AidaStella and MSC Preziosa Join World Cruise Fleet

by Kevin Griffin writing for cybercruises.com

AidaStella sailing the Elba River to Hamburg

AidaStella, 71,300 gross tons, 831 x 106′, 2,194 lower berths
Saturday saw the naming in Warnemünde of Aida Cruises’ tenth cruise ship, AidaStella, completed recently by shipbuilder Meyer Werft in Papenburg. Last of the latest series of seven “smaller” ships, she will be followed in 2015 and 2016 by two 125,000-tonners of a totally new design from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan.

The ten godmothers for AidaStella included eight Aida employees from different countries and departments, and a representative each from Meyer Werft and naval architects Partner Ship Design. Aida of course is the German arm of Carnival Corp & plc, reporting to the Costa Cruises Group in Genoa, where former Aida president Michael Thamm is now ceo.

As seagoing “club resorts”, Aida ships have many on-board amenities and facilities that attract younger, more active holidaymakers and families. Much of the dining, for example, is buffet style.

The evening ceremony was celebrated with “stellar” fireworks, stella of course being the Latin word for star. AidaStella spent the night in Warnemünde before setting off on Sunday for her maiden voyage to Oslo, Southampton, Le Havre and Amsterdam and Genoa, where she is due to arrive on Friday.

Of AidaStella’s 1,097 passenger cabins, roughly two-thirds (722), have balconies. Included are thirty-nine spa cabins with direct access to the large spa with its glass roof. The ship also comes fully equipped with seven restaurants and twelve bars, including the Bella Donna for Italian regional specialties and gourmet restaurant Rossini.

AidaStella has her own red wine and an exclusive AidaStella beer will be available on board, in Swarovski-designed crystal-studded ‘starry’ beer glasses.

 

MSC Preziosa, 139,072 gross tons, 1093 x 125′, 3,478 lower berths.
To the south, Thursday saw STX France deliver the MSC Preziosa to MSC Cruises in St Nazaire. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, she is now cruising by way of Lisbon, Cadiz, Casablanca, Valencia and Marseilles to Genoa, where she will be officially named.

MSC Cruises took over this ship, which was originally ordered in 2010 by Libya’s General National Maritime Transport Company, on the stocks last year. Of MSC’s own Fantasia class, naval architects De Jorio Design International were responsible for the end design.

MSC Fantasia

The fourth of the Fantasia class ships, MSC Preziosa has 100 cabins more than earlier vessels, and becomes the line’s new flagship. Like the AidaStella she also has a Swarovski feature, in her case her sweeping grand staircases. Other features include a magical “infinity” pool for adults only and a revised rear lounge arrangement, casino and disco.

Like the other Fantasia class ships, Preziosa features an exclusive, but enlarged in her case, MSC Yacht Club suite area, with dedicated facilities, private decks and forward-facing lounge on top of the ship.

Almost double the size of AidaStella, MSC Preziosa counts among the ten largest ships in the world. Royal Caribbean International has five larger, seven when Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas deliver in 2014 and 2015. Norwegian Breakaway (to enter service in May) and Norwegian Getaway (2014) will also exceed her size, as do Queen Mary 2 and Norwegian Epic.

MSC Preziosa has eleven shopping venues, including new perfumery and cosmetics shop La Profumeria and two jewellery shops, Il Gioiello for high-end jewels and the new Fashion Bijoux for costume jewellery. Fantasia class favourites include duty-free Mini Mall, designer watch and sunglass shop L’Angolo dell’Oggetto, La Boutique for men’s, women’s and children’s fashions, the Pool Shop, MSC Logo Shop, sweet shop La Caramella, Accessories Shop for upmarket bags, belts and leather goods and the MSC Photo Shop.

MSC Preziosa is due to be named on Saturday by the line’s longtime permanent godmother Sophia Loren.

Celebrity & Azamara Top Cruisers Choice Awards

by Kevin Griffin writing for cybercruises.com

Sister lines Celebrity and Azamara walked away with the top positions in the Cruise Critic Cruisers Choice awards last week. Looking at the top five ships in three categories in the US and UK polls, Celebrity scored nine firsts and Azamara eight, followed by Oceania and Thomson with six each.

For purposes of its polls, Cruise Critic defined a medium-sized ship as carrying between 1,200 and 1,999 passengers, with anything above that being defined as large and anything below as small. The results are laid out below for the best five ships in each of category for each of the UK and US, as well as the best ship in each category for dining, entertainment and service for the UK and US. The actual ships’ scores are given in brackets. Some of the surprizing results: are laid out below.

Cruise Critic Cruisers Choice awards 2013 – Scores courtesy of Cruise Critic

The most interesting result was that of the forty-eight results laid out above, Royal Caribbean brands collected eighteen of the top spots, compared to only four for Carnival brands. Celebrity’s nine wins were all for 2,850-berth Solstice class ships except for 1,814-berth Celebrity Century positioning third in the UK medium ships category. Celebrity took the UK’s top three large ship positions.

Azamara did proportionally even better in that with only two 684-berth ships, it managed to pick up eight of these awards. The other Royal Caribbean win was the 5,408-berth Allure of the Seas, which took third-best large ship in the US results.

Oceania managed six wins in the categories we have chosen above, all by its two newest ships, the 1,258-berth Marina and Riviera. But the real surprise was Thomson Cruises walking away with six awards, not only from their own market in the UK but also from US voters. We can think of only one reason for that and that is that the UK results must be included in the US ones, but the website is not clear as to the methodology.

Certainly, with Thomson selling off brands, such as its ski operation, Neilson, and contemplating unloading others to pay down £1.6 billion in debt, any aspiring bidder might look at Thomson Cruises as a possible acquisition. That its older ships should have achieved tops in the mid-size awards for entertainment in both polls and also outscored Carnival’s brand-new 3,690-berth Carnival Breeze makes Thomson worth a look.

It is actual cruisers who are being polled here and of the Carnival brands only one ship from each of Carnival, Cunard, Holland America and Seabourn managed to score in this sample, and none from P&O or Princess. What makes it even odder is that Carnival Breeze won her spot in the UK survey and not the US one. In the US, Disney managed to score as many wins as all Carnival brands combined.

Norwegian Cruise Line and Crystal each achieved three places, but Azamara’s two ukltra-premium ships taking eight places to only three for Crystal’s two ultra-luxury ships is an interesting surprise.

The Growth of Cruising – A Twenty-Five Year Comparison

by Kevin Griffin writing for cybercruises.com

Twenty-five years ago, in 1988, the main cruise lines were Carnival, Cunard, Holland America, Norwegian America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Royal Viking Line.

Royal Viking Sun

Of these seven, only two, Norwegian America and Royal Viking Line, have fallen away, consolidated into Cunard. But half a dozen new lines have arisen.

In 1988, Seabourn had introduced its first ship, the 212-berth Seabourn Pride, and four more lines follow over the years with Crystal Cruises, Regent and Silversea, all ultra-luxury, and more recently Oceania and Azamara in the ultra-premium sector. The former Chandris Cruises, meanwhile, evolved into Celebrity Cruises, which was taken over by Royal Caribbean in 1997.

Of the lines we have chosen, it might be surprising to some that in 1988 the fleet numbered only 39 ships with 37,157 berths (42 and 40,566 berths if we include Cunard), especially as in 2013 the top eight ultra-luxury and ultra-premium lines together operate 25 ships with 21,480 berths. In this context, to-day’s ultra-luxury and ultra-premium fleet is more than half the size of the entire main line and luxury fleet of twenty-five years ago.

The biggest difference, however, is in the size of the ships. Although the 1988 average was below 1,000 berths per ship this was the beginning of a period of growth, not only in number of berths (Princess Cruises’ 62,500-ton Star Princess, which seemed big then, had only 1,470 berths), but ships started to grow in tonnage as well.

Ultra-Luxury & Ultra-Premium Fleet comparison table: 1988 – 2013

The average ship size for the main-market lines grew from about 950 berths to 2,335 berths, or almost two-and-a-half times per ship. And the size of ultra-luxury and ultra-premium ships has risen from 212 in  Seabourn Pride to about 670 to-day if we do not include Cunard, or more than three times the size.

