Century update

[Grez]

This article (in French) seems to indicate that the Celebrity Century will be joining CDF in 2015 - http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/le-century-rejoindra-bien-croisieres-de-france-en-2015

 

We have often speculated on this forum that Century could have been a possibility as a new Thomson ship, being half sister to the 2 TUI ships. Shame if true, but the HAL Statendam class ships remain a possibility.

[geomagot]

interesting grez...never heard of cruise de france before....celebrity century...looks identical to the horizon (thats not the old island star is it?....looks vaguely familiar?....luvved the old island star)

 

hopefully thoms will be looking at something newer (thumbup)

[davecttr]

interesting grez...never heard of cruise de france before....celebrity century...looks identical to the horizon (thats not the old island star is it?....looks vaguely familiar?....luvved the old island star)

 

hopefully thoms will be looking at something newer (thumbup)

 

doubt it. The market is so fragile at the moment that it would be crazy for anyone to invest in anything. I bet the new ship buyers are wishing they could get out of the contracts!.

 

Thomson is essentially a 2 ship operation and it remains to be seen if 2 ships in the caribbean is viable. With P&O's deep discounting they are having problems filling 2 ships. If Celebration has to take over the Canaries run then Majesty is redundant in winter. You then have a 2 ship operation and 1 summer charter.

 

they are obviously intending to keep Dream and Celebration for some time so no 'new' ships for the future.

[Sailaway487]

A shame as I would like to have seen Century join Thomson, but I suppose it was inevitable really that it would stay within an RCL company, as they don't seem to like to give ships up. So, looks like we are down to HAL's Statendam class then. From what I have read, all four ships in this class are for sale, but currently no buyers. If this continues and HAL want to offload a ship, a leasing agreement to Thomson would seem very likely.

 

When Fraser came in, within the year he had made changes to the fleet. Let's see if Helen has the same ideas.

[Sailaway487]

interesting grez...never heard of cruise de france before....celebrity century...looks identical to the horizon (thats not the old island star is it?....looks vaguely familiar?....luvved the old island star)

 

hopefully thoms will be looking at something newer (thumbup)

 

CDF seems to be doing quite well, got quite a good balance between a relaxed style of cruising with a bit of formality (similar to Thomson in that sense), but the ships seem to be of quite a good standard too. And yes, Horizon sailing for CDF is the old Island Star. The French cruise market is growing quite quickly at the moment, one of the last major European countries for it to do so, counteracting the reducing capacity from the Spanish markets. For the cruising business, Germany and France in Europe is where the cruise market really is these days. I wonder if the British market is now becoming too saturated, now that many of the international cruise lines are sailing from here. Perhaps that's why Thomson have decided for 2015 to make use of its main asset of providing well organised fly-cruise packages because of the increase of international lines sailing from the UK now?

Edited December 9, 2013 by Sailaway487

[Sailaway487]

doubt it. The market is so fragile at the moment that it would be crazy for anyone to invest in anything. I bet the new ship buyers are wishing they could get out of the contracts!.

 

Thomson is essentially a 2 ship operation and it remains to be seen if 2 ships in the caribbean is viable. With P&O's deep discounting they are having problems filling 2 ships. If Celebration has to take over the Canaries run then Majesty is redundant in winter. You then have a 2 ship operation and 1 summer charter.

 

they are obviously intending to keep Dream and Celebration for some time so no 'new' ships for the future.

 

I can definitely see Dream and Celebration remaining now for at least another 5-7 years, with the investment that they have had recently. I wonder for 2015 whether we will see a 2 ship operation like you say, but with only 1 summer lease perhaps?

 

I did find the other day that when they announced Spirt's and Destiny's extension of leases, it was in January of the year it was running out, so hopefully in a few weeks we should find out from Louis if the leases have been extended or not.

[so,ton saint]

It,s only a rumour waiting for clarifiaction see cruise new,s