A regal visitor, Crown Princess passed through the heads of North and South Moles into Freo Port at just on 6 am this cool, breezy morning; her last port of call was Busselton.
The season gets underway
It really feels like the cruising season is underway when a large cruise ship like the Crown Princess berths here. She’s over 290 metres long and has 2 ,414 guests/passengers and 1,117 crew onboard. Great ratio.
She’s due to depart at 4pm today which gives them all, some of the crew too hopefully, a full day to go exploring: 632 are booked on organised tours, so that leaves 1,782 free to explore Freo. And what a good day to be at the harbour – even if the weather looks a little dicey. The Fremantle Harbour Classic Yacht Race is happening between 1pm and 2.30pm. Yachts from Fremantle Sailing Club and clubs across WA are racing inside Fremantle’s Inner Harbour, with daring sailors tacking very close to the cruise ship. Her passengers will have a front-row view of the racing during the afternoon.
This Royal voyage was an 11-night cruise from Sydney through the Bight, calling at Newcastle, Melbourne, Adelaide, Albany and Busselton along the way here.
The Princess a familiar sight in Freo
Crown Princess is a familiar sight by now. Her maiden call to Fremantle was in November 2024, and by March 2026 she had made her fifth arrival. Have a look here at our earlier reports in her. The last visit came after one of the most unusual storms in recent memory. Cyclone Narelle formed in the Coral Sea, crossed Queensland and the Northern Territory, then reformed at sea off Broome and intensified into a category 4 system. It was a rarity, only the third cyclone since 1980 to make landfall in three Australian states or territories. It battered the Exmouth coast with gusts of up to 250 km/h before heading inland. The Crown Princess was cruising through those conditions and still made it into Fremantle safely, a day earlier than planned.
Some passengers are doing the total 26 days voyage from Sydney to Brisbane – others join for short or long legs. 603 passengers are disembarking today and 588 joining the cruise ship. The next leg of her voyage is a 15-night Northern Explorer cruise from Fremantle to Brisbane, with stops at Broome and the Kimberley coast.
The fun of cruising
It’s a great way to see Australia. There are no flights to catch, no train timetables and no hotel check-ins. You unpack once and wake up in a new port, with all your meals and entertainment included. The ship does the travelling while you take in the coastline and visit towns and cities on the way.
Australians love cruising. A record 1.45 million Australians took an ocean cruise in 2025, up 9.5% on the year before and above the previous high set in 2018. That’s more than one in 20 Australians. Australia is the world’s fourth-largest cruise market, behind only the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. Most of those cruisers, around 80 per cent, stayed in the Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific region.
Carnival Cuts Numbers
Yet the industry is under pressure at home. Carnival has now halved its year-round fleet in Australia, from four ships to two, within little more than a year. Carnival closed P&O Australia in 2025, citing higher operating and regulatory costs here, and Pacific Explorer left the fleet. Now Carnival Adventure will leave Australia in April 2028 and spend half the year in North America. That leaves Carnival Splendor in Sydney and Carnival Encounter in Brisbane as its only year-round ships. Carnival blamed uncertain government support and the regulatory environment for its decision, and the industry body CLIA warns more capacity could be at risk.
Cruise ships matter to Fremantle’s economy. In 2023-24 the cruise industry generated $289.5 million in economic impact for Fremantle, supporting 925 full-time jobs. There are more cruise ships coming next year, fortunately with Sapphire Princess making Fremantle her home port from 2027.
See the Princess today
If you want a look at Crown Princess today, head to the harbour or South Mole (North Mole is currently closed) and catch her setting sail for Broome at 4pm.
Upcoming cruise ship visits –
Sat 5 – Sun 6 December — Noordam (overnight in Fremantle)
Tue 29 – Wed 30 December — Viking Orion (overnight in Fremantle)
Mon 11 January — Aidasol
*Story and pics by Jean Hudson. Jean 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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