At Sea with Doug Newman

Now that Azamara Journey is off on her first cruise to Bermuda, let’s take a look at the Bermuda offerings for summer 2008.

Azamara has in fact not announced its 2008 summer program, but according to travel agents, Bermuda itineraries for Journey are already in Azamara/Celebrity’s reservations system; the sailings just haven’t opened for booking yet. This comes as something of a surprise to me - with only two ships, I’d have thought Azamara would have wanted them both in Europe, the hot destination of the moment. Happily, it seems that with Azamara, Celebrity is poised to enter into a 19th season of cruising to Bermuda, albeit with capacity having been slashed by about three quarters in the past few years (from two 1,300 passenger ships to one 700 passenger ship).

The Azamara product, as unoriginal as it may be (a copy of Oceania which itself is a very improved version of Renaissance), seems ideal for Bermuda. The ship is the right size for Hamilton and St. George’s, the “elegant casual” dress code couldn’t be more appropriate, and with three overnights in port, you’d be hard-pressed to find an itinerary more suited to open-seating dining. All this means it’s truly a delight to see Azamara returning to Bermuda, seemingly against the odds.

What’s more interesting is that, despite losing two full-time ships in 2008 - Royal Caribbean’s Empress of the Seas, transferring to Pullmantur, and NCL’s Norwegian Crown, sold to Fred. Olsen - Bermuda will gain two. Norwegian Dream will replace Norwegian Majesty on her long-time 7-night Boston-to-Bermuda run, letting Majesty move to similar itineraries out of Baltimore. More interesting, however, is that NCL will position Norwegian Dawn to replace Crown on the time-honored 7-night Bermuda run from New York. The difference, of course, is that while Crown called at all of Bermuda’s major ports - Hamilton, St. George’s, and King’s Wharf - Dawn is too large to call at any but King’s Wharf.

Indeed, as Dream and Majesty will call only at St. George’s, Hamilton essentially loses two of its three regular callers. With Empress of the Seas and Norwegian Crown gone, only Azamara Journey will call regularly at Bermuda’s capital. It remains to be seen whether this will push the Bermudian authorities to build facilities in Hamilton that can accommodate larger vessels.

Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean will continue to operate Explorer of the Seas from Bayonne and Grandeur of the Seas from Baltimore on 5-night cruises to King’s Wharf. (Both will continue to alternate with 9-night Caribbean cruises.) While this does represent an overall loss of capacity from the retirement of Empress, the company continues its logical commitment to Bermuda as the only “fun in the sun” destination reachable from the Northeast in under a week.

All in all, Azamara’s apparent return and NCL’s surprising massive capacity increase mean that 2008 will be a far better season for Bermuda than I had feared. Nevertheless, the loss of Empress of the Seas and Norwegian Crown does highlight the departure of smaller vessels from the mass-market fleets, and darker days may be ahead when, inevitably, Norwegian Dream and Norwegian Majesty leave the NCL fleet. The company’s stated goal is to have them gone by 2010 - not too far into the future. And either way, Hamilton is in deep trouble with but one small ship calling two days a week in 2008 - an incredibly precipitous decline from as many as four much larger ships only a few years ago. When NCL’s smaller ships leave the fleet, St. George’s will be in the same boat (no pun intended). This leaves King’s Wharf - Bermuda’s least desirable port - as the island’s standard-bearer.

One thing is for sure - the next few years will be interesting ones. As a long-time fan of Bermuda, I sincerely hope it can continue to be a major cruise destination without losing its charm and appeal - a balancing act that has proved terribly difficult for many other cruise ports. Let’s hope that where others have failed, Bermuda will succeed.