Cruising Time Is Here Again!

Cruising Time is here again!

On Friday 20 October, the Coral Geographer arrived in Fremantle, kicking off the spring/summer cruise season.

Coral Geographer. Credit Fremantle Ports

It looks like a busy season ahead. During the 2023/24 season- 29 cruise ships are expected, with 36,500 passengers, and 17,000 crew.

Eight of these cruise ships are staying overnight in Fremantle.

Expect three maiden calls to Fremantle – Island Princess, Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas and Ambience.

There will be contemporary, premium and expedition cruise lines.

And in December 2024, (next year), the first Virgin Voyages Ship – Resilient Lady will visit Fremantle.

According to Tourism Western Australia’s, Cruise Tourism 2023-33 Strategic Plan – it’s going to be even busier for the next decade – with the cruise ship industry to deliver $620m to the State’s economy over the next decade.

The plan estimated $273m in 2023-24, with plans to attract more cruise lines to visit WA shores. At the moment, only one ship is ‘home-ported’ in Fremantle, that’s P&O’s Pacific Explorer. We will see lots of her after April 2024, and again 2024-25.

Home-porting offers the best economic benefit through refueling and provisioning of ships for their next journeys. The plan is to develop Broome port up to a tier-one destination port by 2027. It will then be able to cater for and support large cruise ships.

Broome can then be a first point of entry port, meaning that the Kimberley town can be visited directly from South East Asia. The $160m Broome project includes a floating wharf – eliminating the problems associated with the huge tidal fluctuations.

There are also plans for Exmouth and Dampier; a cruise berth in Geraldton, moorings in the Abrolhos and upgrades to Albany Port.

Last season we saw 29 cruise ships with 36,500 passengers, and 17,000 crew arrive and depart from the Passenger Terminal, Fremantle. This injected $333m into the State’s economy last financial year.

Across WA, during the 2022-23-cruise season, we had cruise ships dock in WA ports more than 150 times. This created more than 1,000 local jobs across the cruise, tourism and hospitality sectors.

Coral Princess arriving Fremantle 6 March 2023. Credit Fremantle Shipping News

This Saturday, 11 November, the Coral Princess arrives at 05.30hrs, bringing 2,000 passengers, and 895 crew, into Fremantle Port. This is a transit visit – she leaves again at 18.00hrs on Saturday. She is on a 28-day round trip from Sydney.

There will be a free Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony outside the Civic Centre at Walyalup Koort at 0930 hrs, to welcome passengers and to encourage them to spend time in the port city.

Local businesses are encouraged to display Crew Friendly posters in their windows.

So, folks, get ready for a bumper year – which means that The Fremantle Shipping News will be flat tack keeping you all up to speed with photos and articles!

* STORY by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey. Jean is our Shipping Correspondent and also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

WHILE YOU’RE HERE –