It’s a shame you don’t find cruise holidays under the tree at Christmas but I’ll bet there’s plenty of people having their appetites whetted by the prospect of sailing away in 2011.
TV adverts promoting summer 2011 holidays of all kinds, and cruises in particular, have hit our screens even before the last bit of turkey has been digested.
The likes of Jamie and Louise Redknapp and Denise van Outen are promoting summer holidays in ads which started appearing on Boxing Day.
These, together with enticing images of calm seas and awe-inspiring destinations seen from the eyes of cruise passengers from the likes of P&O Cruises, can only build up the anticipation of escaping Britain’s big chill.
Getting away from the daily drudge and boarding a cruise ship has to be the biggest holiday buzz of all.
But given the appalling travel conditions pre-Christmas with airports grid locked and flights cancelled and delayed, who would blame us for thinking twice about jetting off.
My advice is to not let those appalling scenes at Heathrow put you off – while there was no excuse for the chaos that befell so many thousands of passengers, you can bet your life a similar situation will not be allowed to be repeated again.
Improved contingency planning will have to be put in place to counter such freak adverse snow and ice which crippled many airports in the week before Christmas.
And the government is drawing up new airport regulations with the threat of multi-million pound fines for airport operators that fail to maintain operations during adverse weather.
Fly-cruising taking off
That should lead to improvements in the airport experience irrespective of the weather and will come as good news to the increasing number of people taking fly-cruises from the UK.
A record number of more than one million passengers are forecast to fly to join their cruise ship in destinations as varied as the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Dubai and Alaska in 2011 – up 75,000 on this year’s figure.
The lure of cruise and stay breaks, a specialist area for Virgin Holidays Cruises, is helping drive this growth as travellers look to combine a cruise with a beach resort-based holiday.
This is just one of the trends expected for the coming year, alongside continuing growth in the level of passengers opting to forgo flying to depart on their cruise from a UK port.
The number of people forecast to take so-called no-fly cruises is projected to rise by 55,000 to 710,000 in 2011 helped by increasing availability.
Ex-UK also on the rise
Royal Caribbean International is running year-round cruises from Southampton for the first time with the fun-packed ship Independence of the Seas, and will be joined by P&O Cruises’ ship Oceana from the end of October with winter cruises to the Canary Islands and Mediterranean.
Then there is Italian line Costa Cruises making its UK debut with sailings to key European capitals from Dover and Harwich and rival MSC Cruises running its first summer programme of departures with 1700-passenger MSC Opera from Southampton.
French small ship company Compagnie du Ponant will also be new on the UK scene by running its first UK sailings from Portsmouth in the summer.
The 226-passenger Le Diamant will set sail in July and August on a series of ‘Celtic cruises’ covering ports in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Belgium, Portugal and Spain.
On a far bigger scale, Princess Cruises’ is revamping Grand Princess ahead of its return to annual summer sailings from Southampton in May. A favourite with British passengers, the 2,600-passenger vessel will gain a number of new dining options as part of a major refurbishment which also covers the spa, casino and atrium.
For a more traditional experience, Cunard’s new ship Queen Elizabeth will be running a full summer season of cruises from Southampton, with 22 voyages to destinations ranging from the Med, Norwegian fjords, round-Britain to North Ameirca and the Caribbean. Sister ship Queen Victora will also be sailing out of the Hampshire port between April and August while flagship Queen Mary 2 continues its series of transatlantic voyages to New York, interspersed by its second circumnativation of the UK.
Designer ship Celebrity Eclipse is also returning to Southampton in April 2011 for its second summer of sailings to the Med and Baltic Sea.
Premium US company Holland America Line will have a big presence with three ships offering sailings from Uk ports in 2011 – Eurodam and Ryndam from Dover and smaller ship Prinsendam departing from Tilbury on the River Thames.
A number of one-off departures from the UK have also been scheduled for next year by luxury lihnes such as Crystal Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Silversea.
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines is a perennial favourite for British cruisers and will be continuing its tactic of running departurs from regional ports such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Greenock and Rosyth in addition to Dover and Southampton.
This is just a snapshot of the variety of cruise itineraries, cruise lines and ships available over the next 12 months.
I’ll be blogging with all the latest news as cruise companies disclose their plans for 2012 and beyond, so keep watching this space.
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