And the main market lines have also been taking advantage of economies of scale. Although Norwegian Cruise Line had introduced the 70,202-ton 1,850-berth Norway in 1980, it was 1988 before Royal Caribbean introduced the 73,192-ton 2,292-berth Sovereign of the Seas. But another eight years saw the introduction of the 101,353-ton 2,642-berth Carnival Destiny. The result has been that traditional lines’ fleets and berth capacities have grow exponentially:

Main Line & Luxury Cruise Fleet comparison table: 1988 – 2013

Other lines such as Costa Cruises and Chandris Cruises, with six ships each, the 10-ship Epirotiki Lines and a single-ship (at the time) P&O Cruises have not been included in this analysis, but obviously Costa and P&O have both benefitted in terms of fleet expansion from being taken over by Carnival Corp, now Carnival Corp & plc.

All in all, despite wars, terrorism, disease and economic dislocations, the industry as a whole is surviving and seems to be surviving well if we can judge by cruise line stocks as well as fleet size .

Holland America Line Single-Handedly Extends St Lawrence Season

Originally published by our London office.

 

Holland America Line’s Maasdam, a regular St Lawrence trader, passing under the Quebec Bridge

For many decades, in the days before air conditioning, the St Lawrence cruise season ran all summer long. From 1919 until 1965, Canada Steamship Lines offered weekly Saguenay cruises from Montreal, with a season that ran from June to September, even during the war. From 1921 to 1961, the Clarke Steamship Company offered longer “Round the Gulf” and Labrador cruises in a season that ran from May through October. After these services closed, Cunard Line, the Baltic Shipping Company, Polish Ocean Lines, Moore-McCormack Lines and the Greek Line, among others, began offering week-long cruises from Montreal or 10/11-night cruises between New York and Montreal.

The history of St Lawrence cruising goes back a long way. Under the auspices of Thomas Cook, the Quebec Steamship Company first sent its 1,864-ton Orinoco out from New York in the summer of 1894 to visit Saint John NB, Halifax, Charlottetown, Gaspé, Tadoussac, the Saguenay River and Quebec. Indeed, by 1904, the Plant Line was advertising its Gulf of St Lawrence cruises from Boston as follows:

Six Days’ Cruise 1400 miles for $18. From Union Wharf, Boston, every Tuesday and Saturday, 12 noon for Halifax, Hawkesbury and Charlottetown. Good board. Cheapest rates. Best trout and salmon fishing, and shooting. Beautiful scenery. This doesn’t half tell it. Send stamp for booklet “Looking Eastward,” maps, etc.

A pioneer of St Lawrence cruising from 1908 until the First World War, the s.s. Trinidad cruised the St Lawrence by summer and sailed from New York to Bermuda in the winter.

The Quebec Steamship Company’s 2,162-ton Trinidad followed in 1908, the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Quebec. In 1919, this line was acquired by Britain’s Furness Withy & Co, who cruised first the 5,530-ton Fort Hamilton and and then the 7,785-ton Fort St George from New York to Quebec. Between the wars, the Anchor Line, Canadian Pacific, the Clyde Line, White Star Line and others all offered cruises between New York, the Maritimes, Quebec and Montreal. These cruises were nearly always offered in the high season in July and August, when it was hottest in the cities, as a getaway from the summer heat.

More recently, however, the so-called Canada New England brand has suffered in that even The Sunday Times now tells people who want to cruise the St Lawrence to go in the autumn. The question is, is this the propogation of a myth or is it simply because cruises only go there now in the autumn? This has been one of the biggest challenges facing St Lawrence and New England destinations in recent years, but things are slowly starting to change.

In recent years, Holland America has operated one ship, the 1,266-berth Maasdam, into Montreal between May and October. Starting this autumn, however, it brought a second ship to the St Lawrence, in the 1,348-berth Veendam, which it had previously been operating on the New York-Bermuda run. Next year, Holland America will operate Veendam on a full season of St Lawrence cruises, from May through October, turning at Quebec while Maasdam continues to turn at Montreal.

Maasdam departing Montreal on a cruise. On the left is the Sailors’ Memorial clocktower on Victoria Pier. Behind here is where the Canada Steamship Lines and Clarke Steamship Company cruise ships used to sail from

Moving Veendam to St Lawrence cruising is interesting in two ways. First, Holland America has already let it be known that it thinks it can make more money trading to Canada and New England than in what was once regarded as the lucrative Bermuda cruise market. Secondly, with the imposition of the North American Emission Control Area (ECA) this summer, Veendam is actually going against the flow.

