UK’s Biggest Cruise Port Looks Ahead to Busy 2023

The Port of Southampton, situated on the southern coast of England, had a profitable 12 months of cruise operations in 2022. The port supported 600 cruise days (in the future for every day a cruise ship was in port), together with 489 cruise calls and 111 days ships spent alongside with out passenger operations. 

The UK’s hottest port welcomed a number of cruise ships for the primary time and hosted eight plaque and key ceremonies to honor maiden calls from numerous cruise ships. While 2022 was an enormous success, the port now appears ahead to an much more profitable 2023. 

Southampton Cruise Port’s Full Recovery

The Port of Southampton had a profitable 12 months in 2022, with a file variety of cruise operations. Northern Europe’s and the UK’s largest embarkation port dealt with a complete of 489 ships, amounting to 1,899,654 passengers passing by the port between January and December. 

The port held a number of plaque exchanges and key ceremonies all year long to honor maiden calls from totally different cruise ships. These included Azamara Onward, Celebrity Beyond, Silver Moon, Norwegian Prima, Aida Perla, Aida Cosma, and Enchanted Princess. These visits show the very important half Southampton performs in Europe’s trade.

In December, the port additionally celebrated the arrival of P&O Cruises’ latest ship, Arvia, and hosted her naming ceremony on December 21.

As the sister ship to Iona, Arvia is a 180,000 gross-tons excel-class ship with a capability of 5,200 friends. She will homeport in Southampton, one of many few ports in Europe outfitted to deal with LNG-powered ships. 

Rebekah Keeler, Head of Cruise at Associated British Ports: “We’re proud to provide award-winning cruise operational support year-round to the world’s biggest and smallest cruise ships. Alongside this, our ongoing roll out of our air quality strategy sees us take huge strides in facilitating zero emissions at berth. Supported by our port-based cruise services providers, we look forward to another successful year in 2023.” 

Southampton Expects to be Even Busier in 2023

The Port of Southampton is looking forward to an much more profitable 12 months in 2023, with 492 cruise calls from 292 cruise ships and maiden calls from seven new cruise ships, together with the MSC Explora 1 and Silversea Cruises’ Silver Nova.

The MSC Explora 1 is a 64,000 gross tons ultra-luxury cruise ship that sails underneath the identical guardian firm as MSC Cruises. The 248-meter-long vessel can carry 992 passengers. Silver Nova is Silverseas’ latest ultra-luxury cruise ship and the primary hybrid-powered vessel on the earth.

Altogether, the 292 cruise ships are anticipated to convey nicely over 2 million passengers to Southampton. This would put Southampton within the prime ten of the largest cruise ports on the earth. 

While the expansion is definitely good for the financial system, the setting does endure from the huge inflow of ships to the Port of Southampton. It has subsequently dedicated itself to selling air high quality initiatives and, within the spring, switched on Shore Power at two of its 5 cruise terminals, the Horizon and Mayflower. 

This allowed 15 ships to scale back emissions totally whereas in port a complete of 42 instances in 2022. This effort is a major step in the direction of decreasing the environmental impression of cruise ships and one that can see substantial will increase in 2023.