CCL double drydock

CARNIVAL Cruise Line’s Australian-based ships, Carnival Spirit and Carnival Legend will both go into drydock next May.

Carnival Spirit’s drydock will be in early May and Legend will be later in the month, meaning there will be no CCL ships sailing in or out of Australia for two weeks, CCL has confirmed in the release of its 2018/19 program.

The cruise line promised both ships would “emerge with exciting new features in time for the bumper 2018-19 season”.

During Spirit’s repositioning cruise to Singapore, she will make maiden visits to Koh Samui and Phuket in Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

CARNIVAL Cruise Line will once again sail out of Sydney in Nov 2019, after swapping out the destination for Melbourne in the same period in 2018 due to congestion at the OPT.

Confirming the return in the release of it 2018/19 season, the line unveiled more than 70 sailings from Sydney & Melbourne, incl a record 19 short cruises.

A spokesperson for the line said Carnival had scheduled as many sailings from Melbourne in Feb/ Mar of 2019 as in 2018, noting “the response in the Victorian market for Carnival has been beyond our expectations”.

CCL is offering roundtrip sailings from Melbourne to New Zealand over 13 nights, the South Pacific over 10 and 11 nights as well as a four-night hop south to Tasmania.

The program is the line’s biggest Australian program to date and packs in 43 cruises to the South Pacific and New Zealand, representing a 13% increase in sailings to the destinations on the 2018 season.

Carnival vice president Australia Jennifer Vandekreeke said of the record number of options, “there will be something for every fun seeker in this program”.

Prices for a four-night Sydney to Moreton Island cruise sailing on 21 Nov leads in at $699ppts.

The program will go on sale on 15 Jun.