Viking Ocean Cruise Line is World’s Best for the 5th year running:
https://cruisefever.net/cruise-line-named-worlds-best-for-5th-straight-year/#:~:text=Viking%20has%20been%20named%20the,the%20readers%20of%20Travel%20%2B%20Leisure.
Despite the incident at Hustadvika earlier this year and shutting down first due to Covid-19.
PS> Their decision to shut down had noting to do with CDC’s ban on cruising from US ports, since that is not their main market.
Good time to upgrade the fleet:
One more of Pontant’s new Expedition Cruise ships, Le Jacques Cartier has left the building yard and are now in Sam Malo:
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:6238664/mmsi:578001400/imo:9852420/vessel:LE_JACQUES_CARTIER
Preparing for a busy time, cruising both the Arctic, Antarctic and Tropics;
https://en.ponant.com/le-jacques-cartier
Fred Olsen Cruises is changing the turnaround port for their Caribbean cruises to Havana:
They have also purchased two cruise ships, the Rotterdam and Amsterdam from Carnival/HAL:
Somebody see a future for cruising.
Fred Olsen Cruise Line will retire two of their older ships, the Boudicca and Black Watch. (Both ex Royal Viking Line ships):
Lots of both former passengers and crews will miss these two.
MSC Cruises have successfully completed their first post-Covid cruise in the Med.:
https://cruisefever.net/cruise-lines-first-cruise-back-was-a-success/
Fred Olsen Cruises plan to re-commence cruises in early 2021. Yhis includes their two newly acquired ship, Bolette and Borealis (ex Rotterdam and Amsterdam):
Two other ex HAL vessel, the Maasdam and Veendam has also changed name, to Aegean Myth and Aegean Majesty respectively:
Genting/Dream Cruise line is betting on the Chinese market for their future survival:
Do ANY of these people drawing up these “ships of the future” have any idea of the concept of AIR DRAFT???
At some point at many ports they want to visit or canals they must transit, they must get “under” a bridge.
Oops???
Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem. Pass the word. It may help immensely in the future and help avoid much embarrassment later on.
Air draft is a point well taken. Have met many cruise ships in a narrow channel. Not pleasant when they think they are the boss. I took my side of the channel with fairly deep draft, they wanted more. Nothing for 6 o’clock news, but damn close.
On behalf of the world’s leading cruise ship building (cruise shipbuilding? cruiseshipbuilding?) nation, I can confirm that we have no fucking clue about an air draft. What is it, something edible?
How about stop building too low bridges, like the one in Denmark which forced us to stop building fully-assembled offshore drilling units (not sure if we ever did, but they took that possibility from us) and install expensive retractable funnels on Oasis of the Seas so that it could pass under. Once.
To be honest, maximum air draft (if any) is specified by the client together with other constrains and boundary conditions, either as an absolute value or through ports the ship is intended to visit.
I won’t say the name of the company here, but I’m routinely working aboard a ship that carries 10,000 tons of deadweight ballast only so she can get under a bridge in a port that is on her regular schedule.
The bridge was supposed to be demolished before her launching. It wasn’t. So the owner had to make many very last minute adjustments to be able to “fit” into her assigned berth.
I look at these rather grand ideas of huge sailing ships today and wonder … where’s that gonna go??
The Spirit of Adventure has reach “open waters”:
5 classical Cruise Ships are offered for sale:
More cruise lines are ready to go back to work:
Knut Utstein Kloster, the “Father of modern Cruising” has died at the age of 92:
UPDATE:
An MAREX article from 2017 with more details about the man and his visions:
