Archive for the ‘Hapag LLoyd’ Category

All-Inclusive Cruising Grows in Europe

Canadian Cruises, Caribbean, Costa Cruises, Hapag LLoyd, Louis, MSC, Mediterranean, Uncategorized | Posted by cruisepeople
Aug 09 2010

by Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"

We all know about how Seabourn, SeaDream and Silversea, more recently followed by Regent Seven Seas, offer all-inclusive fares that include not only the fare but also port charges, gratuities and beverages, including alcoholic drinks, and in the case of Regent, shore excursions.

But there are now other packages out there, available mainly from European lines that while offering splendid service are not necessarily regarded as ultra-luxury and unaffordable. Now that all-inclusive cruising is showing signs of growing in Europe, when will the American lines catch on?

It has been many years now since Silversea and Seabourn introduced the first real "all-inclusive" ships, but many have followed. SeaDream succeeded where Sea Goddess left off under Cunard, and Regent became all-inclusive with the start of 2007, thus making this its fourth season as an all-inclusive line.

However, not all other lines are necessarily like the Caribbean lines that charge a hotel price (no longer duty free, even though the lines buy them duty free) for every drink, and add an automatic 15% service charge each time.

With recent additions, nearly all based in Europe, many lines now offer "all-inclusive" packages that can be purchased either before the cruise or on boarding. These packages, which are mainly attuned to drinks, can change the nature of a cruise from having to "buy one’s way" through the cruise to not having to worry about that huge final bill that comes under the door on the final night.

Thomson Cruises first tried all-inclusive with its Topaz a decade ago, but this was not continued when she retired in 2002. (Coincidentally, this same ship, when Greek Line’s Queen Anna Maria, had offered something called "Bacchus Cruises" from New York that had included all alcoholic beverages in the fare). To-day, however, Thomson has revived an all-inclusive drinks package that includes draught beer, spirits, aperitifs, house wines, soft drinks and a range of cocktails.

Premium drinks such as champagne, malt whiskey, bottled beers and ciders, speciality coffees and bottled water are not included. This is sold as an all-inclusive "upgrade" and sometimes even used by Thomson to generate new bookings at a cheap rate of £49 (about $75) for the week. The usual price, however, is £186 (about $300) per week.

For some time now, Louis Cruise Lines has also offered a drinks package, which can be purchased when boarding and covers bar drinks and wine in the restaurant for the duration of the cruise. The wines tend to remain the same throughout the cruise. In the same general price range as Thomson, Louis charges about 5% less, or £175 (about $275) for a week’s cruise.

Way ahead of the pack, however, is Pullmantur of Spain, who for some time now has been including drinks in its fares. This is also true of affiliate Croisières de France and its Bleu de France. The wines include the line’s choice of a "house" ("ship") red, white and rosé that change each day. Pullmantur calls this its "AI" plan, standing for all inclusive and it includes port charges and gratuties as well, although a ¤65 per person "service charge" is added to each fare.

Elsewhere, last year MSC Cruises launched two unlimited beverage packages. The first unlimited beverage package includes a selection of bottled wines, mineral water, beer and soft drinks at £98 (about $150) for seven days. The second includes just soft drinks and mineral water at £49 (about $75). All beverages are available in an unlimited quantity during main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

The line also offers wine packages. Costa has similar packages but requires purchase at least fourteen days before sailing.

Wine packages are to-day of course offered by several lines and in addition, many lines offer soft drinks packages and bundles. In fact, it is mainly these soft drinks packages that seem to get attention in the hot weather Caribbean market. One Florida-based line, however, seems to be ahead of the pack.

Movement: Celebrity Drinks Packages
In May, Celebrity Cruises announced that it too would be offering a drinks package. These are an addition to its wine packages that have been available for some time.
Celebrity’s Classic Package includes everything in its non-alcoholic package plus beers with a value of up to $5 per serving and spirits, cocktails, and wines by the glass with a value of up to $8 per serving, and costs passengers $44.85 per person, per day.

The Premium Package includes all the premium beverages in the premium non-alcoholic package plus all beers, and spirits, cocktails, and wines by the glass with a value of up to $12 per serving, and costs $56.35 per person, per day. These prices include a standard 15 percent service charge, and on a 7-day cruise come to about $315 and $395, respectively.

Celebrity now has so many different beverage packages that it has introduced a separate web page for them, where they may be purchased up until four days before sailing. This can be found at www.celebritycruises.com/beveragepackages .

One little known fact about Celebrity, however, is that one ship in the fleet, the little Celebrity Xpedition in the Galapagos, already offers an all-inclusive drinks package as part of her fare.

And sister line Azamara Club Cruises, in a move not really related to Celebrity’s packages, but probably more to do with the arrival of Larry Pimentel as president and ceo, now also offers complimentary wines at lunch and dinner, chosen according to the locale the ship is sailing in.

A Winner: Hapag-Lloyd’s "Columbus All-Inclusive Package"
Last week, Hapag-Lloyd joined the movement towards drinks packages with the announcement that the best programme of all would now be available on its 420-berth Columbus, a smaller ship that not only sails around the world each winter but will also cruise the Great Lakes in 2011.
Beginning in 2011, Hapag-Lloyd will offer a new and very attractive price structure for Columbus. With the new package, extras on board will become a thing of the past. For anyone booking a Columbus all-inclusive package all eighty-one drinks on the beverage list, from soft drinks to exotic cocktails, all tips on board and even a package of two to four shore excursions per cruise will be included in the price.
The Columbus AI package can be booked as an option in addition to the regular cruise fare and all Columbus cruises will now include a cruise-only rate, as well as a rate for the package. The package price depends on the length of the cruise and the destination, and will start at $340 per person for a 13-day Great Lakes cruise, providing a value of about $26 per day, better than any others on offer when one remembers that this includes gratuities and some shore excursions as well! By far the best offer of its kind seen yet.

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118 New Ships Since 2000 – Ship Sizes – The New Panama Canal

Atlantic Crossing, Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cruise West, Crystal Cruises, Cunard Line, Disney Cruise Lines, Fred Olsen, Hapag LLoyd, Holland America Line, MSC, News, Norwegian Cruise Lines, P&O, Panama Canal, Royal Caribbean, Uncategorized | Posted by cruisepeople
Jun 18 2010

by Mark Tre’

The recent announcement by CLIA that 118 new cruise ships had been delivered since 2000 has led us to have a look at how the world cruise fleet is now made up and how it has changed in the last decade. The findings, along with progress now being made on a new Panama Canal, are rather interesting. Large ships, nay huge ships, have now become the norm. And like the trade of the world, the type of passenger attracted to each size of ship is surely quite different.


118 New Cruise Ships Since 2000
In January, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) published an interesting statistic. It said that 118 new cruise ships had been introduced to the world fleet since 2000. That is very close to one ship a month, every month, year round for a decade. While there has been a slowdown during the recession, orders are starting again and it is worthwhile to have a look at how this massive new fleet is composed. To do this, in order to give the fleet a different perspective, we are going to look at how the fleet is divided in the same terms used for cargo ships, working from the largest down.

The Capesize Ships
In cargo ship terms, Capesize ships are the next size up from Suezmax, the latter being ships that are too wide or deep for the Panama Canal but can still use the Suez. Capesize ships, however, always have to navigate via the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Length and beam are not a problem in the Suez Canal, but draught is limited to 62 feet.

As cruise ships carry passengers and not heavy cargoes, this is not a problem for them, as even RMS Queen Mary 2 has only a draught of 32 feet 10 inches, which means that there is really no such thing as a "Suezmax" cruise ship. In the container trades these ships tend to be known as "post-Panamax" (a Panamax ship can carry up to 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers while a post-Panamax can carry up to 12,000 (although there is also now a design for a 20,000-unit vessel).

Capesize cargo ships ten to carry large cargoes of low-value goods such as coal and iron ore, of ports they can serve is severely restricted by their size. The same is of course true of Capesize cruise ships that cannot enter many cruise ports because of their own size, but the huge advantage they offer is that they can bring down rates because of economies of scale. Indeed, the same applies to Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, which carry 6,000 passengers each but limit themselves to the same more on board activities such as ziplines and high diving and their ports, which they visit on a repetitive basis all the year round, feature things such as roller coaster rides and chair lifts. Despite the fact that they offer huge loft suites, these ships must cater to the mass market with their low unit costs in order to stay full.

Where Capesize cargo ships are typically above 150,000 tons deadweight, or about 100,000 gross tons measurement, Capesize cruise ships are of basically the same size, The first Capesize cruise ships were actually built in the 1930s, with the delivery of  Normandie for the French Lines and Cunard Line’s Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. These three North Atlantic express passenger ships were all too long and to wide to be able to use the Panama Canal, and were the largest ships to have been built to that time.

To-day’s Capesize cruise fleet thus numbers forty-seven ships either in service or on order. Starting with the 5,400 lower berth Oasis and Allure of the Seas, they work down through a quintet (the largest cruise ship order ever placed) of the 2,850-berth Celebrity Solstice class, a quartet of 3,100-passenger ships consisting of the Voyager of the Seas class, and three trios, the 3,600-passenger Freedom of the Seas class, 3,500-guest MSC Fantasia class and the 3,100-berth Carnival Dream class.

Then follow another pair, Disney Dream and sister, and the one-off 4,200-berth Norwegian Epic (which was to have been part of a pair until her sister ship was cancelled), to be introduced next week, and Queen Mary 2, another one-off, and one with a lot more space with only 2,620 lower berths. These ships are all above 1,000 feet in overall length and only one, Voyager of the Seas of 1999, was delivered before the year 2000.

To be added to these are twenty-two more. The eleven ships of the Carnival Conquest (six) and Costa Concordia (five) classes, all 952 by 116 feet in overall dimensions, are ten feet too wide for the present Panama Canal. Eleven more ships, of the Grand Princess class, including P&O’s Azura and Ventura, all 951 x 118 feet, also fall into this category. These twenty-two Carnival Corp & PLC ships were built to a short and stout design that precludes them from passing through the present Panama Canal, and they are all products of the Fincantieri shipyards in Italy. Only one of this lot, Grand Princess of 1998, was delivered before the year 2000.

So of the 118 cruise ships delivered since 2000 sixty-seven, or more than half, are too big to transit the Panama Canal.

The Panamax Ships
The next category down is Panamax, which is the maximum size ship that can use the Panama Canal (although new locks are due to open in 2015). Cargoes carried by Panamax ships are generally a little higher value and include grain, steel and minerals as well as thermal coal and iron ore. And Panamax cruise ships are more likely to feature alternative restaurants and big shows than ziplines and roller coasters. In fact, many offer more than just a repetitive 7-day itinerary and are more likely to be found on alternating 10-day circuits in the Mediterranean as just one example.
These ships have a maximum length overall of 965 feet and a beam of 106 feet and are able to squeeze through the present locks. This size is ideal for World Cruises as well, and can reposition easily between Alaska and the Caribbean. For example, where Queen Victoria and the new Queen Elizabeth can offer world cruises that transit both Panama and Suez, Queen Mary 2 is forced to sail all the way around the tip of South America to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific as she is too big for the Panama Canal.

The Panamax cruise fleet numbers eighty ships. Owners such as Norwegian Cruise Line (and its once-parent Star Cruises) made sure they did not build wider than Panamax and so this fleet includes half a dozen Meyer-built vessels of dimensions of 965 by 106 feet, while Celebrity Cruises has four St Nazaire-built ships of the same dimensions in the Celebrity Constellation class and Princess Cruises two St Nazaire-built ships of the Coral Princess class. To these can be added Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, all of maximum Panamax dimensions.

Following closely behind are the four ships of the MSC Musica class, all just a foot shorter than Panamax, and the four Royal Caribbean ships of the Radiance of the Seas class, three feet shorter. Following at 960 feet are the four Carnival Spirit class and two ships each of the Costa Atlantica and Costa Luminosa classes. At 936 feet, or 29 feet short of Panamax are half a dozen Holland America ships, from the 2002-built Zuiderdam to this year’s Nieuw Amsterdam. Royal Caribbean’s five 915-foot "Vision" class ships (not including the now-lengthened Enchantment of the Seas) and the 921-foot Pride of America, complete the Panamax class above 900 feet.
Fully another forty ships follow at between 800 and 900 feet and Panamax beam, representing Carnival, Celebrity, Costa, NCL, P&O, TUI Cruises and at the lower end in terms of length, the ships of Aida Cruises (half a dozen at 817 feet), P&O Australia (three at 805-810 feet) and the Crystal Serenity at 820 feet.
There have been one or two exceptions to the maximum Panamax length of 965 feet. The laid-up s.s. United States, for example, was constructed in 1952 to be able to transit the Panama in an emergency, but her overall length is 990 feet. A couple of other ships to-day, the 990-foot Enchantment of the Seas, which was lengthened in 2005, gets around this as her bow was redesigned when she was lengthened to that it can be hinged up to bring her overall length down to 965 feet. The 970-foot Utopia, to be delivered in 2013, is the other.

The New Panama Canal
However ships may be classified today, the present Panamax definition will become redundant in five years when a third lane of locks is opened on the Panama. These new locks will allow ships of up to 1200 feet length overall by 167 feet in beam and up to 49.9 feet in draft to transit the canal. Essentially, this will allow most of the world cruise ship fleet to transit Panama.

There are sure to be some exceptions, however, as with the five largest units of the Royal Caribbean fleet their maximum width at the level of the bridge wings is 226 feet for the Oasis and Allure of the Seas and 184 feet for the Freedom class ships. This could leave the five Royal Caribbean ships as the last of the Capesize cruise ships, unable to use the new locks. How many other cruise ships might be affected is not yet clear.

 
Meanwhile, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 may be able to conduct her world cruises using the Panama Canal after 2015, although that is not yet clear. One factor, that might also affect other cruise ships, is the height of the Bridge of the Americas at the Pacific end of the canal, which has a clearance under the main span of 201 feet at high tide. By comparison, the clearance under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at the approach to New York is 228 feet, and Queen Mary 2 clears this bridge by only 13 feet.
This means she could be about fourteen feet too tall for the Panama Canal unless some height can be obtained from masts or her funnel, which was specifically designed to the maximum height to pass under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. By comparison the maximum height of the Queen Victoria is 179 feet from keel to top of the highest mast.

Handysize Ships
The next designation of cargo ships, called Handysize, carries all sorts of cargoes to and from ports all over the world, and again usually cargoes with higher values than either the Capesize or Panamax ships, including the likes of steel, project cargoes, copper, zinc and other valuable metals. Such ships are designed to maximum dimensions and maximum capacity to allow them to serve the vast majority of the world’s ports.

