According to a financial review of TUI AG, the German arm of TUI group will make some changes to its Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten. The German live has seen a reduction of passengers with the average ship sailing at 70% occupied.

Its not all bad news as TUI Cruises, the joint venture between TUI and Royal Caribbean, has been sailing their ship at full capacity.

However for the 6 months ending in March 2013, Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten saw a deficit of usd$14 million.

Norway’s Hurtigruten (the forever Norwegian Coastal Voyages) have reported a loss for the first quarter of 2013. However they were able to reduce their loss compared to other quarters.

The loss was reduced to NOK133.0 million compared to NOK171.9 million this time last year. Revenues increased in Q1 to NOK754.5 million compared to NOK723.3 million.

Britain’s Fred Olsen Cruise Lines suffered a bit worse. Their losses increased to almost usd$8 million in Q1 2013, compared to usd$7 million in Q1 2012.

Norwegian Cruise Line posted a loss of $96 million, or $0.49 per share, on revenues of $527.6 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013, compared to net income of $3.2 million, or $0.02 per share, on revenues of $515.4 million for the same period last year.

Operating income was $31 million this year, compared to $46.4 million last year.

Viking Ocean Cruises held an even last night in Los Angeles to announce and reveal‎ details about their newest ship; the Viking Star.

Set to debut in May 2015 the 928 pax vessel will spend the season in Europe in the Med and the Baltic.

USA Today has a gallery of the sneak peak.

via cruise critic UK

“There will be a certain elitism to say you’ve worked on Titanic II.”

Pretty sure the entire industry is laughing at the Titanic II. Having that on your resume may not be the highlight everyone thinks it would be.

The keel for P&O’s newest ship has just been laid down in a drydock in Monfalcone, Italy. Fincanteri will now start assembling what is essentially a sister to the Royal Princess, just tamed down a bit.

She is on schedule to be delivered in 2015.

photos via Blogspot/picasa

via Royal Caribbean:

Royal Caribbean International’s Brilliance of the Seas has reemerged from a $30 million drydock ready to WOW guests.  The 2,100 guest ship will now offer vacationers signature Royal Caribbean amenities first introduced aboard Oasis-class ships including five new dining concepts, an exhilarating aerial entertainment experience and technology advancements allowing guests to stay more connected than ever before. Brilliance of the Seas will debut her newest innovations this summer as she sails from Harwich, England, offering Northern European itineraries that visit some of the Baltics’s most sought after destinations such as Copenhagen, Denmark; Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Its no secret that STX Group is in some serious financial difficulties. Last week the Korean Development Bank (KDB) was forced to take over the day-to-day operations of the group. This is allowed under Korean law to help the creditors sort out their finances.

Tradewinds is reporting that the debt may be as bad as $13 Billion.

In the Asian yards, word is that STX Dalian, in China, has ceased all work on the site. They stopped cutting steel and may have run out of money to buy more.

Alstom, who used to own the Sait-Nazaire yard, has stated publically they will not be buying STX France.

However, Finnish PM Jyrki Katainen has stated publically that that if STX fails to find a buyer, the Finnish government ‘may’ step in.

Tradewinds also has another item that STX has been asking Chinese interests to buy up the Finland yard. They speculate it was probably CSIC that was asked.

The blurry photo above is an enlarged version of Cruise critics original.

Set to debut in February 2016, the 99,000grt vessel will carry 2,600 pax (double occupancy). Shell be roughly the size of a new-panamax vessel. It looks like a vista-class on steroids.

That’s pretty much all we know at this point.

I’ve updated our orderbook.

photo via cruisecritic

Chris Owen of Chriscruises & Gadling offers us the following case:

New ships are something special to be sure.  Packed with the best of what a cruise line has to offer, the hope is often for a ship to be everything to everyone and Norwegian Breakaway is not exception.  Still, if history tells us anything, locking a ship in to a specific geographic area is a horrible idea.  After all, one of the best parts of the cruise business is the mobile nature of their assets, the floating resorts that can and are moved around the world when financial concerns dictate.

Another example was NCL’s last New York centric ship, the Norwegian Dawn. Now one of the older ships in the fleet, when she launched in 2002, she was the first Year-round ship in New York in several decades.  The Dawn also debuted NCL’s iconic Hull art. On her starboard side are a pod of dolphins and on her port side; the statue of liberty. In 2011 NCL repositioned the Dawn to Boston to replace the Spirit (and before her the Dream) on their popular Boston-Bermuda route. They sailed her into drydock for a revamp before debuting in Boston, however they left the original hullart. So now we have the Norwegian Dawn sailing into Boston with a huge, 6-deck tall symbol for New York City. Not entirely sure Bostonians dig that.

This problem can be solved with a simple repaint. The Breakaway’s….not so much. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I have lived in both cities in my lifetime…

photo via flickr user jelpics

click for larger

Photographer: Finn Tornquist
Captured : May 07, 2013
Added: May 08, 2013
Location: