in the UK, Princess considering new ships, the Dutch introducing a new Antarctic ship and Disney introducing some really clever and novel ideas, that perhaps only they could get away with, while finally, Italy beats out Mexico as the world’s number one cruise destination.

Southampton protests Liverpool use of EU Funds
In the UK, Associated British Ports, owners of the Port of Southampton, are calling for an enquiry into the Port of Liverpool’s intention to open its new Pier Head cruise terminal as an embarkation port for cruises leaving the UK. At the moment, the Pier Head facility is used only as a port of call.

Southampton points out that £9 million out of the £20 million total cost of the new Liverpool cruise terminal came from EU assistance funds, whereas the Port of Southampton, with three cruise terminals, has been totally privately funded. It would therefore regard any move to install baggage, customs and immigration facilities needed to handle cruise ship departures to be unfair competition.

Almost 300 cruise ships called at Southampton last year compared to 16 at Liverpool, but if Liverpool were to attract just one line this could mean anything in the area of say 40 new calls to the northern port. Liverpool’s Pier Head terminal last made news on October 20 when Queen Mary 2 berthed there for the first time on a visit to the city which had once been Cunard Line headquarters and had seen the line’s first departures in 1840.

The Liverpool facility is run by Peel Ports, which owns the Mersey Docks & Harbour Company.

Newbuildings for Princess?
Recent reports indicating that a number of executives from Princess Cruises have met with Meyer Werft in Papenburg have followed by several months reports that Carnival Corp & PLC were considering ordering two Princess newbuildings from Mitsubishi.

The latest reports have of course caused new speculation as to when cruise ship orders might be placed again. Significantly, although plenty of new ships are now being delivered, no new cruise ship orders have been placed during the first ten months of 2009.

Princess president Alan Buckelew, however, has announced that the line has a new prototype design, which is based on a slightly longer version of Ruby Princess, a Fincantieri product. But Meyer Werft is not known as a Carnival yard, having been tied into first Celebrity, then Royal Caribbean and then Star, NCL and P&O for  Oriana and Aurora.
The Carnival connection lies mainly with Fincantieri and even if P&O had two ships built by Meyer Werft their newer P&O ships have come from Princess designs. As they say, stay tuned.

Antarctic Cruiser Plancius to be Named in Netherlands
On November 14, Oceanwide Expeditions will name its latest polar expedition ship Plancius. Following the recent entry into service of Lindblad’s 148-berth National Geographic Explorer (a former Norwegian coastal vessel), and Gap Adventures’ 120-berth Expedition (an ex-Baltic ferry),  Plancius is the third new conversion to have been added to the Antarctic expedition trade in the last year.

Built in 1976 as the Netherlands oceanographic research ship Tydemann,  Plancius as rebuilt can now accommodate 110 passengers in fifty-three cabins plus 36 crew.

The vessel will be named a week from Saturday by Carla Peijs, the Queen’s Commissioner for the province of Zeeland. She then departs for the Antarctic and leaves Ushuaia on her maiden voyage on January 8, 2010.

The ship is being named for the Dutch astronomer, mapmaker and geologist Petrus Plancius (1552 ­ 1622), who postulated the existence of a northern passage to Asia. His theory provoked several northern discovery voyages at the end of the 16th Century and a Dutch expedition under Willem Brantsz discovered Spitsbergen, but got stuck in the pack ice of Nova Zembla. To-day, that route is known as the Northeast Passage.

Interesting Features in New Disney Ships
Among the newbuilding projects now under way, last week Disney revealed some of the unique features the new 128,000ton Disney Dream will boast. These include a 765-foot long water coaster ride, to be called the AquaDuck, and “virtual portholes” in inside cabins, which fed by video cameras on the outside of the ship, interspersed occasionally with Disney characters.
While the latest Disney ship will join Carnival Dream and Norwegian Epic in the waterslide department, the Disney ship’s will be the longest afloat (Carnival’s is only 300 feet) and will be based on a two-person raft, propelled in some areas by waterjets. At one point near the stern the ride will go 13 feet beyond the edge of the ship at about 150 above the water, giving a bit of a thrill factor as well to the 90-second ride.

Bookings for Disney Dream open next week and her maiden voyage is scheduled to leave Port Canaveral on January 26, 2011. While on the subject of Disney, the company will return to Europe in 2010 with Disney Magic, which will operate a series of summer Baltic cruises from Dover as well as Mediterranean cruises from Barcelona between May and September.  Disney Magic was last in Europe in 2007.