Within this grouping will be found all the traditional style cruise ships that we were used to until just a decade ago plus some new ships. Some examples of ships in this category, mostly ranging in the 600 and 700-foot overall length brackets, include the fleets of Azamara Cruises, Fred Olsen Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Phoenix Reisen, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, plus the most recent newbuildings of Seabourn and Silversea.

One point about all these fleets is that none of them do repetitive 7-day itineraries, which is the wont of the larger ships, and they offer itineraries worldwide that change according to the season, many of them never repeating an itinerary in a year.
A mixture of traditional and upmarket ships, the more traditional ones do not include many balconies but the newer middle-range ships such as the eight former Renaissance ships (now with Azamara, Oceania and Princess, with one to go to P&O soon as Adonia) offer a more discerning product. The new ships of Seabourn and Silversea, however, together with Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ Europa, serve the most discerning market of all with not only balconies but the best of on-board facilities.

These are indeed the finest cruise ships in the world, paying attention to every detail of service. They also cost more and attract a different clientele.

Small Ships
As well as the larger ships, there is a wide variety of small ships, ranging from the myriad of new river ships to the daily mail boat from Bergen to the North Cape to ships such as Cruise West’s Spirit of Oceanus, which now completes a globe-spanning world cruise of 335 days every year and a large fleet of expedition ships sailing to the Antarctic, the Amazon to Peru and the Northwest Passage, not to mention Alaska, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands.
But that, as they say, is another story for another day.

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Viva L’España: Pullmantur Advances on the World – Azamara’s Overnight Stays – A Second Cruise Ship for South Africa

Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Azamara Cruises, Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Hapag LLoyd, MSC, Mediterranean, Mexico, Middle East, News, Positioning Voyages, Royal Caribbean | Posted by cruisepeople
Apr 13 2010

by Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"
In the past few years, the Spanish cruise market has been one of the fastest-growing in the world and the big two, Carnival and Royal Caribbean have both now joined the play. Spanish-speaking cruises now operate not only from Spanish ports but also from Venice, Piraeus, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Lisbon, Santo Domingo, Cartagena, Acapulco and many ports in Brazil. This week the news is about where Azamara is going and the announcement of a second ship for the South African cruise market.

Viva L’España – Pullmantur Advances on the World
With the publication of an English-language brochure Pullmantur is now making available to a wider audience its worldwide cruise itineraries on its fleet of second generation cruise ships built in the 1980s and 1990s – two by Royal Caribbean, two by Celebrity and one each by Carnival and Hapag-Lloyd.

Pullmantur’s big attraction is its "AI" all inclusive programme that includes not only the usual full board but also "unlimited [bottled] water, fruit juices, coffee, soft drinks, beer, wine and drinks in the bars and restaurants, disco and theatre."

The fleet is a modern one, but composed of more traditional cruise ships than the mammoth 100,000-tonners that have become popular to-day. Two-thirds of it has been acquired from parent company Royal Caribbean. The oldest fleet member is  Ocean Dream, built in 1982 as Tropicale, Carnival’s first newbuilding, and the others are of more recent vintage. Sovereign was built in 1988 as Royal Caribbean’s Sovereign of the Seas, at the time the world’s largest cruise ship;  Empress in 1990 as Royal Caribbean’s Nordic Empress, the first newbuilding for 3- and 4-day cruises, Pacific Dream as Celebrity Cruises’ Horizon in 1990, and her sister ship Zenith, also for Celebrity in 1992. The line’s sixth ship, Bleu de France, was built as Hapag-Lloyd’s last Europa in 1982 and like the present Europa, was once the top-rated cruise ship in the world. Although operated by its French subsidiary Croisiéres de France, she is also featured in Pullmantur’s English-language brochure.

Since the early days of operating cruises from Barcelona with ships like Oceanic, Pullmantur has advanced to the stage where it now operates cruises between Copenhagen and Helsinki with Empress, from Athens with  Zenith, and from Lisbon and Malaga with both  Zenith and Empress, at different times of the year. Bleu de France also sails from Marseilles for the French market. In the Caribbean, it operates Pacific Dream from Santo Domingo and Ocean Dream from Cartagena. In Mexico, Pacific Dream sails from Cozumel and  Ocean Dream from Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta. Its flagship, meanwhile, the 2,324-berth Sovereign, runs on the line’s traditional routes from Barcelona.
In conjunction with the longer-haul cruises, Pullmantur also operates a fleet of 747s that offer a business class service on the upper deck. But here is the fleet:

Pullmantur’s seventh ship, the steam turbine-powered Atlantic Star, originally Sitmar’s Fairsky, remains laid up for the moment. But there has been talk that she may be placed into a new service in Europe, serving ports such as Dover, Amsterdam, Le Havre and Bilbao, with passengers able to board at any one of them for a 7-day cruise. On such a relatively short circuit, this heavy fuel burner would be much more economic and would also be able to remain in some ports overnight.

All in all, Royal Caribbean, who acquired Pullmantur as the major player in the rapidly-expanding Spanish-speaking market in 2006, has stolen a march on Carnival Corp & PLC, who quickly followed them into that market with Ibero Cruceros in 2007. Ibero Cruceros presently has a fleet of three ships, but these are about to be joined by a fourth in  Grand Holiday, formerly Carnival’s Holiday, now undergoing refurbishment in Genoa.

Ibero’s ship are newer on average, but can only carry about 58% of the fleet capacity of those Pullmantur ships that are in service, which will come down to about half if the Atlantic Star is reactivated.

Nevertheless, like Pullmantur, Ibero Cruceros now bases ships in several of the same main markets, i.e. the Western Med from Spain (primarily Grand Holiday, but also Grand Mistral and Grand Voyager), the Eastern Med from Venice and Piraeus (Grand Celebration), the Atlantic and Canary Islands from Vigo and Lisbon (Grand Voyager), the Baltic and North Atlantic (Grand Mistral) and Brazil (Grand Celebration). Unlike Pullmantur, it is not in the Caribbean or on the Mexican Riviera, but this is still a much better showing for a Carnival Hispanic product after the failed Fiesta Marina project in 1993-94, which used the former Carnivale. Meanwhile, one further Spanish line, operating mainly out of Valencia and Barcelona, as well as Venice and Athens, is a company called Happy Cruises. Formerly know as Quail Cruises, its present fleet numbers two smaller ships:

Gemini‘s claim to fame is that she was actually built in Spain, by Union Naval de Levante in Valencia, while Ocean Pearl is a first generation cruise ship, built as Song of Norway for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. Both ships are owned by the Clipper Group of Denmark and managed by International Shipping Partners of Miami.

Azamara’s Overnight Stays
When Azamara Club Cruises announced that it would be adding more overnight stays so that passengers could get to explore not only the nightlife, theatres and restaurants but also the general environs of where they were, it turns out that it was quite serious. The line announced that there would be overnight stays in no fewer than 38 different ports, and, on top of that, late night (10 pm or later) departures for 63 more ports in 2011-12.

Its spring Mediterranean itineraries have been designed as a series of 7-night cruises where ports generally do not repeat, so that they can be combined into a 14- or 21-night cruise for those who want a longer stay on board. Then heading for the Baltic, Azamara Journey will set sail from the Paris port of Rouen, whose cathedral was the world’s tallest building between 1876 and 1880 and was painted more than thirty times by Monet. Other destinations for this ship will include the West Indies, the Amazon, South America and the Antarctic.

Azamara Quest, meanwhile, will be back in the Far East, with overnight stays featured in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. After a Far East season, and heading back to the Med, she will feature an overnight stay in Alexandria, then visits to the Greek Isles and the Black Sea. Both ships will be offering 7-night itineraries that can be combined, as well as a number of 11-night voyages. Back to the Red Sea, overnight stays will be offered at Sharm el Sheik and Safaga, as well as Aqaba, and other overnight stays are planned in ports such as Mumbai and Bali.

Azamara also began its programme of complimentary vintage red and white wines chosen from boutique vineyards, bottled waters, soft drinks and specialty coffees and teas, and complimentary shuttle buses at ports where it is felt they are needed.

A Second Cruise Ship for South Africa
For many years now, Starlight Cruises of Johannesburg has been offering Italian cruise ships in the seasonal South African summer market. Ships as varied as  Achille Lauro, Rhapsody, Melody, MSC Armonia and MSC Sinfonia have served this market, usually offering a southbound liner voyage from Italy in November and a northbound voyage back to the Mediterranean in the spring.

For the 2010-11 season, however, two ships will head south, when the 1,544-berth MSC Sinfonia, which is just completing her maiden season in South Africa, will be joined by the return of the 1,064-berth MSC Melody, as she is called now. Most sailings have been from Durban and popular destinations include Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles, as well as Mozambique.

Two ships will give MSC an annual equivalent capacity for over 100,000 cruisers from both Durban, where MSC has long had an important office, and Cape Town. Starlight Cruises began with Greek and other chartered ships but now acts as general sales agent in South Africa for MSC Crociere. What is interesting about MSC in South Africa, however, is that the review sites there give the line the same mixed reports that it gets from other nationalities such as Americans and Britons.

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Ultra-Luxury ships – Alaska In Retreat – Hapag-Lloyd’s Air Cruises and a Non-Stop Sailing – Cunard Joins The Overnight Stay Lines

Asia, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard Line, Disney Cruise Lines, Hapag LLoyd, News, Positioning Voyages, Ship Reviews | Posted by cruisepeople
Mar 29 2010

by Mark Tre’ – “The Cruise Examiner”

This week, we look at initial reviews for Seabourn Odyssey while we await those for Silver Spirit, delivered more recently. As well, we have news of a retreat on Alaska’s head tax, air cruises and a one-time voyage from Singapore to Nice from Hapag-Lloyd and overnight stays for Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth.

STORY OF THE WEEK
Feedback for Seabourn Odyssey and Silver Spirit
So far, the Cruise Critic has accumulated a dozen reviews for Seabourn Odyssey, which has been in service since last summer, but just one so far for Silver Spirit, which has only been in service for three months.

Of the dozen for Seabourn Odyssey, five, or just under half, award the latest Seabourn ship five stars plus and three award five stars, accounting for three-quarters of the feedback so far. What is surprising, however, is that she has earned three scores of only four stars and one of just three. Review sites are notorious of course for producing complainers, but these account for a quarter of the reviewers. As the ship’s best reviews came from her initial Mediterranean cruises and the poorer reviews once she had moved over to the Caribbean, one must wonder about that as well.

The majority of the initial reviews were full of praise for Seabourn, something one would expect from a line whose followers are so steadfast in their praise and their loyalty. A number of reviewers, even critical ones, aid that they would return to Seabourn or bought future cruise reduction certificates on board, but it’s also worth looking at some of the disappointments.

One comment is that Seabourn Odyssey‘s standard suites have become quite narrow, at 9.5 feet, one reviewer describing them as “tunnel-like,” as the ship is much wider than the traditional Seabourn ship. Some complained that the service had suffered, something that hopefully Seabourn will overcome once the new ship is bedded in. This may take some time however as the second and third in the series are delivered. One peculiar observation made by a couple of reviewers was that the movement of Seabourn Odyssey made them feel seasick, but both these comments came in the Caribbean.
Overall, there is no question that the three new Seabourn ships will totally change the product. Instead of a trio of 212-berth yacht-like vessels that suffer from a genuine shortage of verandas, the new ships are each more than twice the size of the traditional Seabourn ships, and it is interesting to see the number of Regent clients who seem to be trying her out now that Seabourn has more or less joined the big ship league.

If Seabourn decides to keep the traditional ships as well as the new trio, it will have more than tripled its berth inventory in a very short period.

Silver Spirit has only received a single review so far at Cruise Critic. Although it only awarded four stars, such a sample is too small to be representative even if it was written by a travel professional. Further review will have to wait but one interesting observation is that this ship has television screens that appear and disappear into a mirror.
Meanwhile, there is no question that the new ships have brought Seabourn, and to some extent, arch-competitor Silversea into the next rung up in terms of size. Others have compared the new ships to Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ Europa, which has now been sailing for ten years with the world’s top cruise ship rating. The new ships also remind one of Royal Viking Line, whose initial trio of ships was limited to 550 passengers. Ironically, however, if one compares the new ships with Silversea’s last generation, Silver Shadow and Silver Whisper of 2000/01, the new ships actually have lower Passenger Space Ratios:

Ships of 610 to 650 feet were normal-size ocean liners in the past and the upmarket lines are trying to bring the exclusivity of the small ship experience into a larger platform. They will in all likelihood succeed, as they are now back to ship sizes that were common with the likes of Norwegian America Line and Swedish American Line in the past, as well as the newly-born Royal Viking Line of 1972. None of the latter survive to-day, but as the cruise market has now grown enough to support the four larger 40- to 60,000-ton ships of Crystal Cruises and Regent Seven Seas as well, this will now mean a fleet of a dozen large ultra-luxury ships sailing under five brands.

Whether all those brands will survive may be the next big question, but with lines such as Oceania and Azamara Club Cruises following close behind the trend is good that consumers will not be stuck with just mammoth ships carrying 5,000 and more people, as have been developing recently in the mass market. The likes of Seabourn, Silversea, Regent, Crystal and Ocean and Azamara will give people plenty of opportunities to trade up if they wish to escape the madding crowd.

THIS WEEK IN CRUISING
Alaska In Retreat
At Seatrade last week, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and the cruise lines that are suing the state came to an agreement whereby the cruise lines will drop their suit if Alaska cuts back its head tax by 25%, from $46 to $37.50. Alaska will lose 140,000 passengers in 2010 because of this levy, which after another $4 to cover “ocean rangers” riding cruise ships, comes to $50 a head.

Governor Parnell was quoted as telling a luncheon meeting last Friday that “In an audience of thousands, I heard our state singled out for its costly fiscal and regulatory environment. No other jurisdiction has a head tax as high as ours.”

The present session of the Alaska state legislature ends April 18 and whether the new law can be passed by then is not yet known. Whenever it is passed, it will take immediate effect so the tax cuts would be felt right away.

In the last few months, it has been announced that more expensive ships such as  Crystal Symphony, Disney Wonder and Oceania‘s Regatta will be sailing into Alaska in 2011. But it will take some time before Alaska can see the sort of volumes it did in the past from the main market lines, who are now committing to their 2012 itineraries.

Meanwhile, while Alaska has been busy trying to extract more money from cruisers, Celebrity Cruises, who has been big there for some years, has committed to putting three “Solstice” class ships in Europe in 2011 and has recently confirmed that 40% of the line’s business now comes from outside the US. And Royal Caribbean is planning to deploy ten ships to Europe in 2011.

