NEWS UPDATE: Luminosa for Sydney? Carnival Goes Italian & Daring at-sea Rescue and more!

Watch Princess 2024/2025 Program Overview here: https://youtu.be/6oRAz_Puei0 Learn more, book, or register your interest for the Virgin Voyages Group Cruise: https://www.thecruiseandtravelguy.com.au/eoi-group-cruise Join my private Facebook group for cruise deals, tips and advice - the more members we have, the better we’ll get! www.facebook.com/groups/CTGdeals Follow me on Facebook and Instagram: www.facebook.com/thecruiseandtravelguy www.instragram.com/thecruiseandtravelguy Support the channel with a slogan tee: https://thecruiseandtravelguy.myshopify.com Head to my website for great cruise and travel deals: www.thecruiseandtravelguy.com.au The Grand Princess was part of an impromptu rescue operation this week. The ship was sailing on a 7 night Southern Australia explorer cruise when the police call came to assist with a rescue. Two people were on a commercial vessel in the Bass Strait when they encountered trouble. According to reports, the vessel was taking on water, so the pair boarded a dinghy which was later located by the police air wing. The Grand Princess just happened to be nearby and the man and woman were safely taken aboard. Despite incorporating virtual muster drills into its standard safety procedures throughout the post-pandemic period, Norwegian Cruise Line recently decided to make a return to the traditional in-person emergency drill. Passengers onboard the cruise line’s ships had been forced to return to standing on deck for extended periods while the drill took place. Guest feedback has seemingly forced NCL to make an about-face and the cruise line will return to virtual muster drills for all cruises departing from April 1st. This is in keeping with other major cruise lines that have, in light of guest satisfaction, retained their muster 2.0 processes. Port schedules must always be taken with a grain of salt, as we learned this week that despite appearing on Australian schedules for at least a year, the Discovery Princess will not be calling Australia home during the 2024/2025 summer cruise season. Instead, Princess announced that Royal Princess, Crown Princess and Diamond Princess will be heading the newly announced Australia and New Zealand season. Even though port listings for the Discovery Princess let me down, I couldn’t help but notice that an unnamed Carnival Cruises vessel is scheduled to call in Sydney multiple times throughout October 2024. It appears this is Carnival Luminosa - as she will sail her 2024 southern transpacific repositioning cruise from Seattle to Sydney, instead of Brisbane. Once in Sydney, she will sail on one 4 night cruise departing on October 12th which lines up with the first port listing for the unnamed vessel. After that though, there is a gap in cruises available to book on the Carnival website that coincides with three port listings for the unnamed Carnival Cruises vessel. There are departures listed for October 16th, 23rd and 30th. This is unconfirmed, but I suspect that this could indicate that music charter company, Choose Your Cruise, will partner with Carnival instead of Royal Caribbean for its highly anticipated 2024 music cruises. The three back to back departure dates in 2024 match this years plans for three back to back music cruises in November and December, except those will be taking place onboard Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas. Both Luminosa and Brilliance are roughly the same size and offer similar passenger capacities, lending further support to my idea. If true, this would be a significant change for Choose Your Cruise which has partnered with Royal Caribbean since its first charter cruises in 2010. Carnival’s first “Italian Style” ship has officially joined the fleet. The 135K gross tonne Venezia first sailed in 2019 for Costa Cruises but in mid 2022, Carnival announced that it would be acquiring both Venezia and sister ship, Firenze. The pair will retain their Italian heritage and styling, while incorporating new concepts like La Strada Grill offering classic Italian street food, Tomodoro, a Mexitalian fusion restaurant and a bar called Amari, an innovative take on Alchemy. Venezia will sail from New York later this year, while Firenze will sail from Long Beach, California from May 2024. Cruises on both ships are already available to book. Finally this week, Cunard has updated its worldwide pre-cruise testing and guest vaccination policy by removing the requirement for cruises departing by April and June, with the exception of sailings to and from Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Locally, government regulations still require pre-cruise testing and vaccination. As yet, there no updates on when this might change though I suspect there may be developments later this year. Photo Credits: Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons antonio from Trieste, Italy, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons Thanks for watching!