AIDA Cruises’ 38,557gt/1996 built AIDAcara departed Hamburg on 17th October at the start of a 116-day cruise around the world, taking the ship to 41 ports in 23 countries on five continents, until 10th February 2018. Captain Lars Krüger had the honour of taking the ship out on AIDA’s very first world cruise itinerary, departing from the Steinwerder cruise terminal. The ship sailed via the Hafencity and the Elbphilharmonie prior to heading down the River Elbe. As she did so, a fireworks display was staged at Altona as the AIDAcara passed. On 8th October 2018 the 42,289gt/2003 built AIDAaura will undertake the operator’s second world cruise programme over a total of 117 days.

Azamara Club Cruises will offer its first ever round-trip sailing from Southampton on the new 30,277gt/2001 built Azamara Pursuit, formerly P&O’s Adonia, on 13th August 2018 when the ship departs for Reykjavik, Iceland, returning on 28th August. The Azamara Pursuit’s other itineraries, include 15 maiden calls and will add more than 61 destinations to the brand, an increase of 40%.

Celebrity Cruises announced on 17th October that the new Celebrity Edge will make her cruising debut in Europe in summer 2019, based at Civitavecchia and Barcelona. The inaugural sailing will take the ship from Southampton on 15th May 2019 on a 10 night cruise. As previously mentioned, the Celebrity Edge marks a turning point in Celebrity Cruises’ approach to ship design, with her revolutionary, outward-facing infrastructure (highlighted by signature features such as the Magic Carpet and the Edge Stateroom with an Infinity Veranda). The Infinity Veranda merges the boundaries between outside and inside to create one larger space and open-air access to the sea. In addition to Celebrity Edge, Celebrity Cruises will also have the Celebrity Infinity (Venice & Rome), Celebrity Constellation (Venice, Barcelona Civitavecchia), Celebrity Reflection (Dublin/Amsterdam) and Celebrity Silhouette (Southampton) based in Europe for the 2019 season.

Costa Cruises will, in a move to optimise fleet deployment, relocate the Costa Fortuna to sail in Europe in 2019 after a winter in Southeast Asia. The ship has been based in Shanghai, since 2016 but, with the arrival of the new vessel for Costa Asia specifically designed for Chinese and Asian guests (currently being built by Fincantieri) the ‘Fortuna will reinforce the Mediterranean operations ahead of the arrival of the Costa Smeralda at the end of 2019. The latter will then serve alongside the 102,669gt/2003 built Costa Fortuna and the recently redeployed 75,166gt/1996 built Costa Victoria. In May 2018 the 114,261gt/2007 built Costa Serena will deploy to South Korea for two week-long cruises as the ship has been chartered by Lotte Tour.

On 1st November Costa Cruises revealed the name of its next new Vista Class vessel as the Costa Venezia, which will be purpose-built for the Chinese market. The ship will debut in 2019 and her name was announced at the ship’s coin ceremony at the Monfalcone Fincantieri shipyard in Italy. The 135,500gt and 5,260 guest capacity Costa Venezia will enter service with an inaugural world cruise departing Trieste in Italy in March 2019 and sailing to Shanghai. A second Costa cruise ship for the Chinese trade will debut in 2020.

Cunard Line’s 90,901gt/2010 built Queen Elizabeth will, in May and June 2019, after crossing the Pacific from Japan, offer a spring season of four 10-night cruises from Vancouver to Alaska. These will depart on 21st/31st May and 10th/20th June. Itineraries will feature scenic cruising through the Inside Passage as well as full days in several of the region’s ports, including Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka plus the Tracy Arm Fjord or Endicott Arm, Icy Strait Point, Hubbard Glacier and Victoria. This will also be the first time a ship called Queen Elizabeth has visited British Columbia since 1942. Upon conclusion of these cruises the ship will then sail down the West Coast of the U.S.A, through the Panama Canal to New York, on to Iceland and back to the U.K.

Genting Cruise Lines, a division of Genting Hong Kong comprising of Dream Cruises, Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises, commemorated the official handover of the World Dream, the newly constructed second newbuild for Dream Cruises, on 26th October during a special event at Meyer Werft, Bremerhaven. The World Dream, sister ship to the Genting Dream, then began her voyage from Germany to China via Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean.

Hapag Lloyd’s newbuild Hanseatic Inspiration had her keel laid at VARD’s Romania facility on 18th October, marking the next stage of construction for the second of two new expedition ships for the German company. The new ships will have the highest ice class available for cruise ships, PC6, and both are set to explore polar waters. Hapag-Lloyd also confirmed the ships will be able to sail in the Great Lakes thanks to a retractable bridge wing that makes it possible for the vessels to fit through narrow locks. When the hull is floated out, it will be towed to a VARD facility in Norway for exterior outfitting ahead of scheduled delivery in October 2019.

