Thomson Cruises to expand even more!

It has recently hit the news that Splendour of the Seas would be leaving the Royal Caribbean fleet, it has also been announced that Majesty of the Seas will also leave the RCI fleet and go to Pullmantur, Splendour however is taking a different path and joining as the flagship in the Thomson Fleet. She will be 40% Balconies which will please many as Thomson don’t have many, if any on their other ships in the fleet.

 I personally think that it is Great building new bigger ‘resort ships’ but you need to have a good mix of big and small ships, and especially for a cruise line such as Royal Caribbean who has a big following.

However this news is great news for Thomson’s. Would you be likely to cruise with Thomson now?

Now recently we have heard from TUI Cruises, the parent company to Thomson that they will move two more ships under the Thomson banner, Mein Schiff 1 which was the MV Galaxy and the Celebrity Galaxy and Mein Schiff 2 which was the MV Mercury and the Celebrity Mercury, both with Celebrity Cruises will both make the transition to Thomson. Mein Schiff however is part of TUI and is the German Based Cruise line. No dates for the move over have been set you but it is expected to be completely within the next few years.

It is not uncommon for cruise lines to move ships within the main company to cover supply and demand. Carnival whom own Princess Cruises Lines did this in 2003 when the Sea Princess that had been sailing with Princess from 1998 to 2003 moved to P&O and became the Adonia from 2003 to 2005, then she went back as the Sea Princess in 2005. This move covered the period that the Old Arcadia leaving the P&O fleet to become the Ocean Village 1, (which Ocean Village again was a cruise line under the same Carnival Banner) and the launch of the new Arcadia in 2005. Arcadia was never meant to be Arcadia, she was in fact due to be a Holland America ship and then the Cunard Queen Victoria, but it was decided that P&O needed her more. I could go on all day.

 Ocean Village stopped trading a couple of years after they set up and now both the Ocean Village 1 and 2 sail under the P&O Australia banner, which is now expanding with 2 ships joining from the Holland America brand and the Emerald Princess will also leave the Princess brand and join too.

 There is never a dull day in being a cruise ship.

 Both the Mein Schiff ships are Century Class ships and can carry 1,814 guests each, both ships have had extensive refits which cost about £30 million.

 We are unaware on what the names will be, however Island Escape is due to be leaving the Island brand so could they become the All Inclusive ships as we are seeing how popular that is or will they phase Island out altogether?

 At the end of the day, this is great news both for the UK Cruise Market and Thomson Cruises.