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CruiseBritain in good health as is CMV's Magellan

CruiseBritain in good health as is CMV's Magellan
Cruise & Maritime Voyages reports 'a very succesful' first year since the launch of Magellan's 2015 programme.

Bookings for the ship, acquired from Carnival Corp in September 2014, were launched in November that year. The 2015 cruise programme commenced from homeport of Tilbury in March 2015.

'So far 27,490 passengers have booked and sailed on Magellan this year, representing an occupancy of 114%, commented Chris Coates, commercial director, Cruise & Maritime Voyages.

He was speaking to members of CruiseBritain onboard Magellan in Tilbury as the new cruise line representative for the assciation.  

Angie Redhead, Liverpool Cruise Terminal, and elected chair of CruiseBritain for a three year helm, welcomed Coates to its annual meeting held onboard the vessel at the southern UK port on Friday.

'The market’s reaction to Magellan has been simply phenomenal exceeding our sales expectations,' commented Coates.

'Nearly 28,000 passengers having already sailed during Magellan’s inaugural season with an interesting migration trend away from some of the smaller resort type ship cruising from the UK,' he told Seatrade Cruise News. 'This gives us a lot of encouragement going forward,' he added.

The 46,052gt ship has also sailed from Tyne and Dundee this year.

In addition, Marco Polo will be operating from more UK ports in 2016: Tilbury, Hull, Newcastle, Edinburgh Leith, Glasgow Greenock, Liverpool and Bristol-Avonmouth. Azores is being renamed Astoria in 2016 and with a programme of departures from Bristol – Avonmouth.

New will be Magellan's maiden Round the World voyage sailing from London-Tilbury on January 5, 2017 for a 120 nights taking in the Caribbean, Australia and Asia. Coates reported over 300 full voyage bookings so far.

CMV also operates a programme of long distance voyages to and from Australia & New Zealand on Astor whuich can be combined with sectors of Magellan’s World Cruise.
 
The CruiseBritain meeting heard cruising to British ports in general is going from strength to strength with 2014 figures showing that 110 individual ships called into UK ports, bringing a record 922,000 passengers on day calls, a rise of 6% over 2013. CruiseBritain has a strong and active membership  of 27 organisations of which 15 are port members representing 28 ports around Britain.

Following the success of Seatrade Europe, CruiseBritain is looking forward to Seatrade Cruise Global in Fort Lauderdale and to welcoming industry colleagues to the now-traditional Great British Street Party held annually on the stand.