When sailing to Bermuda she spent most of her time outside the 200-mile ECA limit but by sailing to Canada she will always be within it. This means she will have to burn more expensive distillate fuel in order to reduce sulphur emissions, something that Holland America has already estimated increased their fuel costs by 40% in the Alaska trade, which is also completely within the ECA, for an  extra $200,000 on a 7-night cruise.

Veendam will handle four embarkations and four disembarkations at Quebec, bringing more than 20,000 extra visitors a year over a three-year period. Under the new marketing agreement, Montreal will also see additional turnarounds from Maasdam in July and August. This programme, announced last month, is backed by $1.15 million in government funds, half from Tourism Quebec and half from Quebec City.

Included in Veendam’s new sailings will be four 14-night round trips from Quebec that will call at Charlottetown, Sydney, Halifax, Bar Harbor, Boston and the Saguenay. Equally, Maasdam will offer seven 14-night round trip cruises from Montreal calling at Quebec, Charlottetown, Sydney, Halifax, Bar Harbor and Boston. Both itineraries will also be available as one-way 7-night sectors between Montreal and Boston and Quebec and Boston.

As part of this agreement, the 450-berth Seabourn Sojourn, operated by Holland America affiliate Seabourn, will also operate three St. Lawrence turnaround cruises from Montreal that will visit seven ports in Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City, Trois Rivières, Saguenay, Baie Comeau, Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands.

Holland America has become a bit of a pioneer in the St Lawrence. It was the first cruise line to visit Sept Iles, on the St Lawrence North Shore, when it sent  Maasdam there in May 2009. This in itself was an earlier season start than usual for the St Lawrence, the call having been made during a positioning voyage from Fort Lauderdale to Montreal, something it will offer again in 2013. The new $20 million berth at Sept Iles now accepts cruise ships of up to 985 feet in length.

Compagnie du Ponant’s Le Boréal calls at the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence

Fellow North Shore ports Baie Comeau to the west and Havre St Pierre to the east have also added cruise facilities and their proximity to Gaspé on the South Shore, Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island and Corner Brook in Newfoundland, offers a choice of half a dozen cruise ports in the Gulf of St Lawrence below Quebec. The Magdalen Islands, which has its own weekly cruise ferry from Montreal and is now also visited by Compagnie du Ponant and Crystal Cruises, adds a seventh.

Crystal Symphony seen here calling at Quebec, offers a round-trip Gulf of St Lawrence cruise from Montreal each September.

On September 30, Crystal Cruises operated  a 7-night round trip from Montreal with its 960-berth Crystal Symphony. Three of her four ports, Sept Iles, the Magdalen Islands and the French islands of St Pierre et Miquelon, were first time calls for Crystal. The fourth port, Quebec, has been rated as the most popular cruise port in North America. This Montreal round trip itinerary will be repeated on September 26, 2013. But in September 2014, the cruise will be offered by Crystal Serenity from Quebec. A larger ship than Symphony, the Serenity presumably can’t get under the Quebec Bridge to sail upriver to Montreal.

Royal Caribbean has also started operating turnaround cruises from Quebec with its 2,112-berth Brilliance of the Seas, with a typical 10-night cruise taking in Baie Comeau, Corner Brook, Halifax, Sydney, St Pierre et Miquelon and Charlottetown. Like the Serenity, the Brilliance is to tall to fit under the Quebec Bridge.

Other St Lawrence visitors this season have included the 3,114-berth Emerald Princess, 2,104-berth Eurodam, 264-berth Le Boréal, 2,476-berth Norwegian Dawn, the 2,620-berth Queen Mary 2, the 684-berth Regatta, 490-berth Seven Seas Navigator, 388-berth Silver Whisper and Veendam, nearly all in September and October. Not to mention Aida, Fred Olsen and Saga ships that cruise over from Europe.

The addition of  Veendam to the St Lawrence trade is good news for Quebec City, which in 2013 will see five Holland America calls each month from May to August and seven in June. The only other ship coming nearby in the summer months is Oceania’s 1,258-berth Marina, which will make an unusual June 1 call at Quebec while on a 16-night cruise from New York to Southampton. The other ships will all wait until September (21 calls) and October (27 calls), when they come flocking in for “the leaves.”

