Princess Cruises announced its scheduled resumption of cruising in Australia, with its Coral Princess ship set to debut in Brisbane (Queensland Australia) on June 16, 2022, for her inaugural season Down Under.
The 2000-passenger cruise ship will be homeported in Brisbane for a total of 11 new departures ranging between 3-12 nights from June through August prior to returning for another 10 voyages from November.
The MedallionClass cruise ship will make a total of 48 calls to Queensland’s ports in 2022, including her first calls to Airlie Beach, Port Douglas, and Cairns.
Meanwhile, Coral's sisterships Majestic Princess and Grand Princess will make a further 6 calls to Queensland ports as part of the scheduled Australian season from Melbourne (Victoria) and Sydney (NSW).
The new winter program of Princess Cruises reflects anticipation that Australia's state governments will soon welcome the return of cruise ships, working with the industry to establish protocols for the resumption.
Unveiling the program, Nick Ferguson (Princess' Senior Director Sales, Marketing and Service) said that the new Queensland season would see the company inject an estimated US$71 million into the state economy in passenger and crew spending, port charges, ship supplies.
Mr. Ferguson said that Princess Cruises' focus on Brisbane reflected the demand for voyages among Queenslanders and the growing interest in domestic cruising.
Highlights of the new winter program include:
- 6x short getaways from Brisbane and Sydney
- 5x 7-day Queensland roundtrips from Brisbane to Cairns, Port Douglas, Airlie Beach
- 1x 7-day New South Wales Coast roundtrip from Brisbane, with a maiden call to Eden (Sapphire Coast), Sydney, Newcastle
- 1x 12-day Queensland and New South Wales roundtrip from Brisbane
- 1x 12-day Queensland and the Conflict Islands roundtrip from Sydney/Brisbane, crossing the Coral Sea to visit the Conflict Islands (Papua New Guinea).
According to Ferguson, Coral Princess would reposition to Sydney (Australia) and restart her previously announced Australia & New Zealand program for the 2022-2023 summer season which currently features voyages to the Pacific, Queensland, Round Australia & New Zealand.
As part of Princess' summer fleet, Majestic Princess is due to return to Sydney (Australia) on October 20, with cruises that currently include Tasmania, Fiji, New Zealand, and Queensland, while Grand Princess will debut down under sailing from Melbourne on November 4 with roundtrip cruises that currently include Queensland, South Australia & New Zealand.
Ferguson added that Majestic Princess would also offer a new 11-day Queensland cruise, sailing roundtrip from Sydney (Australia) in February 2023.
The winter program will be open for sale on March 24, 2022