I’ve done quite a lot of posts over recent years about the continuing arguments about cruising into and out of Venice. Here’s a link to the collection of posts. During the early summer several cruise lines which have done day calls at Venice, e.g. Royal Caribbean, have announced that they will in future call at Ravenna rather than Venice. Of course, these calls at Venice haven’t been happening this summer anyway, and in the case of the lines doing day calls the earliest they would restart would be some time next spring. In August there was a further development. The two cruise lines doing turn ..read more

Black Watch berthed at Rouen Fred. Olsen Cruises have recently announced that their two oldest ships, Black and Boudicca, are being retired. They will be replaced by the two ships that Fred. Olsen bought from Holland America line in July this year, the Amsterdam and the Rotterdam. The two new ships – to be named Bolette and Borealis – will take over the existing planned itineraries in 2021 and 2022 of Boudicca and Black Watch respectively. Bolette will be home-ported in Dover, and Borealis will be be home-ported in Liverpool. I’m sad to see Black watch and Boudicca go. They were truly classic ..read more

This has been a summer of no cruising, but cruise ships everywhere – well, cruise ships wandering up and down the English Channel. Here’s a link to a BBC News story about the phenomenon, complete with some pictures. I think a number of would-be passengers have found this very frustrating ..read more

There are rumours today about the future of Cunard. The line is presently owned by Carnival Corporation (and has been since the early 90s), but there are suggestions today that Carnival may want to divest themselves of the line, the brand and all of its ships (or maybe just two of them? – see below) to a dedicated operator. There is a suggestion that Carnival have had difficulty competing Cunard with the truly luxury lines. Of course, it’s also true that, at the present time, Carnival Corporation would welcome some cash liquidity, and selling Cunard line would be a small, discrete package that ..read more

I’ve learned (thanks to Malcolm Oliver) that Swan Hellenic are set to return, starting in late 2021. I’ve done a few posts in recent years about this line. They used to feature ‘cultural cruising’ – cruises around historic regions, with small ships, guest lecturers, etc. The line closed down in 2017 when their owners, All Leisure Group, went bankrupt. The brand and some others in the All Leisure Group were taken over by G Adventures, who promised that Swan Hellenic would return, but nothing actually transpired. What’s happened now is that the Swan Hellenic brand has been taken over by private ..read more

I recently did a post in which I outlined the UK Government’s advice on ‘cruise travel’. Essentially, it was – don’t. That advice has changed in the past few days. The advice now includes two additional paragraphs in which the UK Government attempts to define what they mean by ‘cruise travel’. Here are the additional paragraphs:- Cruise ship travel means staying overnight for at least 1 night on a sea-going cruise ship with people from multiple households. Our advice against cruises applies to international travel on a ship that is exclusively for pleasure or recreation, providing overnight a ..read more

There have been a couple of interesting announcements recently. First, Carnival Corporation announced yesterday (15 July) that it had sold four of Holland America Line’s (HAL) smaller ships, all dating from the mid-90s to (very) early 00s, and all of about 55,000 to 62,000 tons. Then early today, Fred. Olsen announced that they had bought two of them, the former Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The ships will undergo quick rebranding and will then join the rest of the Fred. Olsen fleet at Rosyth. The two ships that Fred. Olsen have bought are very similar (if not identical). They are two of the four-s ..read more

The EU has issued a document under the title “Interim Advice for restarting cruise ship operations after lifting restrictive measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic”. The date of issue was 30 June. Assuming these advice guidelines are implemented, they will have a large impact on the cruise experience. The document is in 10 main parts, as follows: Parts 1 & 2 are the Introduction and Purpose of the document; Part 3 covers Essential Pre-requisites; Part 4 options for preventing “COVID-19 infectious passengers” from starting their cruise; Part 5 covers preparedness for responding to C ..read more

In an update to its general travel advice, the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised “against cruise travel at this time”. The reason given is the ongoing pandemic. The full text of the advice is:- The Foreign & Commonwealth Office advises against cruise ship travel at this time. This is due to the ongoing pandemic and is based on medical advice from Public Health England. The government will continue to review its cruise ship travel advice based on the latest medical advice. If you have future cruise travel plans, you should speak to your travel operator, or the travel ..read more

Oceana berthed at Abu Dhabi P&O have today announced that Oceana is leaving the P&O fleet. In practice, with the current pause this is happening immediately – the announcement says “this month”. I’m not surprised by this. I have a feeling that this is all to do with Venice…. I’ll explain. For the last several years there have been de-facto restrictions on the size of ships sailing into Venice – about 89,000 tons – and Oceana is within this limit. There’s some uncertainty as whether or not this regulation was actually still legally in force, but that didn’t matter – the Cruise Lines Ind ..read more