Italy beats Mexico for Cruise Passengers
After many years of Mexico boasting to welcome the largest number of cruise ship passengers, with its combination of Pacific and Atlantic cruise ports and its proximity to the United States, Italy has now come to the fore. This news comes from John Tercek, vice president of commercial development at Royal Caribbean Cruises, speaking at the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association’s latest meeting in St Lucia.

His view is that Italy’s five home ports of Venice, Civitavecchia, Naples, Genoa and Savona, not to mention the number of calls cruise ships now make at Italian ports not only on the mainland but also in Sicily and Sardinia, now give Italy the advantage. As well, recent years have seen the development of year-round Mediterranean cruising by not only locals such as Costa, MSC and Louis but also by outsiders such as Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line.

Meanwhile, the largest passenger ship ever built, Oasis of the Seas, will head out into the Atlantic after her brief stop at the Isle of Wight to offload her workers.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Ski-Style Chair Lift Debuts at Mahogany Beach Cruise Center in Roatan

 

A new elevated chair lift – which will offer a round-trip transfer between the new Mahogany Bay Cruise Center in Roatan and beautiful Mahogany Beach – will debut in conjunction with the cruise facility’s grand opening next month.

Unique to the Caribbean, the “Magical Flying Beach Chair” will be the first chair lift that transports riders from a cruise ship terminal directly to the beach.

The new beach chair lift will be one of the marquis features of the modern $62 million Mahogany Bay Cruise Center, which will welcome its first cruise ship, Carnival Cruise Lines’ 2,124-passenger Carnival Legend, on Friday, November 20.

The Mahogany Bay Cruise Center, which encompasses 20 acres of waterfront property and includes a two-berth cruise terminal, is a joint project of Carnival Corporation and Roatan businessman Jerry Hynds.

Guests board the new beach chair lift system at the facility’s expansive Welcome Center and are dropped off directly on Mahogany Beach, a 10-acre private island featuring an 825-foot-long white-sand  beach replete with lounge chairs, floats, a beach volleyball court and myriad watersport opportunities.  There are also eight exclusive cabanas for rent offering private beach access.

Modelled after a traditional ski lift and incorporating the latest technological advancements, the new “Magical Flying Beach Chair” takes cruise ship passengers on an exciting, fun-filled six-minute ride across nearly 1,200 feet of cables suspended 67 feet above a lush canopy of trees.

Accommodating four riders each, the galvanized steel beach lift chairs are available to cruise ship holidayers for a $5 fee which includes unlimited rides throughout the day.  Chair lift passes are also included in pre-sold beach activity on board the cruise ships calling at the port.   The chair-lift system has the capability of transporting up to 1,500 passengers per hour.

The “Magical Flying Beach Chair” was designed and installed by Rain Forest Trams, a company that owns and operates five adventure parks in Central America and the Caribbean.  Rain Forest Trams also operates Mystic Mountain in Jamaica, one of the Caribbean’s top attractions.  The beach chair was manufactured by Salt Lake City-based Dopplemayer, a world leader in ropeway engineering.

The chair lift is an exciting feature of the expansive Mahogany Bay project, which includes two cruise ship piers and can accommodate up to 8,000 passengers daily.  The facility is expected to host more than 200 cruise ship calls and more than 500,000 passengers annually.

The Mahogany Bay Cruise Center also offers a wide range of retail outlets, including two themed bars, a restaurant and several shops. A transportation hub with the ability to accommodate taxis, rental cars and tour buses, along with a wide range of shore excursion opportunities, are also available.

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Cruising à la Française

Here is Mark Tré’s latest report on the state of cruising in France, a country where, despite having produced ships of state such as Normandie and France and cruise ships up to the size of RMS Queen Mary 2, its own residents are far behind the rest of Europe in taking up cruising.
Even those operators who have more recently entered the French market sometimes have trouble ramping up to the next ship size as the market grows (or they hope will grow). So let us have a look at this late developing market.

