SOUTHAMPTON TO WELCOME FIVE SHIPS ON ‘CRUISE SUNDAY’
Associated British Ports’ (ABP) Port of Southampton will welcome a quintet of cruise ships on Sunday, 23 April. The arrival of these ships marks the first time that five cruise vessels have gathered simultaneously at any UK port since 1966. It marks an early highlight of the 2006 cruise season, which is already shaping up to be another record-breaking year for the port.
The ships scheduled to call at the port are Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2, P&O’s Oceana and Saga Cruises’ Saga Rose and Saga Ruby.
Coinciding with the arrival of the cruise ships, ABP is working in conjunction with Southampton City Council to provide open-top bus tours of the port for the public. The tours will run every hour between 10am and 5pm from Mayflower Park, Southampton, and will give local residents the chance to see the ships close up. Although the tour is free-of-charge, ABP is using it as an opportunity to encourage people to make donations to local charity Naomi House Children’s Hospice, a charity the port has been supporting for a number of years.
In February, ABP announced that Southampton had broken its long-standing record for the number of deep-sea cruise passengers handled over the course of one year, after 702,356 passengers passed through the port in 2005.In March, Southampton was delighted to win an award for ‘Best Turnaround Port Operations’ at the world’s largest cruise conference, held annually in Miami, Florida. The port is also thrilled at the prospect of welcoming Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas on 29 April, which, at 160,000 tonnes, is the world’s biggest cruise ship.
Doug Morrison, ABP Port Director, Port of Southampton, said: “Having five of these ships call at the same time shows just how popular Southampton is as a turnaround cruise destination, and also how well-suited we are to accommodating this scale of demand.”
He added: “Even just one cruise call is good news – not just for the port, but for the whole city of Southampton – so five of them all at once represents a very special day indeed.”
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