Hapag-Lloyd’s Air Cruises and a Non-Stop Sailing Singapore to Nice
In an innovative move for its German-speaking clients, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises have outfitted an Airbus 319 with 42 Club Class seats for a series of air cruises to points of interest. The plane, which has been named “Albert Ballin” after the inventor of cruising, will offer a variety of 3-, 12- and 21-day air cruises, with 3-day air cruises to Luxor and Marrakech, a 12-day itinerary to Hong Kong, a 21-day itinerary to the Silk Road. Other departures will take discerning travellers to South America and Australia. The first air cruise left Hamburg on January 27, 2010, using a Boeing 737 with 52 seats under command of Capt Erik Olsen and First Officer Sebastian Franz. In future, Hapag-Lloyd may consider using the aircraft to offer a special option to connect with cruises by its ships as well.

Hapag-Lloyd has meanwhile turned a problem into an opportunity, for some travellers at least. Their 420-guest five-star Europa has developed a problem in one of her four engines and three cruises that were part of her world cruise have had to be cancelled. Instead, she will be offering a real rarity, a non-stop liner voyage from Singapore to Nice, between May 4 and 21. The 17-night voyage with no stops is being offered from Euros 7,990 per person, with flight out to Singapore from Frankfurt, and there will be no single supplements. The voyage is to bring the ship back to Europe so that her defective engine can be replaced.

Cunard Joins The Overnight Stay Lines
With the delivery of the new Queen Elizabeth later this year, Cunard Line will join the ranks of cruises lines such as Crystal Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and Voyages to Antiquity who now include overnight stays to their cruise itineraries. With the fleet returning to three ships since the sale of  QE2, Cunard is taking the opportunity to add overnight stays at ports such as Venice, St Petersburg, New York and Amsterdam.

It is becoming an increasing mark of the quality lines that they are willing to allow their guests time in port overnight at interesting destinations so that they can enjoy the local cuisine and entertainment options rather than sailing at 6 PM and opening their casinos to all takers. Generally, the upmarket lines tend not to rely as much on board spend, which for more main market lines is now approaching 30% of their overall revenues.

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Boom Down Under – The End of EasyCruise? – The German Market

Australia/New Zealand, Canadian Cruises, Cunard Line, Deilmann Cruises, Great Lakes, Hapag LLoyd, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Orion Cruises, P&O, Pearl Seas, Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Seabourn Cruises, Transocean Tours | Posted by cruisepeople
Feb 23 2010

by Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"
This week’s story is all about Down Under, especially with the recent visits by David Dingle and Peter Shanks of Carnival UK and the announcement from Royal Caribbean that it would double its presence there next year.
We also note the possible demise of easyCruise and have a look at how the German market is developing.

STORY OF THE WEEK
Boom Down Under
As the world cruises all pass by Sydney in February, cruise line executives have the habit of escaping the northern winter and visiting Sydney for various events and announcements. This year was no exception, and while Carnival brands P&O Cruises, P&O Australia, Princess, Cunard and even Seabourn remain to the fore, Royal Caribbean has just announced that it is about to double its presence down under.
To begin with, David Dingle, ceo of Carnival UK (which includes Australia in its portfolio), visited down under late last month and revealed that twelve ships from Carnival brands P&O Australia, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Cunard Line and Yachts of Seabourn would visit Australia this year. Half of these ships would be based there.
He also revealed that Carnival Australia would book 190,000 passengers this year and then went on to predict that that figure would rise to 300,000 in 2010-11 and 350,000 in 2011-12, a massive increase of almost 85% over two years.
Part of this growth will come from P&O Australia, which has added Pacific Jewel and will soon see the addition of Pacific Pearl when she transfers in to the down under fleet. Both ships are moving to Australia from the Ocean Village brand, which is being closed down.
Mr. Dingle’s visit was followed last week by Peter Shanks, president and managing director of Cunard Line, who revealed that Australia and Germany are Cunard’s fastest-growing markets, and that Cunard will probably attract 10,000 cruisers from Australia this year, up 25% on last year. Not bad for a line whose ships only call on Australia once a year on world cruises. Mr. Shanks sailed from Sydney on Saturday in Queen Victoria, on board which he will host a dinner for the ship’s full round the world cruisers.
Princess Cruises operate two Australian-based ships now in the 1,950-berth Sun Princess and Dawn Princess, which latter will leave Sydney on a world cruise for the Australian market on May 21 for the Mediterranean (with a special call at Gallipoli, where 8,141 Australians gave their lives in the First World War), the UK and Ireland, the United States, Panama, Mexico, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands before arriving home again on September 3.
However, more interesting news came from Gavin Smith, managing director of Royal Caribbean Cruises Australia, who last Thursday announced that in November 2011, Royal Caribbean will send its 2,112-berth Brilliance of the Seas to join the 2,000-berth Rhapsody of the Seas in Australia. He further commented that Royal Caribbean is considering basing a ship year-round in Australia starting in 2012.
This still leaves them a long way behind Carnival Australia but there has to be room in that market for more than just one cruising group, especially as Smith admitted that most of Royal Caribbean’s business in Australia presently comes from abroad. Radiance of the Seas will become the newest and largest ship to be based at Sydney.
Royal Caribbean Cruises has been chasing P&O in the UK market for several years now and has its 3,600-berth Independence of the Seas based in Southampton, to be joined this year by Celebrity Cruises’ 2,850-berth Celebrity Eclipse. In the UK, the two lines have developed a very strong local following and with the addition of some Vegemite and Fosters beer, there should be no reason they couldn’t do the same in Australia. Unfortunately, however, the last time it tried to sell Celebrity in the Australian market, it ended up cancelling the programme (and still  there is still no word on whether Celebrity might try again once all its new ships are delivered).
The false start by Celebrity might remind one of NCL, who also tried the Australian market with Norwegian Capricorn Line in 1997. But when Star Cruises took over NCL in 2001, the line was dissolved.
In terms of penetration of the cruise product down under, probably the easiest comparison is with fellow Commonwealth countries:

It should be noted that while New Zealand looks strong, its cruise market is made up mostly of foreigners. But however one might measure the Australian market, if it were developed to the same level as the UK and Canada it would be producing well in excess of 500,000 cruisers a year instead of the present 330,000. That would indicate that Mr Dingle is probably quite right when he predicts such huge growth for Carnival Australia, even when one realizes that he is predicting that his company alone will handle as many cruisers as the entire Australian market now produces for all lines.
Meanwhile, in Perth, Classic International Cruises has been operating Fremantle-based cruises since 2003. It now uses the 560-berth Athena, and in 2010-11 will add the 450-berth Princess Danae, working out of Singapore, for the Australian fly/cruise market. Meanwhile, Carnival Australia will also be sending its 1,485-berth Pacific Sun and Sun Princess out to Fremantle to compete with them in the Western Australian market.
And while Australia hasn’t seen any Italian ships since the days of Sitmar Cruises’ Fairstar and Fair Princess, the 2,260-berth Costa Deliziosa will be calling there on her 2011 maiden world cruise, adding a bit of a European taste to the product on offer there.
Bottom line to all this is when Australia might see its first cruise newbuilding. As David Dingle once pointed out, Ocean Village was the sort of brand that could only support second-hand ships. But will these same ships in the Australian market be able to produce strong enough support to make it feasible to build a new ship dedicated specifically to Australian cruising?