The State of the French Market
Unlike the UK market and more recently the Spanish, Italian and German markets, France is a long way behind in the number of its residents that take a cruise every year. From 212,000 cruisers in 2003 the market had grown by 2007 to only 280,000, a smaller 32% rise compared to it neighbours Italy, which had grown 85% to 640,000 and Spain, up by 69% to 513,000 in 2007.
France, a country of 64 million souls, produced less than 1% of the total European cruise market of 4 million passengers.
Taking fifth place in Europe, French passengers represented only 7.9% of those booking cruises in the top five European countries, while 37.8% came from the UK, 21.6% from Germany, and 18.1% from Italy and 14.6% from Spain, both neighbours. Perhaps too used to their own croissants and espressos, breads, wines and cheeses, the French seem positively reluctant to step aboard a cruise ship and go exploring.
It now seems that the French Line was run entirely for the benefit of French emigrants and American tourists, and after the demise of Paquet Cruises, the country was not represented by a single large cruise ship other than the 394-berth Club Med 2 and 330-berth Paul Gauguin in Tahiti, both of which are niche products.
But things may be changing. In 2008, the French market grew to 310,000 compared to 280,000 the year before, or by almost 11%. While growth from 2006 to 2007 was 15.7%, this was still double digit and in an uncertain year and has to be compared to previous years’ growth rates of between 3% and 5%. In Spain, on the other hand, the market actually fell by 4% in 2008 while Italy grew by only 6%.
France is still the poor man, but in 2008 it grew faster than any other major European market outside Germany, which grew by 19%. The big question is can France begin to grow in the same way Germany has. It is still very early days but both Royal Caribbean and Carnival Corp & PLC, as well as some indiginous French operators, are keen to find out.

Croisières de France
Formed in late 2007 as an arm of Pullmantur Cruises, Croisières de France has been operating unilingual French-language cruises with Bleu de France since May 2008. The product is all-inclusive, with fare, port charges, gratuities and drinks with lunch and dinner and in the bars all included in the price.and unconfirmed estimates put carryings by this ship, dedicated to the French market, at about 30,000 passengers during her first year of service.
After having concentrated in its first year by summer on the Mediterranean market from Marseilles and the Caribbean by winter, Croisières de France is changing its approach for 2010. Instead of sending Bleu de France to the Caribbean this winter, the line will embark passengers on a ship of sister company Pullmantur.
Pacific Dream, formerly Celebrity’s Horizon, will carry a mix of Spanish-speaking passengers and francophones from both France and Quebec, sailing from La Romana in the Dominican Republic, a popular haunt as well and with good airlift for French-speaking Canadians escaping the frozen north, as did Bleu de France last winter.
Meanwhile, the French ship will remain in the Mediterranean, as with so many other cruise ships in recent years, and will also sail the Red Sea. This should allow Croisières de France to build its passenger numbers further in anticipation of further expansion.
In the meantime, a rumour last week had  Bleu de France being sold to another operator, widely touted as being Saga of the UK. Built as Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ last Europa, she would be a perfect replacement for its Saga Rose, which is being retired as the new SOLAS 2010 regulations come into effect.
If this is true, the problem for Croisières de France will be that while Bleu de France has 374 cabins, the next size up, Pacific Dream (ex-Horizon), has 715, which would mean having to double the line’s carryings in one fell swoop if she were chosen as a replacement.
Although little different from adding a second ship to a one-ship operation, some doubt that Croisières de France would be able to double its business that quickly in an uncertain market. On the other hand, the French economy is now out of recession and grew by 0.3% in the first quarter while the French purchasing manager’s index is this month at its highest in almost three years.

Croisières Paquet
While in the larger ship market, other news to come out of France is about Paquet, which was acquired many years ago by Costa Cruises of Genoa. Now dormant for a decade, Carnival plans to revive the Paquet brand in 2010 in an agreement with Marseilles-based TMR, who will market the 820 lower-berth Costa Allegra from Marseilles exclusively for French cruise passengers.
Best known for the cruises that were previously operated by Mermoz, the last word in French cruise ships of any size, several hundred items from which raised €195,000 recently at an auction in Marseilles, the Paquet brand could have a lot of sway in how the French choose their cruises.
The new Paquet will thus provide head-on competition for Croisières de France, operated by Carnival arch-rival Royal Caribbean. As Costa Allegra is returning from China, where she is being replaced by a larger ship, it has not yet been announced just how French her crew may be and whether she will be similarly a totally unilingual ship, but it seems certain that a French cruise staff will be taking over for these cruises.
To begin service from Marseilles in May 2010, she will add to Costa’s own capacity from that port with an initial programme of four 11-to-14-day cruises to the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. These cruises will test the waters through to late June and will be followed by more Paquet cruises, mostly musically-themed, in September and October. Costa now accounts for half the uptake of French passengers, or more than150,000 berths on their Marseilles calls.
Her Future
By using TMR instead of its own Costa channels in France (and Costa has been building up good volumes from Marseilles), the revived Paquet will be using a separate distribution channel to the French market, and one that is a little more upmarket. TMR founder Maurice Ravon chartered Norway, ex-France, in 1993 and again in 2000, and in 2003 carried some 15,000 French passengers in the 684-berth Insignia (since renamed Regatta), on charter from Oceania Cruises, and in 2004 in her sister ship Nautica.

