P&O Austrailia, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, will be folding its brand after over 90 years as the company shuts down and gets absorbed by Carnival Cruise Line. In an effort to consolidate its fleet and solidify its flagship cruise line, Carnival Corporation will send Pacific Encounter and Pacific Adventure to Carnival Cruise Line and remove Pacific Explorer from the fleet.
This move follows a trend as the company has previously repurposed three Costa Cruise Line ships to join the CCL brand giving birth to the “Carnival Fun, Italian Style” campaign as Luminosa, Venicia and Firenze have all made the move from the company’s Italian themed Costa brand to its mainstream Carnival Cruise Line fleet
Carnival has referred to this as a strategic move to increase Carnival Cruise Lines ship count, inventory and overall guest capacity, which will ultimately strengthen the dominant brand within its industry-leading portfolio. Currently, Carnival Splendor and Carnival Luminosa are sailing seasonally from Brisbane, as will Encounter and Adventure as they transition from P&O to Carnival.
The overall transition is expected to be completed by the end of 2025 as all existing sailings are scheduled to sail as planned. The cruise line will notify guests of any changes between now and then.
The latest attempt at a full-time residence at sea is a cruise ship named Odyssey by Villa Vie was originally scheduled to set sail on May 15 of this year from Southampton. It’s dry dock was extended thus delaying its initial launch to May 30th while making it also necessary to change its embarkation port to Belfast Ireland. While many residents had already made travel plans to be in Southampton, the cruise line did compensate them with housing and transportation.
This was all well and good until complications made it necessary to further delay the launch. Due to a greywater tank issue, as well as faulty rudders (equipment instrumental in the steering of the ship) Odyssey’s sail-away is now expected to take place on June 15th.
There have been several attempts by start-up companies over the past decade to launch a “residence at sea” product with many of them failing before they even begin operations. Odyssey by Villa Vie looks to be very close to pulling off what others have failed at. Let’s cross our fingers and hope the new launch date prevails.
Due to concerns of overcrowding, the Alaskan city of Juneau has placed a limit on how many total passengers can enter the city via cruise ship. A memorandum of agreement was signed by the city itself after negotiating the details with the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) for no more than 16,000 berths per day Sunday through Friday and a limit of 12,000 on Saturdays. Also part of the agreement is the commitment to continue to optimize the schedules, review passenger numbers and discuss the goals of the community.
“This latest agreement reflects the industry’s ongoing commitment to work with CBJ and the residents of Juneau to deliver win-win partnerships. Cruise lines are committed to being strong partners with the community and the City’s leadership has been instrumental in maintaining a dialogue to foster solutions to the issues highlighted by the VITF,” said Renée Limoge Reeve, Vice President of Government and Community Relations at CLIA.
“We’ve heard the community’s concerns and will continue to partner with CBJ to improve the experience of residents and visitors alike.”
