December route roundup: Where cruise lines are adding sailings
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Cruise lines are constantly tweaking their schedules. Sometimes it’s just the addition of a single port to a long-established itinerary. Other times it’s the rollout of an all-new route.
Here, some of the more notable new itinerary announcements from the past few weeks.
Carnival to expand in Galveston, New Orleans
Cruise giant Carnival is boosting capacity for short cruises out of Galveston, Texas and New Orleans.
The Miami-based line will replace the 2,974-passenger Carnival Valor in Galveston with the bigger, 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream in May 2019. Dream will take over Valor’s four- and five-day, year-round sailings to Mexico, expanding Carnival’s capacity on short cruises from Galveston by 22%.
Valor, in turn, will move to New Orleans to replace the Carnival Triumph. It’ll operate four- and five-day voyages year-round to Mexico, increasing Carnival’s short cruise capacity out of New Orleans by nearly 10%.
Dream will be the newest and largest Carnival ship to sail short cruises from Galveston.
Valor becomes the largest vessel to offer a year-round short cruise schedule from New Orleans. Both of the ships will visit Cozumel, Mexico and, on the five-day departures, either Progreso or Costa Maya, Mexico.
Royal Caribbean goes big in Alaska
Get ready for the Battle of the Megaships in Alaska. Royal Caribbean plans to re-deploy one of its newest, biggest vessels, Ovation of the Seas, to The Last Frontier for the summer of 2019.
The announcement comes as rival Norwegian Cruise Line prepares to send a giant new ship of its own, Norwegian Bliss, to the state.
At 168,666 tons, one-year-old Ovation is tied with two sisters as the world’s fifth largest cruise vessel. It can hold nearly 5,000 passengers. Scheduled to debut in April, Bliss is expected to be roughly the same size.
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ordered a new, upscale ship that will be based year-round in the Galapagos starting in 2019.
To be called Celebrity Flora, the 100-passenger vessel will feature all-suite accommodations the line says will be the largest and most luxurious in the destination.
Celebrity already operates three ships in the Galapagos: the 100-passenger Celebrity Xpedition, 48-passenger Celebrity Xperience and 16-passenger Xploration. When Flora arrives, Xperience and Xploration will leave the fleet, in keeping with permitting rules that tightly regulate the number of tourists that ship operators can carry in the wildlife-filled islands.
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Disney Wonder will return to San Diego in early 2019 for an expanded season of voyages to Mexico.
The 18-year-old Disney ship will operate a variety of two-, four-, five- and seven-night sailings that include stops in such Mexican port towns as Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan.
The trips will take place starting in March through May of 2019.
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spend its first winter in South America — a continent rarely on the line’s schedule.
Arriving in August, the 690-passenger Azamara Pursuit will operate a series of voyages around South America out of Lima, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile starting in November 2018.
The sailings will include trips to Antarctica and the Chilean Fjords — both firsts for the line. There also will be voyages to Brazil that will place the vessel in Rio de Janeiro around New Year’s Eve and during Carnivale.
In advance of the South America sailings, Pursuit will operate more than half a dozen Europe voyages that include a 15-night trip out of Southampton, England to Iceland, and several Greek Islands voyages that focus on off-the-beaten-path stops.
Pursuit will debut on Aug. 3 with a 10-night sailing from Barcelona to Southampton.
Pursuit is an existing ship that Azamara is buying from British line PO Cruises and upgrading in a massive overhaul scheduled to take place between March and August. Originally built in 2001 for now-defunct Renaissance Cruises, the vessel is a sister to Azamara’s two current ships, Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest.
For more recently announced cruise itineraries, see our September route roundup.
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