Compagnie du Ponant
Ponant Cruises, as it has recently been dubbed for the English-speaking world, got its start in 1988 when it was founded by two former French merchant navy officers as Compagnie des Iles du Ponant (recently shortened to Compagnie du Ponant) at Nantes. Its first ship was the 64-berth sail-assisted Le Ponant, built in 1991, and she was joined in 1998 by the 90-passenger megayacht Le Levant.
This pair of newbuildings was joined in 2004 by the former Song of Flower, acquired from Radisson Seven Seas and enlarged from 180 to 226 passengers.
Since 2006, Compagnie du Ponant has been Marseilles-based as the cruising arm of CMA CGM, successors to the original French Line and Messageries Maritime. More than forty CMA CGM cargo ships also carry passengers, of which they can accommodate more than 336 when full, primarily on routes to China, Australia, South America and the French West Indies.
Jacques Saadé, CMA CGM chairman, has made sure that as many new CMA CGM ships as possible include passenger accommodation when they are built as a kind of tribute to the traditions of the once-famous French Line.
Ponant Cruises, meanwhile, is due to take delivery in 2010 of two new ships from Fincantieri, which while not large with 264 berths each, will bring another 528 berths into a company that now counts only 380, thus more than doubling its capacity. To be named L’Austral and Le Boréal, these two ships will be ice-strengthened and will cruise worldwide, to Asia, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Antarctic, Spitzbergen, Iceland, Greenland, the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes, among other destinations.
A good amount of their business will be in charters and the latest news on the that front is that Le Boréal has been chartered to long-time Antarctic operator Abercrombie & Kent for its 20th Antarctic season between December 2010 and January 2011. Unlike any other expedition ship before, Le Boréal provides balconies with 95% of its cabins, something totally new for the Antarctic.
For Antarctic cruises, capacity will be limited to 199 passengers and fares will start at $9,995 or $15,975 per person. Le Boréal will succeed Swan Hellenic’s Minerva, which will be cruising the Far East instead. Le Boréal will thus become the first French ship to have been built for polar trades since the Marion Dufresne II, which, built at le Havre in 1995, carried a dozen passengers to Kerguelen and the French Antarctic territories.

The Port of Marseilles
Two-thirds of the French market, about 200,000 passengers, cruise the Mediterranean, and for this its major port is Marseilles. As of earlier this year, the Port of Marseilles has one of the more interesting cruise terminal operations as here, three non-French lines, Costa and MSC from Italy and Louis Cruise Lines of Cyprus, have teamed up to operate a tripartite cruise passenger terminal now called the Marseille-Provence Cruise Terminal (MPCT) under a €12 million plan that will expand cruise capacity in the port, with a goal of handling one million passengers a year starting in 2011.
That presumably means 500,000 each way but is a measure of how significant some feel the French cruise market could be.
All three of these lines already embark passengers in either Genoa or Savona on one day and then in Marseilles the next for their 7-day cruises and the same occurs at disembarkation, with cruise traffic in Marseilles having shown interesting growth in the past few years. While Costa and MSC operate their own offices in France, Louis Cruise Lines relies on its own affiliate, CroisiFrance, to book its French passengers.
And as well as both Costa and MSC having introduced newbuildings to the market from Genoa/Savona and Marseilles, Louis is almost doubling its own capacity with one ship by replacing the 756 lower-berth Coral with the 1,460-berth Louis Majesty on December 4.

