CMV has bought two more secondhand cruise ships.
P&O Australia’s ‘Pacific Dawn’ and ‘Pacific Aria’ will be taken over in Singapore on 2nd March and 2nd May, 2021 respectively, increasing CMV’s lower bed fleet capacity to 9,000 berths and passenger capacity by 30%.
They will be officially re-named in the summer 2021 following drydocking, and some minor upgrades and re-livery work in Singapore before embarking on CMV maiden positioning voyages via the Suez Canal to Northern Europe.
The 70,285 gt, with a capacity of 1,400 pax in 798 passenger cabins, ‘Pacific Dawn’ will be deployed on the UK market in late May, 2021, alongside Columbus based at London Tilbury.
‘Pacific Aria’ at 55,819 gt, fitted with 630cabins and carrying about 1,100 pax, will be deployed on the German market under the TransOcean Kreuzfahrten brand alongside ‘Vasco da Gama’, replacing the 580 pax ‘Astor’.
‘Astor’ is to be re-named ‘Jules Verne’ and will be re-deployed in the French market in May of that year.
Christian Verhounig, CMV CEO, commented, “The introduction of two more ships to the global ocean fleet is the next exciting chapter of our strategic growth objectives. This will enable us to service increasing market demand for our traditional brand of cruising generated by our expanding international network of in-house sales offices and developing source markets.
“We have now acquired five cruise ships in just five years and are firmly on course in carrying 200,000 passengers in 2021,” he said.
The new ships’ names will be revealed in December, 2019 under CMV’s explorer theme.
Chris Coates, Group Commercial Director, added, “As the CMV brand continues to evolve, the growing popularity of our traditional product, classic ships and destination focused cruise programmes has encouraged us to accelerate plans to add capacity to the two top European cruise markets in the UK and Germany, which represent 85% of our business.
“These two fine cruise ships perfectly complement our existing fleet providing trade partners and consumers alike with much needed extra capacity. For 2020, we expect close to 70% of capacity to be sold by the year end, in line with expectations. This provides an ideal platform for the early introduction of new tonnage and opportunities for summer 2021 with the focus very much on higher yield business,” he said.
The 2021 summer programmes will go on sale via the travel trade and CMV’s international sales offices and websites during 1Q20 with special 2021 launch edition brochures being released.
‘Pacific Dawn’ entered service as ‘Regal Princess’ in August, 1991, while ‘Pacific Aria’ was built as ‘Ryndam’ and entered service in October, 1994.
