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While as we all know, cruising has ground to rather a drastic halt in most locations in the world, as reported yesterday there are actually 33 cruise ships, and probably more operating currently globally and you can CLICK HERE to find out which ships are operating.

Sadly, only a couple of cruises are currently available in Australia, with Coral Expeditions’ Coral Discoverer, homeported in Cairns operating Great Barrier Reef and North Queensland cruises from October 14, and True North Cruises’ True North, homeported in Darwin and already operating cruises in the Kimberley Region and congratulations to them both for taking the initiative!

In the meantime, another small but very special operator on the other side of the world, which describes itself as “not cruising but yachting”, SeaDream Yacht Club based in Norway and normally operating in the Mediterranean and Caribbean and transatlantic repositioning, suspended cruising in March, quickly moving one of its only two small 110-guest ships to Norway for coastal cruising in June and it has been operating there until September.

Emilio Freeman, vice president of itineraries and destinations at SeaDream Yacht Club speaking on a panel discussing the expedition cruise markets is reported as saying that it is two to three years out when you are looking at where to send your ships, but now it is two months out, adding that it was an even more complex process as rather than selling globally, they were now selling directly to Norwegians with a separate website, priced in Kroner, with the new site set up and marketed in just seven weeks

The SeaDream Norway programme is also very different to their normal operations in that they sold 12-day open jaw voyages between Oslo and Tromso, firstly based on where the ships were welcome and also looking for off-the-beaten-path destinations.

Freeman added that the strategy for Norway was one vessel with itineraries that were flexible enough so that if there was sufficient demand they could add a second vessel, which as the voyages were oversold they did.

With the highly successful programme concluding in September, SeaDream I is scheduled to sail from Oslo on October 15 2020 arriving in Bridgetown, Barbados

November 5, 2020 in a 21 day transatlantic crossing and then a full Caribbean season.

A report by John Alwyn-Jones