Tag Archives: Shanghai

MSC Announces Grand Voyage to Shanghai

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MSC Cruises has officially announced plans to make its first sailing to China, with the newly-renovated MSC Lirica calling in Shanghai on May 1, 2016 after having traveled across continents.

The 65,000-ton ship will make the company’s maiden call in China’s biggest megalopolis after a 60-day round-the-world Grand Voyage which departs on March 3, 2016 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“We are delighted to once more be able to offer our guests a brand new itinerary – from Brazil to China via Europe – which offers the chance to visit some of the most appealing places on earth, certainly across a huge array of people and cultures,” said MSC Cruises CEO, Gianni Onorato.

Onorato added: “This new Grand Voyage offering is proof of our steadfast commitment to offer our guests innovative and sought-after destinations. As MSC Cruises continues to expand the destinations it calls – such as Cuba which we recently announced – we are further enhancing our global offering while providing travelers best-in-class experiences and service.”

MSC Cruises is offering travelers the opportunity to choose from three different versions of the Grand Voyage, with the ability to embark in either Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (60 nights), Genoa in Italy (41 nights) or Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (26 nights), before arriving in Shanghai.


Shanghai at night taken by Dave Jones

Before setting sail, MSC Lirica will be fully renovated and enlarged under MSC Cruises’ Renaissance Program, which entails a comprehensive overhaul of the ship due to be completed in November 2015.

Prices for the full 60-day Grand Voyage on MSC Lirica will start at $4,799 per person. Included in the price are beverage and laundry packages as well as 8 shore excursions.

During the first leg of MSC Lirica’s 60-day journey, the ship will depart on March 3, 2016 from Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro and sail north along the coast of Brazil – with calls in Buzios, Salvador, Maceio and Fortaleza. The ship  will then cross the Atlantic on a northeast course towards the Canary Islands – with a stop in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife – before reaching mainland Europe and visiting Cadiz, Spain.

From there, MSC Lirica will call the three largest ports in the Mediterranean – Barcelona, Spain; Marseille, France; and Genoa, Italy – providing travelers an opportunity to embark in any of these ports in Europe and providing maximum flexibility as guests journey towards Asia.

After leaving Genoa, MSC Lirica will call Naples, Italy and the island of Crete with Heraklion in Greece. The ship then heads south to Aqaba in Jordan; Muscat, Oman; and Khor Al Fakhan and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.  The ship is scheduled to stay in Dubai overnight and travelers interested in sailing from Dubai to Shanghai will have the ability to embark.

During the last leg of the journey, MSC Lirica sets sail towards the East and the Indian cities of Goa and Cochin, prior to calling Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka. She then heads to Phuket, Thailand, and Penang and Port Kelang/Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, before reaching Singapore.

After an overnight stay in Singapore, the ship will bring its guests to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and then to visit Hong Kong. Shanghai is the next call and includes an overnight stay before sailing across the China sea to Fukuoka in Japan. From the Land of the Rising Sun, MSC Lirica heads back to the high seas one more time, returning to Shanghai on May 1, 2016.

Princess Cruises to deploy another ship to China

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Golden Princess.

The Golden Princess will sail seasonal cruises from Tianjin in 2016, joining the Sapphire Princess in China.

The Sapphire Princess has been sailing seasonally from Shanghai since 2014 and will start sailing year-round from the port in 2016. Both ships carry about 2,600 passengers.

In addition, Princess Cruises will deploy a new 3,600-passenger ship to China in 2017, the cruise line said in May.

Another Carnival Corp. brand, Costa Cruises, will base four ships in China in 2016: the Fortuna, Serena, Atlantica and Victoria. Carnival Corp. announced in April that the Fortuna would be added to its China fleet.

“Our Costa and Princess brands are performing extremely well in China, and these new ship deployments will strengthen our growth position and enable us to carry nearly 1 million passengers in 2016,” said Alan Buckelew, Carnival Corp.’s chief operations officer.