Louis Cruise Lines’ 22,412gt/1986 built Sea Diamond is to be raised from her watery grave 91m beneath the surface off the Greek Island of Santorini. The 143m long cruise vessel sank upon hitting a volcanic reef on 5th April 2007 (above). Nearly all the 1,600 passengers and crew were safely evacuated, but a 45-year-old French passenger and his teenage daughter are presumed to have drowned. However, divers were unable to locate any bodies. The Greek Merchant Marine Ministry did not say when the ship would be raised.

MAN Diesel & Turbo announced at the end of October that type approval had been granted for its uprated MAN L51/60DF engine. The dual-fuel engine can serve both as main and auxiliary engine and successfully passed its Type Approval Test (TAT), which ran 17th-20th October at the company’s Augsburg works in Germany, in front of the industry’s main classification societies.

The Augsburg testbed no. 20 hosted the test programme of a nine-cylinder version of the engine that ran on fuel oil (DMA) and natural gas, including alarm and safety systems, the pilot fuel system, and the gas supply system. The TAT also successfully tested the integration of MAN’s proprietary SaCoSone engine control system with the engine. The nine-cylinder test engine has an output of 1,150kW/cylinder at a nominal speed of 500/514 rpm. This new engine form will be available for use by the maritime industry, including cruise ships.

MSC Cruises’ 65,591gt/2003 built MSC Lirica (above) will re-position to Europe in April 2018, leaving her year-round position in the Chinese cruise market. The 137,936gt/2009 built MSC Splendida will replace her fleetmate in China during May (transferring from Dubai), slightly boosting capacity for the company as the larger, 3,300 passenger ship will serve the Chinese operation on a seasonal basis for MSC. The company is also developing a customized ‘MSC for Me’ programme for the Chinese market in collaboration with Deloitte, to suit the likes of the new age Chinese customers. MSC will also offer a new artificial intelligence translation installation across the ship, which will utilise the WiFi network to help guests and crew communicate. The system has been developed in conjunction with Baidu, a leading Chinese search engine, and Tuge, a technology outfit. MSC also has a new China ambassador in the form of Liu Ye, a Chinese actor, and his wife Anais Martane. The MSC Lirica has been on a charter agreement with Chinese travel agency Caissa Touristic Group, but that agreement is ending. The ship will offer cruises from Venice and Bari to Greece and Croatia for the 2018 summer in response to demand for itineraries in the Eastern Mediterranean, joining three other MSC ships in the region. The MSC Orchestra became the first cruise ship to be dry docked in Marseille’s large Drydock 10, operated by Chantier Naval de Marseille (CNdM) at the end of October, following the facility’s refurbishment. Sistership MSC Magnifica joined her at CNdM on 5th November. On 6th November the new MSC Seaside came alive when the shore power was switched off and the ship’s own generators supplied the electricity.

Nordic Cruise Company is progressing with a finalised ship design and plans to build four small luxury cruise yachts (above) having rebranded itself from Norwegian Yacht Voyages. The first ship will sail as the Caroline. The newbuilds will be 173.8m long, with capacity for 220 passengers and 160 crewmembers. The ships will be LNG-powered, which will also feature hydrogen fuel cells and battery banks plus diesel generators. The company plans to build the quartet at Metal Ships & Docks in 10-month intervals. Project partners are CMI Leisure and CMI Ship Management.

Norwegian Cruise Line has announced it has retrofitted new exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) on the 78,309gt/2001 built Norwegian Sun and 93,558gt/2006 built Norwegian Jade. The ships’ new lightweight in-line scrubbers are a hybrid technology developed by Yara Marine Technologies that are able to operate in open loop, closed loop and closed loop with bleed off mode. In each ship, five scrubbers were installed, one per engine, covering the entire propulsion system. NCL now has eight ships equipped with scrubbers since the process began in 2014, the others being the Norwegian Pearl, Norwegian Gem, Norwegian Escape, Norwegian Joy, Pride of America plus the newbuild Norwegian Bliss, which will make her debut in June 2018. NCL is therefore on track to meet its MARPOL Annex VI compliance goal of reducing its global sulphur cap from 3.5% to 0.5% by 2020. The 93,505gt/2005 built Norwegian Jewel is to return to Australia and New Zealand for a second time to serve the 2018/19 season with itineraries taking in calls such as Melbourne, Cairns, Hobart, Milford Sound, Wellington and Tauranga as well as itineraries to the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and a transpacific voyage from Vancouver to Tokyo (Yokohama). Prior to this, in late October 2018, the Norwegian Jewel will undergo a three-week drydock in Singapore (as part of the Norwegian Edge multi-million-dollar refurbishment programme)

