ANALYSIS C R U I S E
SPEND THE NIGHT? A
CAN YOU
Slower itineraries with more nights in port are the latest trend, says Jane Archer
cruise itinerary used to mean visiting numerous ports in lots of countries so passengers could collect destinations for their ‘been there, done that’ tick list. But times have changed. These days, the
in-thing for the more upmarket cruise lines – and even some a little lower down the pecking order – is to slow down a face-paced itinerary and give passengers more time in A-list destinations rather than racing from one port to another. Staying overnight in port is not new. For years, cruise lines visiting St Petersburg in Russia have stayed for two days, sometimes three, because there is so much to see in the city. The difference now is that they are lingering longer in many other destinations too. Azamara Club Cruises chief executive officer and president Larry Pimentel helped set the trend when he
said that “you have not seen St Tropez if you have not been there overnight”. It really does seem to have struck a chord with many companies. Fred Olsen, for instance, used to schedule its
departures around 5pm each day, arguing its passengers didn’t want to be out late. However, at Clia UK & Ireland’s pre-Christmas cruise forum, sales and marketing director Nathan Philpot admitted they actually want exactly the opposite. He said: “Passengers want to stay overnight so we should be offering more.” In 2015, Fred Olsen is offering overnight stays in ports including Seville, Las Palmas, Funchal, St Petersburg, Stockholm and Quebec. Not that any of the lines are being entirely altruistic. As the cost of oil rocketed over the past few years, staying longer in port was a way to use less fuel – Cunard, with no ports to visit, instead slowed its
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travelweekly.co.uk/cruise
February 2015 | Travel Weekly Cruise | 25
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