Royals coming to Freo!

The 2024/25 Cruise Season is kicking off to a Royal start.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Queen Elizabeth, one of our favourites, is making a brief royal visit to Freo. On Tuesday 5 November 2024, Queen Elizabeth will arrive at ‘sparrow’s fart’ — 3.30 am, very early in the morning, before daybreak, probably a little too early for your dedicated Fremantle Shipping News reporters! So we will have to rely on one our our dedicated Shipees to send a pic or two of her arriving.

Queen Elizabeth arriving Fremantle 7 March 2023. Credit Fremantle Shipping News

She left Vancouver on 9 September on a one-way cruise to Sydney. She then left Sydney on 18 October and visited Airlie Beach, Cairns, Darwin, Bali, Broome and Geraldton on her way to Freo, with 2,000 passengers on board. She will be at F berth for the day on 5 November. This is a turnaround visit. Passengers will disembark and new passengers will join the ship during the day. She then departs at 8pm for a one-way, 7-day cruise to Melbourne visiting Albany and Adelaide en route.

Sadly she will not be back in Fremantle this season.

Cunard is celebrating 100 years of Cunard in Australia, and has been the beacon of style and adventure, forging a deep bond with Australia—from transporting thousands of soldiers across the globe during World War II, to bringing over 2,000 migrants as part of the Assisted Passenger Scheme in 1949. So it is sad that we will only see this Cunard Queen on round-the-world trips in the future.

In case you miss her visit— here are some articles and photos about her. We covered her numerous recent visits —
* All hail the Queen
* Majestic Singapore bound Queen Elizabeth calls by Freo
* Queen Elizabeth to make Royal flying visit to Fremantle and
* The Queen Elizabeth from all angles, North and South!

So head on down to the port to wave to her on her departure around 8 pm – departures are always spectacular.

CROWN PRINCESS

On the following day, Wednesday 6 November, the Crown Princess makes her maiden call to Fremantle. She arrives at 5.30am and departs at 5pm the same day. She will be back again in May and June 2025 with 3000 guests on board each visit.

Crown Princess is a Crown Class Cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises with a capacity for 3080 guests and a crew compliment of 1200. Her maiden voyage was in 2006 from New York and her Godmother is Martha Stewart. She sails the Caribbean during the winter season and Europe in the summer.

The Crown Princess has had some troubles in the past — twice plagued with outbreaks of norovirus and, in 2006, a serious ‘listing problem’ incident. During the list, passengers and crew members were tumbled about, pool water and everything that wasn’t secured flew about the decks seriously injuring 14 people. The incident was due to ‘human error and improper steering techniques’.

Other cruise news

It is going to be a busy season with more than 140 cruise ship visits expected at seven of WA’s ports in 2024/25. Fremantle is to welcome eight maiden vessels – so watch this space for news and updates.

By Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey. Jean is our Shipping Correspondent and also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. At the minute she is a digital nomad travelling here and there reporting on her travels as she goes! You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

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