THIS WEEK IN CRUISING
The End of EasyCruise?
Is last week’s news the end of the line for easyCruise or are they just taking a year out? In August last year, after four years of rather inconsistent operations, Stelios Haji-Iouannou finally sold the rights to the use of the easyCruise name to Greek ferry operator Hellenic Seaways.
From starting off as a boiled down "no frills" cabin price only product on the Riviera it had evolved into a pretty standard budget Greek Island cruise operator, running 3- and 4-day cruises from Piraeus, by the time this sale took place. In return, Mr. Stelios obtained some interest in Hellenic Seaways.
The news broke last week, however, only six months after the Hellenic Seaways agreement, that easyCruise was putting its 2010 itineraries "on hold" and could not confirm any availability until it heard further from its new owners.
EasyCruise has has difficulties from its start in 2005. The 232-berth easyCruise 1 proved to be too small to be viable and had to be replaced by the 462-berth easyLife in 2008. The start-up line’s first venture into river cruising, the easyCruise 2 of 2006, had also closed down midway through its 2007 season.
In a related move, the original sister ship of EasyCruise 1 (both were former Renaissance ships), the 100-berth Clelia II, and named for Mr. Stelios’ sister Clelia, has been chartered for ten years to Australia’s Orion Cruises and is to join them in the summer of 2011 as Orion II. As Clelia II, she opened a Great Lakes cruise service for Travel Dynamics of New York in 2009 and will still return for one more Great Lakes season this year.
News is not all bad for the Great Lakes, however, as Pearl Seas Cruises’ 210-berth Pearl Mist will be cruising the Great Lakes this year and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ 420-berth Columbus will be returning in 2011.
But in the end, getting back to easyCruise, it seems "no frills" cruise lines are not such a great idea after all. Most people really do want the frills (and the thrills). Not only easyCruise, but Airtours’ Sun Cruises and the imminent demise of Ocean Village tend to point in this direction. There are two or three exceptions of course. Thomson maintains Island Cruises as a separate one-ship brand.
And Louis Cruises and Classic International Cruises still manage to carve out a niche for themselves among those who want a low-fare product. But the latter were never introduced as no frills products.
The German Market
Peter Shanks’ comment that Germany was one of Cunard’s two fastest-growing markets does not come as a complete surprise. Going all the way back to Norwegian American Cruises, which Cunard acquired in 1988, it has had a large German following. At first they stayed with Vistafjord, which had typically been about half full of Germans as she was based in Europe, where  Sagafjord was its American ship. Even after Vistafjord became Cunard’s Caronia she retained her strong German following and whenever RMS Queen Mary 2 calls on Hamburg she brings throngs out to see her.
To-day that German following has successfully been transferred to the new Queens and there was a very large number of German passengers on Queen Victoria‘s Transatlantic crossing to New York last month..
In the meantime, the "club cruise" ships of Aida Cruises have built up such a large following that there are now seven of them, ranging 1,185 to 2,050 berths, with two more on order. Aida is such a new name in the business that most people forget that it actually dates back to the 1960s as Deutsche Seerederi (DSR). Its first ship, Volkerfreundschaft, is still sailing as Classic International’s much-rebuilt Athena.
All but the original Aida, built in 1996 and now named AidaCara, were built in Germany, four by Meyer Werft and two by Aker MTW. To-day Aida is operated as the German division of Costa Cruises and its ships are all all registered in Genoa. Nevertheless, it is dedicated to the German-speaking market, so much so that one can even forget sometimes that Aida and Cunard share the same ownership.
The latest product on the German market, TUI Cruises’ 1,870-berth Mein Schiff, is a joint venture between Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and TUI Travel, who also operate the upmarket Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. In the three months to December 2009, TUI Cruises, which began operations in May 2009, generated 122,000 passenger days, for a load factor of 69%.
The upmarket Hapag-Lloyd Cruises produced 77,000 passenger days on its four ships, a 77% load factor. Lower bookings reported in both markets reflected the economic conditions of the period in question. TUI Cruises will celebrate its first anniversary this year with a 12-night Round Britain cruise from Hamburg on May 9-21, with fares from €1,695 per person.
Meanwhile, Phoenix Reisen of Bonn have continued to expand until they now have four ocean ships, the 600-berth Amadea and 885-berth Albatros and the chartered Athena and 450-berth Alexander von Humboldt. They are due to take delivery in 2011 of the 1,200-berth Artania, built as the first Royal Princess and trading today as P&O’s Artemis. Then there is Hansa Kreutzfahrten of Bremen, with its 400-berth Delphin, 650-berth Delphin Voyager and the chartered 450-berth Princess Danae.
Other operators in the German market include three single-ship lines, Peter Deilmann Cruises of Neustadt, with its 550-berth Deutschland, Lord Nelson Seereisen, with its 780-berth Mona Lisa, now in British Columbia for the Winter Olympics, and Transocean Cruises of Bremen with its 590-berth Astor, not to mention numerous river operators.

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A "Four Queens" Cruise – Costa’s World Cruise – How Not to Charter a Ship – Ten Years of Europa

Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, Hapag LLoyd, Norwegian Cruise Lines | Posted by cruisepeople
Feb 09 2010

This week we find an interesting cruise that will include four Cunard Queens. An Alberta cruise ship charterer will be out approximately $15 million after cancelling a Winter Olympics charter on the Norwegian Star. Costa rejoins the ranks of those operating world cruises with its new Costa Deliziosa, delivered to-day in Venice.

This week’s special topic is ten years of excellence for Hapag-Lloyd’s Europa, top-rated ship in the world.

THIS WEEK IN CRUISING
Four Queens in One Cruise
Reader Offers Ltd, a travel agent retailer that sells exclusively through national newspapers in the UK, has put together an interesting cruise for 2011 that incorporates (but does not include) all four Queens – the new Queen Elizabeth, RMS Queen Mary 2, the original RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach and Queen Victoria. Customers will fly to New York, spend two nights in the Waldorf-Astoria, sail in the new Queen Elizabeth from New York to Los Angeles, spend a night in the original Queen Mary in Long Beach and then sail in Queen Victoria from Los Angeles to the Hawaiian Islands and Ensenada, Mexico, before returning home.
There is a little cheating in this plan, however, as RMS Queen Mary 2 is only involved as part of the first meeting of Cunard’s present three Queens, planned for New York, so, while Reader Offers say guests will "witness"  Queen Mary 2 in New York, it is unlikely they will actually get to go on board. An interesting attraction however is that Reader Offers has been able to set up a cocktail party on board the original Queen Mary in Long Beach with Commodore Ron Warwick, retired former commander of the Queens, before setting off in Queen Victoria for Hawaii and Mexico.
Queen Victoria will be based on the US West Coast in the winter of 2011, marking the first time that Cunard has based a ship there for several years. During the Second World War, Aquitania did some emergency trooping between the US West Coast and Hawaii after Pearl Harbor, and a number of Cunard ships have operated from West Coast ports to Alaska and other destinations in the past.