CroisiEurope, Plein Cap, CPTM and Others
In addition to the 310,000 French ocean cruisers that booked in 2008, some 142,000 river cruisers significantly increase French numbers. Strasbourg-based CroisiEurope, with a fleet of 26 vessels on the Danube, Rhine, Rhone, Seine and elsewhere, and the 200-berth coastal cruiser Belle de l’Adriatique cruising the Croatian Coast for affiliate CroisiMer, is now the largest river operator in Europe.
It is a sign of the infancy of the French market that CroisiEurope presently has a larger berth capacity than any other French cruise operator. Last month, it also dedicated a new brand, CroisiMusique, to operating music cruises.
Other operators active in France have included Nouvelles Frontières and Plein Cap Croisières, with their chartered 240-berth Adriana sailing from Nice as well as in the Black Sea, and from Brest and Norway in 2010. And in Tahiti, Compagnie Polynésienne de Transport Maritime’s Aranui 3 carries 180 passengers on supply voyages to the Marquesas and Tuamotu Islands.
Also Tahiti-based, Paul Gauguin began life as a French ship, but was sold  in 2006 to Boston owners. This summer, after operating for many years under a marketing agreement with Regent Seven Seas Cruises, the Bahamian-registered Paul Gauguin has been taken over by French Polynesia-based Pacific Beachcomber, owners of four Intercontinental resorts in French Polynesia.
One interesting site in Marseilles to-day is the laid up Pullmantur cruise ship Atlantic Star, which had been built in 1984 as the steamship Fairsky, only a few miles away in Toulon. Whether  Atlantic Star will at some point be repowered with diesel engines and placed back into service is an open question, but here is a French-built ship laid up in a French port where just a few years before much of the Renaissance fleet had been laid up as well.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if the new Croisières de France, the revived Croisières Paquet and Compagnie du Ponant will provide the seedlings from which will grow strong French cruise brands, as Aida and now TUI Cruises have developed in Germany, and Pullmantur and in Iberocruceros Spain.
In these times, much of this success will probably depend on how the big boys with many resources, particularly Carnival and Royal Caribbean, treat the very particular French market.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Our Best World Passenger Freighter Voyage

Passenger Freighter Information
From The Cruise People, Ltd. – Canada’s Original Cruise Agency

 

While many other products disappeared in this financial environment, Rickmers Pearl String world voyages continue to delight our clients and is rapidly becoming our best seller.
Passengers appreciate the sense of mystery. The ships are partly tramp (going where the cargo goes) and also partly general cargo, as opposed to all containers, which means longer stops in some ports ( 1 – 3 days). Our clients enjoy spending extra time ashore. They also appreciate sailing through both the Suez and Panama Canals.
Voyages are usually about 126 days in length from Houston to Houston (or Hamburg to Hamburg) with a sailing almost every month. There are two port lists – ports usually visited and ports visited if cargo is being delivered or loaded. Sometimes the itinerary will change after sailing, depending on the cargo.
Segments may be booked, subject to availability. For example, one could sail from Houston to Hamburg, Singapore or Shanghai or from Singapore to Houston.
Prices are reasonable and average Eu 80 per day plus port taxes/fees and deviation insurance. In many cases, there is no single supplement so you are not penalized for sailing alone in a single cabin.
There are early booking reductions for full, round voyages. If under deposit 12 months in advance, rates are reduced by 10%. If under deposit six months ahead, rates are reduced by 5%. That means you could save almost Eu 1,000 by booking your full voyage a year ahead!
Although age limit is 75, this company will accept older passengers with two excellent medical reports from the passenger’s physician – one with deposit and one closer to sailing.
There is a web site which allows you to follow the progress of your ship on its way to pick you up and your friends and relatives can follow your voyage progress as you sail.
Usual ports – Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Hamburg, Antwerp, Genoa, Suez Canal transit, Jakarta (Tanjung Priok), Singapore, Hochiminh City, Shanghai, Dalien, Xangang, Qingdao, Masan, Kobe, Yokohama, Panama Canal transit, Houston.
Possible additional ports – Jeddah, Jebel Ali (Dubai), Mumbai, Laem Chabang (Thailand), Haiphong Roads, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Nagasaki, Long Beach, Galveston, Norfolk.
Out-of country hospital/medical insurance including emergency evacuation (sometimes called air ambulance) coverage is required. Cancellation insurance is strongly recommended to protect your fare in the event of illness, accident or bereavement of passengers or members of immediate family. We are happy to quote on insurance for Canadian residents and supply a source for our American clients.
Passengers must carry a valid passport which doesn’t expire until at least 10 months after sailing. There are some countries which require tourist visas and passengers should submit copies of these at least 2 weeks prior to sailing. Note that the China visa must be a multiple-entry visa.
Please feel free to ask us for more information on these or any other voyages.