Competition for Chinese guests intensifies with Princess ship deployment

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Shanghai Cruise Terminal

By sending its next ship to sail from Shanghai, Princess Cruises will vault into the vanguard of Western cruise lines seeking to source passengers from fast-growing China.

Princess said it will use the third ship in its Royal class, set for delivery in 2017, to establish a year-round presence in China, one of only three cruise lines to have done so.

The 3,560-passenger ship will be from the largest class of vessels that Princess sails, one-third larger than the 10-year-old Sapphire Princess, which begins its second season of summer sailings from Shanghai next week.

“Deploying our next new ship in China underscores our strong commitment to growing the China cruise market,” Princess President Jan Swartz said in a statement.

The move echoes the decision in April 2014 by Royal Caribbean International to commit the Quantum of the Seas to Shanghai even before it had been delivered. After six months of interim sailings, the ship left New York on a transit cruise May 2 and will begin year-round cruising in China in June.

At the time, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein said the company felt it had an asset in the Quantum that was impossible to match.

The Princess ship, as yet unnamed, will be a follow-up to the Royal Princess and Regal Princess, which will remain on U.S.- and European-based itineraries. When they were introduced in 2013 and 2014, respectively, they made a splash with their protruding SeaWalk platforms, dancing water fountains and a pair of elegant chef’s table restaurants.

In addition to those features, the 2017 ship under construction at the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy will be customized for Chinese guests, using the Princess Class elements pioneered on the Sapphire Princess.

They include the World Leaders Dinner, a traditional English afternoon tea, a Lobster Grill, Ultimate Balcony Dining, an oceanview, hot-pot dinner option, ballroom dancing and expanded duty-free shopping.

“And as this ship is still in the design phase, we are looking forward to creating other new and exciting venues and experiences catering to the Chinese vacationer, which we will reveal in the coming months,” Swartz said.

In announcing the ship, Princess said it will be “the first year-round international luxury vessel designed and built specifically for Chinese guests.”

The announcement comes as competition begins in earnest for the Chinese customer.

On May 15, a joint venture between Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Chinese online travel agency Ctrip will begin sailing the former Celebrity Century from Shanghai.

The 1,800-passenger ship has undergone a renovation, which included the addition of an ice bar, a trampoline and minigolf as well as a makeover of the restaurants to tailor them to Chinese tastes. It will sail under the name SkySea Golden Era.

On May 21, the Sapphire Princess begins its second summer of sailings from Shanghai, followed by the arrival of the Quantum in June.

Carnival Corp. is also represented in the Chinese market by Costa Cruises, which has been sailing the Costa Serena from Shanghai since April.

In a note to investors issued after the Princess announcement, UBS Securities predicted that 2015 will be the tipping point for China to become a “game-changing force” for the cruise industry.

UBS analyst Robin Farley said China will not only provide a new source of demand but will reduce capacity and strengthen pricing in more mature markets such as North America and Europe.

The international cruise industry’s presence in China has been growing since 2008 when Costa first put a ship there dedicated to the Chinese market. Carnival Corp. sent then-Costa chairman Pier Luigi Foschi to oversee its Asian operations.

After Foschi left Carnival, former Princess Cruises president Alan Buckelew was named chief operations officer and was dispatched to China. Although Costa has two other ships, the Costa Victoria and Costa Atlantica, also sailing from China, the shift of a Princess newbuild to China will significantly step up Princess’ presence there.

After the 2017 delivery, Princess has no new ships on order, although Carnival Corp. recently announced an agreement in principle with two European shipyards to build nine vessels from 2019 to 2022.

Carnival Corp. has also agreed to explore a joint venture with Fincantieri and the China State Shipbuilding Corp. to develop the first “world-class cruise ship” to be built in China.

Norwegian Cruise Line has formed a task force to evaluate whether and how to enter the Chinese market. However, its largest shareholder is Genting Group, a Malaysia-based company that also owns Star Cruises, a line that is focused solely on the Asia market.