Costa Deliziosa‘s World Cruise
In an interesting twist this week, Costa Crociere has announced that it is going back into the world cruise business, an area from which it has been absent for many years. The 2,860-berth Costa Deliziosa has been scheduled for a 99-day circumnavigation to leave Savona on December 28, 2011. This will also be a first for Savona, which has become Costa’s main Italian cruise port. Although Costa is headquartered in Genoa, it owns the cruise terminal in nearby Savona.
The world cruise will be divided into three sectors: from Savona to Los Angeles via the Caribbean and the Panama Canal; from Los Angeles to Singapore via Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia; and from Singapore to Savona via Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, the Red Sea and Egypt.
Costa Deliziosa was delivered to Costa Cruises just this morning at the Venice Passenger Terminal and will sail to Dubai, for her official naming on February 23, the first cruise ship to be christened in an Arabian city. This winter, Costa Deliziosa and her 2009-delivered sister ship Costa Luminosa will both be based on Dubai, where Costa has been making huge inroads in recent years, with 140,000 passenger movements this winter (remember that embarking is one movement and disembarking is another).
The Deliziosa and the Luminosa are Costa’s "top of the range" ships, setting them apart from the rest of the fleet, and the fact that the latest ship has been chosen to revive Costa’s world cruise programme would seem to confirm this. The new ships’ modern design and use of premium materials such as marble and granite, stucco applied by spatula using the technique known as "spatolato veneziano" and other decorative flourishes including "parchment scroll" lamé, Murano glass, refined Zebrano wood and Wenge timber, stylish polished and glazed steel, and 970 La Murrina chandeliers, confirm this as well. Costa has not made a world cruise since pre-Carnival days, when it used Danae or Daphne as its world cruisers in the late 1980s.

How Not to Charter a Cruise Ship
In a move that will very probably cost Newwest Special Projects, a division of Newwest Travel of Edmonton, Alberta, about $15 million, while costing Norwegian Cruise Line nothing, Newwest has cancelled a Winter Olympics charter on  Norwegian Star that was to have run from February 6 to March 6, including positioning cruises from Los Angeles to Vancouver before and Vancouver to Los Angeles after her planned use as an 1,100-room hotel ship in North Vancouver for the duration of the Winter Olympics.
Last Monday, just five days before the ship was due to leave Los Angeles for Vancouver, Newwest announced that it was cancelling the charter and would do all it could to rebook customers who were left without Olympic accommodations. Reportedly, room prices had dropped from $1,400 per night to $700 per night to as little as $275 a night in an attempt to book the ship, part of the cost cutting achieved by stripping out some of the cruise product such as meals and entertainment, but to no avail. As well, the ship was originally to have been berthed at a quasi-metropolitan dock at the foot of Lonsdale Street in North Vancouver but later reports put her be at the Kinder Morgan Sulphur Dock. In either case International Ship and Port Facilities Security (ISPS) would have meant an extra cost, how much depending on the facility.
It is now understood that NCL will take advantage of the cancellation of the charter to send Norwegian Star for a routine drydocking in Victoria BC from February 14 to 28, a period that has kindly been paid for by Newwest, and will give NCL the ability to sell a few more cruises later when it had been intended to drydock her.
Under the terms of a similar cruise ship charter party used by a Carnival group company, Newwest would have had to place a deposit of about 10 per cent on confirming the charter and make two stage payments of 20% each with final balance of 50% payable one month before delivery. It would also have been required to pay for all port charges and fuel, plus a service charge of about $10 dollars per passenger per day. The fact that the ship’s crew were all required to obtain Canadian visas for the intended period in Vancouver was also said to have presented an extra cost of about $200,000. Some of these latter costs may be saved but the multi-million dollar charter fee will be forfeit.
In a statement made by Newwest before the cancellation of the charter, "Our sales have not been what we had hoped for and our expenses have increased beyond what we ever expected." We suppose that $1,400 per room per night was too much to expect, even for the Olympics. As The Cruise Examiner said on January 11, "such hotel ship charters seem to be a complicated and risky business, for everyone that is except the cruise lines, for whom it seems most lucrative."

THIS WEEK’S TOPIC
Ten Years of Excellence with the Europa
For the tenth year in a row, Douglas Ward, in the 2010 edition of the "Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships" has given Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ 28,890-ton 408-guest Europa top marks and awarded her the only five-stars-plus rating in the guide. And for several years now, Hapag-Lloyd has been greeting English-speaking passengers on its ships with a number of special "bilingual" cruises that are sold in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand (all the crew must speak English anyway, but menus, daily programmes, newspapers and other literature are available in English on these bilingual cruises).
But one problem the Hamburg-based Hapag-Lloyd is trying to confront is how to address the initial uncertainty or doubt that intending passengers may have about a product they are not familiar with. How much easier it must be to book with someone like a Regent or a Seabourn which your friends have travelled on or that is written up frequently in the English-language consumer media, with numerous press items and reviews available on line. So one might well may ask "Why should I cruise with Hapag-Lloyd?"
This article will try to address some of those points and the very first that comes to mind is quality, including some of the most exquisite service available at sea. The Europa has achieved its score of 1,851 points out of a possible 2,000 (92.6%) for a reason so let’s see why. The first thing to note is that Mr. Ward awards 472 points out of a possible 500 (95.2%) to the ship herself, her highest score in any category. Next, pretty well level pegging at 372 and 371 our of 400 (93%) come the cruise and the food. On the ship herself, Mr. Ward calls her "one of the world’s most spacious purpose-built cruise ships, an exquisite retreat," pointing out things such as the fact that all towels, and even doilies, are of cloth and paper is used nowhere, real flowers abound throughout and drinks by the pool are served in real glasses, not plastic.
He goes on to point out that in suite movies on Europa are free (while "all-inclusive" Silversea charges), the ship carries more than 5,000 different food ingredients so that menus are not repeated, afternoon tea includes a choice of 30 loose teas, not tea bags, and each passenger is assigned a free email address with their tickets (charges apply to images and attachments). Mr. Ward’s ultimate conclusion is that what wins Europa her top spot is "detail, detail, detail," or as he puts it "the little details that most other cruise lines have long left behind in the age of discounts."
While Europa does charge for wines and spirits, this is done at real duty-free prices and not as on other lines at hotel prices (where the line makes a whopping profit). Mr. Ward points out that "they are not included for the simple reason that ships that include drinks typically have a much more limited selection, including young table wines that may not be to all tastes." And the beer, soft drinks, water and juices that are stocked in your fridge, and the full bar in the higher level suites, are free. Meanwhile, shore excursions, another area now regarded by most cruise lines as a separate profit centre, with typically a 100% markup, are value for money on Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.
Europa on board is a delight, lounges with tall ceilings, an elegant seven-deck high atrium, she is more grand hotel than resort, and both the main restaurant (the Europa restaurant) and show lounge (the Europa Lounge) seat the full compliment of passengers. In addition to the main restaurant there is alternate dining at no extra charge in the Oriental, with hand-made Meissen porcelain carrying a flying fish pattern from a 1904 Hapag ship, and the Venezia, with fine Rosenthal china and excellent Italian fare. At the stern, the Lido Café gives onto the open deck. And above the Lido there is the wonderful Sansibar, a bar that also opens onto the stern
In addition to the Europa, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises operates the top-rated expedition ships Hanseatic and Bremen, cruising in polar and wilderness regions, and the 420-berth Columbus, which will be sailing back into the Great Lakes again in 2011.

