THE Victorian cruise season began on the weekend with Princess Cruises’ Diamond Princess making the first of eight base-port calls this month and next.
Ports Victoria list 119 cruise ship calls across Melbourne and regional ports/locations, with 102 of those scheduled for Melbourne’s Station Pier and one for Webb Dock West, the latter a necessary diversion when three large vessels descend on the port for protracted Melbourne Cup Week stays.
Other destinations include Geelong, Portland and Phillip Island, with highlights including Diamond Princess at Phillip Island, and Regatta and Insignia visiting Geelong.
The season extends through until mid-May 2025 when Insignia is scheduled to be the last caller, and is shaping to be one of the best yet, Ports Victoria says. There are already more than 80 provisional bookings for Station Pier in 2025-26 and nine regional bookings.
Eight ships will be making their maiden visits to Melbourne this season, including Crown Princess, Silver Nova, and Norwegian Sun. Royal Princess will be the largest ship to dock, with a passenger and crew capacity of 4800 and a length of 330 metres. Celebrity Edge is not far behind, with a total capacity of 4520 across two visits in December and March. Disney Wonder is making 10 family-friendly voyages and the iconic Queen Elizabeth is visiting twice.
Meanwhile, Tasmania is anticipating more than 130 port visits by cruise ships in the 2024-25 season, with Hobart continuing to grow in popularity, TasPorts says.
However, Burnie will see the number of callers more than halve from 34 to 16, thanks to Virgin Voyages withdrawal from the Australian market after a single season with Resilient Lady; this has also affected Melbourne and a number of other ports.
Burnie is victim of a trend to larger cruise ships operating in the market and bypassing smaller regional ports. It also saw number of calls cancelled at the last moment due to severe weather conditions.
The first Tasmanian call this season is by Princess Cruises’ Crown Princess at Hobart on 28 October.
