Southampton has long been the biggest cruise port in the UK, but even the port’s bosses never anticipated the tremendous growth it has enjoyed over the past few years.
In 2004, 540,000 cruise passengers passed through the port; in 2008 – an “amazing” year, according to port director Doug Morrison, when two ships were named in Southampton – numbers almost doubled to nearly one million.
Morrison said: “In 2004, we could see cruising was going to grow, but no one thought it would double. It’s all down to the size of the vessels rather than a doubling in ship numbers.”
In 2005, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean International launched cruises from Southampton aimed at the UK market. Royal Caribbean started with the 2,076-passenger Legend of the Seas, replaced that with the 3,114-passenger Navigator of the Seas and in 2008 replaced Navigator with the 3,634-passenger Independence of the Seas, dubbed the largest cruise ship in the world.
Morrison said: “In 2004 we had 204 ship calls. That increased to 280 in 2008. Numbers will go down slightly to about 270 this year because the Queen Elizabeth 2 has gone but I expect the same number of cruise passengers.
“In 2010, we get three new ships and the number of cruise calls will go up to about 300, with well above one million passengers. That puts us way ahead of all other ports in Northern Europe.”
To cope with the bigger ships and growing numbers of passengers, the port has invested £29 million in the terminal facilities over the past couple of years.
Some £10 million was spent expanding City Terminal to cope with Royal Caribbean’s bigger ships. In return for the investment, the cruiseline has signed a seven-year contract with the port and gets priority use of the terminal, which is also usually used by Norwegian Cruise Line.
The remainder of the money has been spent on the new Ocean Terminal, which opened in May and has been built on the back of a 20-year agreement with Carnival UK, which gives Carnival brands P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises and Cunard, priority use of its facilities.
Southampton has two other terminals – Mayflower, which is mainly used by P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises, and Queen Elizabeth, which is used by Cunard.
Morrison said: “Now the new terminal is open, we can accommodate five ships at once and because we always have deep water, a result of having two tides a day, we can get the big ships in at any time.”
New ships sailing from Southampton
The 2,600-passenger Grand Princess is operating Princess Cruises’ summer season of cruises to the Mediterranean, taking over from the 1,950-passenger Sea Princess. In addition, the 3,076-passenger Crown Princess will be making two round-trip cruises from the port, one to the Norwegian fjords, the other to Iceland and Norway.
In 2010, there will be another crop of new ships. P&O Cruises takes delivery of Azura, Cunard gets Queen Elizabeth and Celebrity Cruises is basing Celebrity Eclipse in Southampton, offering Celebrity’s first series of ex-UK cruises for the British market. In addition, from next year, Royal Caribbean is basing Independence of the Seas year-round in Southampton.
On the negative side, Norwegian Cruise Line is axing its ex-Southampton cruises on Norwegian Jade.
Southampton port in numbers
- 280: the number of cruise calls in 2008
- 4,000: the passenger capacity of the new Ocean Terminal
- 975,000: cruise passengers who used the port in 2008
- 1 million: the estimated value in pounds to the city of Southampton in 2004 from every cruise ship visit
- 19 million: the cost in pounds of the new Ocean Terminal