 

Courtesy Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"

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Cruising à la Française

Costa Cruises, Hapag LLoyd, Louis, News, Passenger Freighters, Swan Hellenic | Posted by cruisepeople
Oct 26 2009


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 indigenous 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)

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Unique HAL Cruises in the Pacific Asia Region

Asia, Hapag LLoyd, News | Posted by cruisepeople
Mar 06 2008

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Holland America Line will feature a selection of nine unique voyages
to the Asia Pacific region in 2009. For the first time next autumn,
Volendam will sail to destinations throughout the Pacific, calling at
exotic locales in China, Southeast Asia, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and
Russia. A convenient new round-trip Hong Kong itinerary is offered and
for passengers looking to add to their port repertoire, the 2009 Asia
Pacific voyages also include four inaugural ports of call: Puerto
Princesa, Philippines; Otaru, Japan; Sanya, Hainan, China; and Keelung
(Taipei), Taiwan.

Itineraries offer a comprehensive exploration of over a
dozen of the most popular Pacific Rim nations on cruises from 14- to
19-days that were designed to enable one to combine cruises for a
truly unique and extended experience of up to 66 days. The
Explorations Speaker Series provides further opportunities for passengers to immerse themselves in the region with lectures focused on select ports of call.

“Asia Pacific is a must-do for experienced travellers, and Holland
America Line continues to raise the bar on the premium cruise
experience with our exceptional itineraries and engaging ports of call
not found with other lines,” said Richard D. Meadows, CTC, executive
vice president, marketing, sales and guest programmes for Holland
America Line. “We strive to offer our guests innovative and exciting
destinations and onboard activities that bring them back year after
year for new adventures.”

First round-trip Hong Kong sailing for Holland America Line

For those wanting a new adventure, Holland America Line offers a
round-trip Hong Kong itinerary for the first time. The 14-day journey
departs Oct. 26, 2009, and explores the ancient wonders and mysteries
of China and Vietnam. Passengers enjoy an overnight stay in Shanghai where
shopping abounds and a visit to the tranquil Yuyuan Gardens awaits. An
inaugural call at Sanya, Hainan, a popular resort area in China, enhances
the itinerary.

New Southeast Asia itinerary features maiden port of call

From Singapore to Hong Kong, Volendam is set to explore Malaysia,
Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, offering two itineraries — a
14-day cruise starting April 4, 2009 and a 12-day cruise starting Nov.
7, 2009. Highlights of the new 14-day itinerary include a first time call
at Puerto Princesa in the Philippines, famous for its crocodile farms,
underground rivers and dive spots. Named as a UNESCO World Heritage
Site, the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park features a
spectacular limestone karst landscape. An overnight stay in Laem
Chabang (Bangkok), Thailand, allows travellers plenty of extra time for
shopping and exploring the city’s amazing pagodas and temples.

Great Wall of China, Forbidden City explored on 14- and 16-day voyage

On Volendam‘s 14- and 16-day China, Japan and Korea cruise, there’s
plenty of time to explore the palaces and tombs that dot the ancient
lands, take in the tranquility of the temples and gardens and sample
the unique flavors of Asian cuisine. The itinerary offers two
overnight stays in China to ensure that guests are able to explore the
bustling city of Shanghai with an abundance of shopping and historical
sightseeing opportunities, and Xingang (Beijing) with optional shore
excursions to the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of
China. Volendam departs on this 14-day itinerary on April 18, 2009 and
16-day itinerary on Oct. 10, 2009.

Adventurous voyage takes passengers  from ancient traditions to colossal
glaciers

Those wanting a cruise with amazing scenery and diverse ports need
only join Volendam for its Japan, Eastern Russia and Alaska itinerary.
On the cruises between Kobe (Osaka), Japan; and Vancouver, the ship
will explore Petropavlovsk — known as Russia’s Far East – with it’s
scores of volcanoes, as well as the scenic Kurill Islands off the
coast of Russia and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Inside Passage.

An overnight stay in Yokohama (Tokyo), Japan, allows time to
experience one of the world’s busiest cities and take in the Senso-ji
and Kannon Temples. Guests on this voyage are in for a double treat:
crossing the International Date Line and visiting the inaugural port of
Otaru, Japan. Otaru is located on Hokkaido Island and is one of
Japan’s leading tourist destinations.

The 19-day cruise — which actually is 18 calendar days in length due
to the crossing of the international dateline — departs May 2, 2009,
and sails from Kobe (Osaka) to Vancouver. The 16-day cruise in the
reverse direction departs Vancouver on Sept. 23, 2009, or guests can
board the 15-day version sailing from Seattle on Sept. 24, 2009 and
take the ship to Kobe (Osaka). This cruise gains one day by crossing
the dateline, thus actually making the voyage 17 or 16 calendar days,
respectively.

Exclusive 15- and 19-day itineraries explore Indonesian Islands and
the Great Barrier Reef

Volendam’s two new Indonesian Islands and the Great Barrier Reef
itineraries are firsts of their kind among major cruise lines in the
region. Several interesting ports will be visited in Indonesia,
including Komodo Island, part of the Komodo National Park — a UNESCO
World Heritage Site — as well as Padang Bai, Bali, with an abundance
of shopping opportunities, and Semarang, a bustling city teeming with
ancient temples. Also on these exclusive cruises, passengers enjoy four
days cruising the Great Barrier Reef, including two days of daylight
cruising through the world’s largest coral reef system. Scenic
highlights in the reef include viewing the sunrise while anchored off
Lizard Island, an overnight anchorage in the reef near Sherrard
Island, cruising Torres Strait and taking in the sunset off Booby
Island. The 19-day itinerary from Auckland to Singapore departs March
16, 2009, and the 15-day Singapore to Sydney cruise departs Nov. 21,
2009.

Holland America Line also features a further selection of nine
adventurous voyages Down Under in 2009 with 14-day cruises and a
special 16-day holiday sailing between Australia and New Zealand.

For a 2009 Asia Pacific cruise brochure or for more information,
consult The Cruise People, Ltd. on 1-800-268-6523

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Unique Toronto – Miami Golf Cruise

Canadian Cruises, East Coast Cruises, Hapag LLoyd, Theme Cruises | Posted by cruisepeople
May 11 2007

French savoir vivre and quaint cafes and shops in Montreal • Old European flair and romantic charm in Quebec • The mighty St. Lawrence river • The idyllic Nova Scotia fishing village of Peggy’s Cove • The Great Freedom Trail Walk in Boston • The city that never sleeps, New York • Southern hospitality and beauty in Charleston and Savannah • Disney World and the exciting space center in Florida • Four professional great golf courses

Golf & Cruise:
From Toronto to Miami, October 18 – November 5, 2007    18 nights

  • Mon     Toronto/Canada, departure 22.00 hrs
  • Cruise on the St. Lawrence Seaway
  • Montreal/Quebec
  • Quebec/Canada
  • Cruise on Saguenay River and on St. Lawrence River
  • Gaspé/Canada
  • At sea
  • Halifax/Nova Scotia
  • Boston/Massachussetts
  • Boston/Massachussetts
  • Stow Acres Country Club (18 holes)
  • Cruise through Cape-Cod-Canal
  • Newport/Rhode Island
  • New York/USA
  • New York/USA
  • Baltimore/Maryland
  • Mountain Branch Golf Club (18 holes)
  • At sea
  • Charleston/South Carolina
  • Harbor Course Wild Dunes (18 holes)
  • Savannah/Georgia
  • Port Canaveral/Florida
  • Cocoa Beach Country Club (18 holes)
  • Miami/Florida, arrival 7.00 hrs

Call for cruise only rates.

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