For more details on Cruising the Gulf of St Lawrence please call The Cruise People Ltd in London on 020 7723 2450 or e-mail cruise@cruisepeople.co.uk and in Canada at 1-800-961-5536 or e-mail cruise@thecruisepeople.ca

Queen Elizabeth 2 to Become 300-Room Hotel at Port Rashid

by Kevin Griffin of The Cruise People writing in cybercruises.com

Good news came from Dubai recently. After five years of lying dormant, the former Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth 2 is not now going to be lengthened and converted with a see-through funnel and lifeboats removed, but will remain much as she is and will be converted to a 300-room hotel at Port Rashid, near where Dubai’s cruse ships call.

Talks are now under way with three hotel groups, including Dubai’s Jumeirah chain, to manage the new hotel.

Although many will not want me to make the comparison, the ex-Cunarder Queen Mary, which entered service in 1936, now operating as the Queen Mary Hotel in Long Beach, has 314 rooms. So in terms of size the two operations will be similar.

Queen Elizabeth 2, on the other hand, was launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1967 and went into service in 1969.

Istithmar, part of Dubai World and owners of the QE2, has announced that the revised hotel plan is to come into operation within 18 months as the centrepiece of an entertainment village that will include a maritime museum. Istithmar bought the ship from Cunard for about $100 million in 2007 and plans to open the ship on the man-made island of Palm Jumeirah were shelved with the recession. The ship is now registered in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

del.icio.us Tags: Queen Elizabeth 2,QE2

How Cruise Sales Differ Across the Atlantic

Image of the house flag of Carnival Cruise Line. This flag is also used within the corporate logo of Carnival Corporation & PLC (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Kevin Griffin – The Cruise People, Ltd writing in cybercruises.com

Cruise selling policies differ on both sides of the Atlantic, the most obvious contrast being that in North America deposits remain fully refundable up to final payment date, while in Europe’s largest cruise market, the UK, one forfeits their deposit if they cancel. But even in Europe practices differ.

In Germany, for example, Europe’s second largest cruise market (and soon to be largest), deposits are usually refundable up until just a month before sailing. But in the meantime, a couple of other notable differences have sprung up in recent times, first on who can buy a cruise where and second on agents remuneration.

On the first subject, P&O has long been known for prohibiting cross-border cruise sales. Three decades ago, the author was quoted a fare by P&O Los Angeles on a cruise from Sydney that was 33% higher than the same cruise quoted in Australia. A similar complaint was made to UK cruise magazine “World of Cruising” in more recent times when Swiss clients were told they had to book a Princess cruise through Swiss agent Kuoni at a higher fare than offered in Florida.

Through its association with P&O, this restriction has now also spread to Cunard, which no longer allows cross-border bookings and whose Transatlantic sailings can be as much as 25% more expensive in the UK. But even here there is no consistency, as sometimes UK fares for the same sailing are lower than the North American fares.

Meanwhile, this prohibition has spread beyond P&O. To cite an example, Vacations to Go, a US agent with a UK phone number, states on its web site that “the following cruise lines now prohibit all US travel agencies from selling cruises to citizens of countries other than the US and Canada, unless they have a residence in the US or Canada.
This is not a Vacations To Go policy or a US government policy, it is a corporate policy instituted by each of these cruise lines.”

It then goes on to name “Holland America, Oceania Cruises, Princess, Royal Caribbean and Star Clippers.”

More recently, appointed as US agent for P&O Cruises, its site adds for good order that “residents of the UK may not book P&O Cruises through Vacations To Go.” Missing from the list is one line that used to be there, namely Costa.

In an age of globalisation this practice of cruise lines prohibiting cross-border sales is in effect a restraint of trade and we wonder how legal it is. Apple once tried something similar with its iTunes pricing within Europe, restricting buyers to making purchases in their own country, and thus forcing some to pay higher prices. In 2004 the UK Office of Fair Trading referred Apple to the European Commission for violation of EU free-trade legislation and in 2007 Apple was threatened with a £330 million fine.

In the end Apple had to agree to offering common pricing throughout Europe. In a single market such as Europe customers should be free to purchase goods and services from any member state, but this still appears to be not the case with many cruise lines.

On another subject, P&O, Princess and Cunard last year announced that they would cut agents’ commissions in the UK to 5% in an attempt to try to stop them from rebating, a process whereby agents would pass on part of their commission to the client in order to “buy” their business.