Princess Cruises’ 112,894/2004 built Caribbean Princess became the first Neo-Panamax cruise ship to use the expanded Panama Canal on 26th October (above). Princess Cruises has seen a major increase in UK guests booking Japan cruises. 2018 bookings are up by over 75% on the same time in 2016, which represents one of the highest periods of growth since Princess Cruises started sailing to Asia in 1987. Overall, the company has seen a near 40% year-on-year increase in UK guest bookings for sailings to Asia. This means it is now the second most popular destination for UK guests. For Japan itineraries, guests can sail solely around the region or combine it with other countries including South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and Vietnam. The 77,499gt/1998 built Sea Princess emerged from drydock in Singapore in early November sporting the new Princess Cruises bow logo along with new entertainment and dining options and cabin upgrades. A new Movies Under the Stars screen has been fitted to the ship, and she now features the Encore musical production show and The Voice of the Ocean singing competition, complete with a live band, coaches & swivelling red chairs. The Princess Theatre has also been outfitted with a new 15mx5m LED wall designed to greatly enhance production shows and three restaurants have been refurbished and now offer a new menu. All cabins received the Princess Luxury Beds and a new category of Club Class MiniSuites with a reserved dining area available. The Sea Princess has also become the third ship in the fleet to be fitted with a redesigned youth centre, Camp Discovery, which includes activities based around nature and the ports of call visited by the ship. The ship kicked off her summer season based at Brisbane from 3rd December.

Royal Caribbean International has moved the first sailing of the 229,000gt Symphony of the Seas forward by three weeks as construction of the vessel is progressing at a faster pace than expected. The ship is now scheduled to debut on 31st 2018 with a five-night voyage from Barcelona to Italy. Two seven-night cruises from Barcelona to Italy and France departing on 7th & 14th April have also been added to the ship’s itinerary. The Symphony of the Seas was originally scheduled to make her inaugural voyage on 21st April. The 6,000 passenger capacity ship has been under construction at the STX France shipyard in St. Nazaire, France. The ship was floated out from her building dock at the shipyard in June 2017. The ship is deliberately designed to be more than 3,000gt larger than the current class leader, the 226,963gt Harmony of the Seas. The Symphony will have more cabins than her three sisters including a first-of-its-kind, two-deck-high family suite with a slide between floors, as well as other new features. The ship will serve the Caribbean from her base in Miami as from November 2018. The company has also entered into credit agreements for the financing of the first and second Project Icon ships. Under the deals, signed on 11th October, Royal Caribbean Cruises is granted an unsecured US dollar-denominated term loan, the substantial majority of which is to be guaranteed 100% by the official export credit agency of Finland, Finnvera plc. Euler Hermes, the official German export credit agency, has also agreed to provide a 95% guarantee of a smaller portion of the financing. The maximum amount of each facility is equal to the US dollar equivalent of 80% of the vessel purchase price plus 100% of the guarantee premiums payable to Finnvera and Hermes. The new 200,000gt ships, which are to be constructed by Finnish shipbuilder Meyer Turku, are scheduled for delivery in the second quarters of 2022 and 2024, respectively. These vessels will mark the beginning of a new generation of LNG powered cruise ships and introduce the use of fuel cell technology. In 2019 the Ovation of the Seas Royal will relocate to Alaska, her place being taken in China by the new Quantum-ultra class ship, the Spectrum of the Seas, which will arrive in Asia in mid-2019.

A major improvement $100m facelift project is planned for the Mariner of the Seas and the ship is expected to be dry docked for six weeks in Cadiz, Spain, March-April 2018. When the work is finished, the 3,114-passenger capacity Mariner of the Seas will sail three and four-day cruises from Miami, relocating from Asia. The move will coincide with the June 2018 opening of the newly

constructed dock at Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas, which will play a major role in the ship’s itineraries. In early November the keel was laid for the first Quantum Ultra-class ship, Spectrum of the Seas, at the Neptun Werft shipyard in Rostock-Warnemunde in Germany. The 938-ton block is one of a total of 74 that will make up the ship. The 4,200-passenger ship is scheduled for make her debut in spring 2019. Despite being dubbed a Quantum Ultra-class ship, the Spectrum of the Seas is only slightly larger than her Quantum-class fleet mates at 168,800gt compared to the 168,666gt Ovation of the Seas and both have the same passenger capacities.

Venus Cruises will mark its 20th anniversary in 2018 with a celebratory cruise aboard their sole ship, the 26,598gt/1998 built Pacific Venus (above), departing on 10th January and sailing to Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Most of the company’s summer sailings are domestic and short from the company’s base at Osaka, whilst also using other big cities in Japan as turnaround ports. The company also offers the occasional cruise to South Korea, Russia, and Taiwan.