Cairns Home Port again in 2020?

[Beche de mere]

Now that the Port of Cairns Trinity Inlet has been dredged at a cost of millions of dollars cruise ships up to 300 metres in length can dock - no more passengers tendering ashore at Yorkeys Knob from the larger ships! Are there any rumours that P&O may return on a seasonal basis? Mid-sized Pacific Eden and Pacific Aria used Cairns for three years until 2018 and are sadly missed up here. Cairns is a perfect port for PNG and Solomon Island cruises.
 

 

[Chiliburn]

Great Beche de mere ,PNG it’s on list.

Oh welcome to cruise critic 

[Kiwi Kruzer]

That’s excellent news . 
One of our best cruises was when we flew to Cairns , had a pre cruise stay and then cruised the GBR and Whitsundays .

Which ships will it accomodate ?

[OzKiwiJJ]

It's probably too late for 2020 cruises to be scheduled to depart from Cairns. The 2020 itineraries have been released for some time now. However the winter 2021 itineraries haven't yet been released for P&O, Carnival and Princess and that is when cruises would be most likely to depart from Cairns. I can't see any of the other major cruise lines homeporting in Australia over winter either.

 

Still it's great news for cruises that do port stops in Cairns, so much easier without tendering.

[Beche de mere]

All of P&O Australia’s ships are under 300 metres long and as a quick and dirty rule of thumb ships holding up to 3000 passengers are generally just below 300 metres. This I would contend is a median size that suits the ports in our region, especially the South Pacific ports in our developing neighbours.

[OzKiwiJJ]

The Sun and Grand class Princess ships are also under 300 metres, as is Carnival Splendor as well as the smaller Carnival ships. However those ships may be too large from the perspective of filling them for a Cairns-based cruise.

[MicCanberra]

Great news, 

Of course it would rule out most of X's and all Royal's ships.

[SinbadThePorter]

1 hour ago, MicCanberra said:

all Royal's ships

 

Radiance and Serenade would be OK.

 

The same old problem applies though. Airfares to Cairns are too expensive. That's why P&O couldn't fill up Eden and had to sell cabins at bargain prices.

Edited October 10, 2019 by SinbadThePorter

[OzKiwiJJ]

If a cruise line was clever they'd connect a few cruises together:

Sydney or Brisbane to Cairns

PNG from Cairns return

Cairns to Sydney or Brisbane

 

Then people could do B2Bs and only have one airfare, or do B2B2B with no air travel required.

[MicCanberra]

2 hours ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

Radiance and Serenade would be OK.

 

The same old problem applies though. Airfares to Cairns are too expensive. That's why P&O couldn't fill up Eden and had to sell cabins at bargain prices.

Sorry, I thought I had edited out the 'Áll' as I checked there sizes.

[MicCanberra]

2 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

If a cruise line was clever they'd connect a few cruises together:

Sydney or Brisbane to Cairns

PNG from Cairns return

Cairns to Sydney or Brisbane

 

Then people could do B2Bs and only have one airfare, or do B2B2B with no air travel required.

We considered doing that, but then got a PNG out of Brisbane instead.

[SinbadThePorter]

That's the problem. Most of the cruises out of Cairns could be done from Brisbane with a couple of extra sea days, so why bother flying all that way.

 

If they wanted to attract punters, they would have to provide something that you can't get elsewhere. Like a circum-PNG cruise, or a 14 day Kimberley and back via Darwin and Bali.

Edited October 10, 2019 by SinbadThePorter

[MicCanberra]

6 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

That's the problem. Most of the cruises out of Cairns could be done from Brisbane with a couple of extra sea days, so why bother flying to all that way.

 

If they wanted to attract punters, they would have to provide something that you can't get elsewhere. Like a circum-PNG cruise, or a 14 day Kimberley and back via Darwin and Bali.

Either of those would be good.

[lyndarra]

11 hours ago, SinbadThePorter said:

That's the problem. Most of the cruises out of Cairns could be done from Brisbane with a couple of extra sea days, so why bother flying all that way.

 

If they wanted to attract punters, they would have to provide something that you can't get elsewhere. Like a circum-PNG cruise, or a 14 day Kimberley and back via Darwin and Bali.

Remember, many thousands of visitors to Cairns fly in from Asia. Cruise lines could be targeting that market.

[MicCanberra]

8 minutes ago, lyndarra said:

Remember, many thousands of visitors to Cairns fly in from Asia. Cruise lines could be targeting that market.

They need a more strategic campaign then as it didn't work that well last time. As mentioned many many cheap last minute sales.

[SinbadThePorter]

Not actually relevant to the topic, but does anyone recall the name of the island north of Cooktown that HAL used to stop at until a few years ago?

 

I always thought that was a good idea and wondered why it stopped.

[MicCanberra]

Was it Lizard Island?

[SinbadThePorter]

38 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Was it Lizard Island?

 

I don't think so, it was further north as I recall.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

1 hour ago, SinbadThePorter said:

Not actually relevant to the topic, but does anyone recall the name of the island north of Cooktown that HAL used to stop at until a few years ago?

 

I always thought that was a good idea and wondered why it stopped.

Could be this one ,Sherrard Island

 

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/ports/sherrard-island-anchorage-queensland-australia.html

[MicCanberra]

Was it Stanley, Denham or Flinders Island?

[Scanorama]

Did cruise ships use to dock in Cooktown? A friend mine told me she sailed on the Dawn Princess a few years ago and the ship docked in Cooktown, after nearly missing the port due to strong current and weather.

[Aus Traveller]

32 minutes ago, Scanorama said:

Did cruise ships use to dock in Cooktown? A friend mine told me she sailed on the Dawn Princess a few years ago and the ship docked in Cooktown, after nearly missing the port due to strong current and weather.

I doubt that cruise ships docked in Cooktown. It isn't actually a port, although it was in the Gold Rush days of the 1800s. Small boats enter the Endeavour River to reach the town. The entry to the river isn't very deep. Years ago we were on the Pacific Sun (a smaller ship than most present-day ones) on a cruise from Brisbane to Darwin that included a stop in Cooktown, but it was a tender port. We had to miss it due to high winds. Apparently that happened very often so Cooktown was dropped from cruise itineraries.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Aus Traveller

[Kiwi Kruzer]

It would have been quite an Endeavour to dock at Cooktown. 
It was tender call , but they seem to bypass it nowadays.

[SinbadThePorter]

2 hours ago, Kiwi Kruzer said:

Could be this one ,Sherrard Island

 

That was it.

 

It looked like such a great place. I wondered what had happened to it.

 

I once docked at Cooktown, but it was on a boat, not a ship.

[MMDown Under]

Has anyone visited Piper Islands National Park, five islands along Cape York Peninsula, between Thursday Island and Lizard Island?  One of the crew on my recent cruise raved about the islands and asked me whether I'd been there.  I have cruised along the Queensland Coast twice, but I'd never heard of them.  Seems Noble Caledonia has an arrangement with the local aboriginal people to stop there.