Meanwhile agents selling the same Princess and Cunard cruises in North America (and elsewhere) are still paid on a scale of 10-15%. One of the reasons P&O, Princess and Cunard UK did this was apparently a fear of being accused of resale price maintenance. This is a practice whereby a manufacturer and its distributors agree on pricing, a practice that is outlawed in the UK. But whether a service is a manufactured good and an agent is a distributor are moot points.

Meanwhile, this spring, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines’ adopted a different approach, which is to offer 10% agency commission and threatening to stop sell agents who rebate from their commission. Those who did not rebate would be rewarded by a 5% bonus at the end of the year.

This in effect would punish agents who rebate, as opposed to punishing those who do not rebate by cutting their income, which was the case with P&O, Princess and Cunard UK. The Fred. Olsen approach shows strength and is a refreshing change and it will be interesting to see where this all goes. Clearly at 5%, P&O, Princess and Cunard UK are well below the usual cruise sales norm of 10%.

Back in North America, on August 1 Carnival Cruise Lines will further toughen its own anti-rebating stance. From that date, agents may only offer clients non-cash value-add-ons equivalent to a maximum of $25 per person.

Non-cash equivalents means bags, hats, beach towels, memory books, sunglasses or Carnival favours delivered on board, and on-board credits will no longer be allowed. Carnival first introduced level pricing in 2003, then an advertised price policy in 2005.

Last week, Carnival president Gerry Cahill visited London in anticipation of the Carnival Magic sailing from Dover next year. Illustrating the dichotomy on commiassion policies within the Carnival group, Cahill told the UK’s Travel Trade Gazette “we have our own commission structures, ranging from 10-15%. We want to make sure that we’re different to our sister brands as sensitively as we can. Each brand makes its own decisions.”

P&O’s commission cuts seem to have had some effect, however. Cahill’s ultimate boss, Carnival Corp & PLC ceo Micky Arison seemed to be supporting P&O’s stance when he told the UK’s Travel Weekly last week that “The reality is that the ones who were the biggest screamers were the biggest discounters. They lost their competitive advantage as they could no longer give their commission away and found they couldn’t make a living.”
Meanwhile, there was a lot of collateral damage among agents who were not rebating.

Royal Caribbean has also been tough on North American agents who rebate and at one stage even put a stop-sell on Vancouver-based CruiseShipCenters, now Expedia CruiseShipCenters. But Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises also continue to offer normal commission levels in the UK market, leaving P&O, Princess and Cunard somewhat isolated.

Indeed, it was Royal Caribbean Cruises’ ceo Richard Fain that told a London audience in April that the agency distribution system “is not broken” and that Royal Caribbean would take “no precipitate action” on commission levels.

How different things are on the two sides of the Atlantic!

QE2 to Host Visitors Again as Hotel in Dubai

English: The Cunard Liner RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 anchored off South Queensferry on her last tour round the UK. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dubai has settled on a use for Queen Elizabeth 2 which it bought for $US100 million, with plans to make it into a floating hotel fitted with the original furnishings.

The chairman of the Dubai company that owns the ship said to-day he expects the 300-room hotel to open within 18 months at the city’s downtown Port Rashid.

Istithmar World Chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem says the company realized visitors want to see the QE2 as it originally looked, so is not planning major changes as part of the conversion.

The ship’s fate has been the subject of intense speculation since Dubai bought it in 2007. Original plans to completely overhaul it as a luxury hotel were scrapped when Dubai’s economy tumbled into crisis.

del.icio.us Tags: QE2,Queen Elizabeth 2

Cunard’s Three Queens Celebrate Diamond Jubilee

by Kevin Griffin of The Cruise People writing in cybercruises.com

Tuesday June 5 saw all three of Cunard’s Queens,  148,528-ton RMS Queen Mary 2,  90,901-ton Queen Elizabeth and  90,049-ton Queen Victoria, in Southampton to celebrate HM The Queen’s sixty years on the throne

This will be followed by an even bigger event four weeks later, when P&O Cruises has invited the Princess Royal to Southampton to conduct a fleet review on the event of its 175th Anniversary on Tuesday July 3. All seven UK-based P&O ships (there are three more in Australia) will visit Southampton on the same day. But Cunard still takes precedence as the Queen has christened two-thirds of its fleet – Queen Mary 2 in 2004 and Queen Elizabeth in 2010 – but only one of P&O’s, 69,153-ton Oriana in 1995.

As Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria took bow-to-bow positions near the City Cruise Terminal, Queen Mary 2 edged in to create a three-bow formation while flag-waving crew lined the foredecks off all ships and their whistles sounded a salute. After the event, Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth passed in single file down the Solent as they all set out on celebratory Diamond Jubilee voyages with a total of about 6,000 passengers. Cunard’s turn for its own 175th Anniversary will come in 2015.

Cunard is meanwhile looking to develop more first-time cruisers and wants more agents to sell its cruises. Company president Peter Shanks last week told Travel Weekly, “Agents can find Cunard difficult to sell: we’re not mass-market and we’re not small-ship luxury. We have a unique mix, which I believe agents should be selling to a wider range of clients… We will be working closely with agents who want to sell Cunard for the first time. We want to work with high street agents to find more first-time cruisers and work with online agents on marketing campaigns.”

Cunard could have made this job much easier for itself if it had not reduced travel agents’ commissions from 12.5-15% down to 5% earlier this year.

Meanwhile in Canada, the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick, has announced that its new cruise terminal, expected to open this autumn, is to be named the Diamond Jubilee Cruise Terminal. The announcement was made on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee visit to Saint John of Prince Charles, heir to the throne, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, on May 23.

The first caller to the new terminal is expected to be 83,338-ton Disney Magic, which is scheduled for September 5. Saint John also has the nearby Marco Polo Cruise Terminal, named after a locally-built clipper ship, and a facility at Long Wharf. The Canadian port expects seventy-three cruise ship visits this season with more than 187,000 passengers.

All Three Cunarders in Southampton for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

A unique occasion.

 

LiveJournal Tags: RMS Queen Mary 2,Queen Victoria,Queen Elizabeth2,Southampton,Diamond Jubilee

Is STX France Slightly Confused About Its Own 150-Year History?

 

The 139,400-ton MSC Divina, one of eleven St Nazaire-built MSC ships, is 1,094 feet long and carries 3,500 lower-berth passengers

When STX France handed over the MSC Divina to MSC Cruises at St Nazaire on last Saturday, she became the eleventh St Nazaire-built ship to be owned by the Naples-based cruise line. General manager Laurent Castaing was quoted as saying that “MSC Divina is the eleventh ship in just over ten years that our shipyard has built which is operated by MSC Cruises. Her sister ship MSC Preziosa, currently under construction, will become the twelfth ship.” True as far as it goes, although two of those ships had been delivered to the now defunct Festival Cruises and then acquired by MSC. Castaing then went on to say that “Throughout our 150-year history never before have so many vessels been built for one shipowner, and this is a record that deserves to be highlighted.” It’s just too bad his facts were wrong.

The 83,423-ton Normandie, one of twenty-two St Nazaire-built CGT ocean liners, was 1,029 feet long and carried 2,000 passengers

As is so often the case these days, researchers appear not to have done their work properly, putting Castaing into the embarrassing position of quoting their inaccuracies. Why? Because the St Nazaire yards built twice as many ships for the famous Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, also known as the French Line. Starting with the s.s.France of 1865 and finishing with the last s.s. France of 1962, St Nazaire built twenty-two passenger liners for CGT. These included some of the most famous Transatlantic liners of their day – Paris (1921), Ile de France (1927),Lafayette (1930), Champlain (1932) and Normandie (1935). STX France itself is the successor to two shipyards, Chantiers de Penhoët and Chantiers de la Loire, which were merged in 1955 to form Chantiers de l’Atlantique.

While MSC Cruises is a big customer for STX, in recent years the shipyard has also completed RMS Queen Mary 2,Crystal Serenity and the eight Renaissance ships and is now building Europa 2 for Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.

Meanwhile, for anyone wanting to cruise in a French ship these days we offer Compagnie du Ponant, with itineraries worldwide on three small ships, and CMA CGM, with cargo-passenger services worldwide on more than 65 container ships. Or, of course, you can book with MSC Cruises! For further details please call The Cruise People Ltd in London on 020 7723 2450 or e-mail cruise@cruisepeople.co.uk or in North America at 1-800-961-5536 or cruise@thecruisepeople.ca

LiveJournal Tags: MSC DIVINIA,MSC PREZIOSA,NORMANDIE,SS FRNCE,PARIS,ILE DE FRANCE,LAFAYETTE,CHAMPLAIN,RMS QUEEN MARY 2,CRYSTAL SERENITY,EUROPA 2