Number Four, Amera Knocks on Freo’s Door

Jean Hudson reports Freo’s having a cruise festival with five cruise ships visiting Fremantle within a week

MS Amera is the fourth cruise ship to visit and arrived early this morning just before 6am from Busselton. She has 490 passengers onboard; of which 380 are transit passengers, 118 disembarking and one person embarking.

It’s her maiden voyage to Fremantle. She is on a long world-cruise voyage that left Bremerhaven, Germany, on 16 December 2025, for a 134-night world cruise.

The journey includes Caribbean Islands, the Panama Canal, South Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia and Africa and finishes in Marseille on 29 April. Due to security concerns, the itinerary was changed to sail around Africa instead of through the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

This call in Fremantle is part of a 26-night segment sailing from Sydney to Port Louis, Mauritius.

Built in 1988 as MS Prinsendam, Amera has an interesting history, having previously sailed under different names with various operators before joining the German company, Phoenix Reisen fleet. It’s a mid-size cruise ship, 204m long.

Many Freo folk learned about the Phoenix Reisen company when the Artania limped into Freo during the Covid days, almost exactly 6 years ago now. What a time that was.

This gallery of pics from the cruise line website give you a good idea of the comfort aboard the Amera.

Passenger numbers are relatively small compared with mega-ships, giving it a more classic, traditional cruise feel with fine dining, spacious cabins, and entertainment tailored for an international crowd. Amera is conditionally accessible for wheelchair users and is equipped with a modern ship hospital operated by a German-speaking doctor. Medical services are not included in the travel contract and incur additional charges.

Amera departs at 6pm tonight for Mauritius.

And here are more shots by Jean of Amera at the Freo Passenger Terminal.

Words and pics (except where indicated otherwise) by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey.

Jean Hudson is our Shipping and Sailing Correspondent and also a regular feature writer, reviewer 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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