NEW SHIPS, NEW ROUTES, NEW DEALS

SWAN Hellenic is launching Minerva, one of three expedition-style cruise ship, in November with 16-day trips to the Antarctic from £14,400 pp (swanhellenic.com).

THE Golden Horizon is a new sailing ship — a replica of the 1913-built ocean vessel France II, with 35 sails — from Tradewinds that is due to launch ‘Staycations at Sea’ from the UK in June (tradewindvoyages.com). Five-night trips from Harwich to Leith are from £1,049 pp departing on July 1.

NORWEGIAN Bliss has slashed £416pp off its five-day Mexican Riviera, Cabo and Ensenda cruise which will be departing from Los

Angeles on January 22, with the new price from £329 pp (ncl.com).

VIRGIN Voyages’ Scarlet Lady, a carbonneutral ship which took three years to make, is due in summer (virginvoyages.com). ‘ULTRA luxury’ ship Silver Dawn is launched by Silversea in November (silversea.com).

EXPECT a surf machine and dodgems on board Royal Caribbean’s new 4,200-passenger Odyssey of the Seas, which launches in April (royalcaribbean.com).

A GIN distillery is among the attractions of

the new LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) powered, 5,200passenger Iona from P&O Cruises (pocruises.com).

MEANWHILE, world cruises are proving incredibly popular with Oceania’s 180-day World Cruise 2023 sold out on the first day (oceaniacruises.com).

SOME bargains are to be had while 14 million annual U.S. cruise passengers are unable to sail. P&O Cruises (pocruises.com, 03453 555111) has a 14-night December 10 sailing on Azura from £1,549 pp including flights. It begins in Barbados and sails into Tobago, Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba, Tortola, Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique.

UNIWORLD (uniworld.com, 0808 3012561) is reporting a 425 per cent rise in 2022 exotic destination bookings. Most popular is Ganges Voyager II’s 15day India’s Golden Triangle & Sacred Ganges cruise holiday. The New Delhi to Kolkata sailing plus five nights in Oberoi hotels starts from £5,279pp, reduced from £5,999pp, including a oneway business-class flight during January and February 2022.

NEW from Mundy Cruising (mundycruising.co.uk, 020 7399 7670) is a Great Lakes, New Orleans and the Mississippi itinerary on September 17, 2022, with prices from £27,720 pp. ‘Undiscovered Great Lakes’ from Thunder Bay to Milwaukee features six nights at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans, seven nights aboard Viking Octantis and 14 nights aboard Viking Mississippi.