Cruising 2002: year-end review: passengers enjoy smooth sailing from homeland ports, while eyeing overseas travel for next year - Industry Overview

Cruise Travel, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Theodore W. Scull

Tahitian-based Cie. Polynesienne de Transport Maritimes is expected to take delivery of the 200-passenger/cargo ship Aranui III in the last quarter of 2002, and the company has sold the 77-passenger Aranui II to Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, who will rename her Carib Trader and use her to provision the tall ships in the fleet. The company's present supply ship Amazing Grace is expected to remain in the fleet.

The Sea Goddess sisters reentered service at the SeaDream I and SeaDream II, cruising in the Caribbean in winter and the Mediterranean in summer. Cabins were remodeled and the outdoor facilities extended to include more deck space, a larger cafe, and a space for showing movies at night.

Society Expeditions, which lost the World Discoverer after grounding in the Solomon Islands, took delivery of a replacement, a new World Discoverer, in May to operate through the Pacific and south to Antarctica.

American Cruise Line, based in Haddam, Connecticut, added a second ship, the 49-passenger American Glory, a product of the firm's Chesapeake Shipbuilding Company in Salisbury, Maryland. The line's first ship, the American Eagle, entered service in 2000, trading along the East Coast.

Cruceros Australis's Terra Australis, operating in the Chilean fjords, grounded, caught fire, and was declared a total loss--but without any fatalities or injuries. A new ship, the 132-passenger Mare Australis, under construction before the mishap, was due to enter service in November.

At the time of writing, former Premier Cruises' vessels the Big Red Boat II (ex-EugenioCosta) and Big Red Boat III (ex-IslandBreeze) remain laid up at Freeport, while the Dolphin IV has finally gone for scrap. Reports continue to surface about the Rembrandt (ex-Rotterdam), the latest ones still focusing on mooring her at Rijnhaven in Rotterdam or possibly Ijmuiden, a small coastal port at the entrance to the North Sea Canal leading to Amsterdam.

Stateside, the United States remains laid up in Philadelphia, the Independence languishes in mothballs upriver from San Francisco, and the Enchanted Isle lies idle near New Orleans (but, happily, she is soon to reenter service for World Explorer Cruises). Apart from the Semester At Sea's Universe Explorer and the European-based Monterey, blue-water American-built ships are now extinct as the dodo bird, while U.S.-based cruises lines continue to take delivery of a steady stream of foreign-built, foreign-flagged ships offering North Americans the widest ever range of cruising opportunities. However, new ship orders have come to an almost complete halt, and while it will be some time before we notice any changes, the French, German, Italian, Finnish, and Japanese shipyards are looking, for the foreseeable future, at some pretty bleak years.