Island Princess Proudly Returns To Freo

At 7 am this morning the impressive Island Princess returned to Fremantle, her bow featuring the famous princess face and flowing blue hair slicing through the water into the inner harbour.

It’s a year and two days since she last visited and we featured her in The Anatomy of an Arrival.

Here she is this morning.

Island Princess left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 5 January 2025 on a one-way, 63-day cruise that will conclude in Cape Town on 9 March. Along the way she’s been to Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, California, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Sydney and Melbourne.

And, we’ve just been advised by James Richardson who is on board, that, after Cape Town, Island Princess continues on up to the Mediterranean then back to Fort Lauderdale.

Makes sense. What a trip!

Island Princess belongs to Princess Cruises, a US-based company that is part of Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise ship operator.

The 22-year old cruise ship is Bermuda flagged and can carry up to 2657 passengers and 900 crew. She arrived in Freo this morning with 1757 passengers and 541 crew. It’s a transit visit, in and out on the same day. 103 passengers will leave the ship and 229 will join.

Island Princess departs at 6pm this evening for Mauritius, and then onto Cape Town.

Here’s a gallery of more arrival shots from today.

That’s the Coral Adventurer tied up on North Quay!

OTHER CRUISE NEWS & EVENTS

We’ve had 6 cruise ship visits in February: Pacific Explorer (twice), Viking Venus, Coral Adventurer, Silver Nova and now Island Princess.

Dora aka Pacific Explorer left for the last time earlier in the month, after Carnival’s decision to wind-up P&O in Australia after 92 years. She is currently in a Singapore dry dock undergoing a huge refit, and will operate as Star Scorpio from late March. We are waiting to hear if Carnival will include Fremantle in her future itineraries. Carnival has its schedules locked in until mid-2026, so maybe in 2027?

In March, 5 cruise ships will visit Fremantle: Costa Deliziosa, Azamara Onward, Bolette, MSC Magnifica and Crown Princess, several on maiden voyages to Fremantle.

In April, we look forward to Artania returning. Remember her from the early days of COVID, 2020? Watch this space.

The Kimberley season is also about to kick off – with the waterfall cruises beginning soon.

Cruising in Australia alone is worth some AUS$8.4 billion, and directly and indirectly employs more than 26,000 people. More and more Australians are taking cruising holidays, and the average cruising age is dropping. Cruise lines are offering new activities for the younger age group – shore tours of distilleries and craft breweries; more active pursuits such as kayaking, bike riding, guided hiking and snorkeling. And the luxury sector is also having huge growth.

Fremantle is to host the 2025 Australian Cruise Association Annual Conference and AGM in September with workshops for tour operators, bus drivers and guides.

So lots happening folks. We’ll do our best to keep you up to speed as the ships roll in.

* Story and photographs by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey. Jean is our Shipping Correspondent and also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. 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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