New cruise ships setting sail this year!!

These Brand New Ships are Finally Setting Sail! In 2021, many brand new ships – that have yet to welcome any paying guests aboard – will finally get to undertake their maiden voyages. ▶ SUBSCRIBE for regular cruise ship updates & maritime history: https://bit.ly/38BR2DK​ ▶ READ: My Maritime History books: https://bit.ly/3nISs3w​ (not sponsored) ▶LISTEN: To The Big Cruise Podcast: https://thebigcruisepodcast.com/episodes/ (not sponsored) ▶ FOLLOW ME on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3qg1AOR​ ▶ CONNECT WITH ME on Facebook: https://bit.ly/39sBKQP​ ▶ CHECK OUT my Cunard history website: https://www.chriscunard.com/​ ▶ LEARN MORE about me: https://www.chrisframe.com.au/​ Let’s start with one of the most notable new ships of this decade so far - Scarlet Lady. The first of three 110,000 ton ships for the brand new Virgin Voyages, the ship was ready for service in early 2020 and actually undertook several shake down cruises with media, press and travel agents aboard. Scarlet Lady will finally enter passenger service in August, undertaking cruising from the British port of Portsmouth. Another large new ship that has been waiting for her first guests is Celebrity Apex. The second in the Edge-class of 130,000 ton ships, Apex was handed over in a VIRTUAL ceremony to Celebrity in Spring of 2020 – which for those of us south of the Equator was Autumn last year… so right about the time when the Pandemic was really beginning to impact cruising. Having sailed to the Caribbean to wait out the cruise pause with some of her fleet mates, the ship will return to Europe and commence its first cruises from Athens this June. P&O’s Iona will also finally make her first voyage with passengers this year, after having several of her planned maiden voyages cancelled since she was built. The ship is the largest ever to sail for P&O cruises, and is currently due to cruise from August with her maiden voyage sailing to Scotland’s Iona Island where she will anchor off the coast offering views of her namesake. This voyage and most of the other P&O early voyages have no port calls. Royal Caribbean’s brand new Odyssey of the Seas will make her first passenger voyages in Israel with cruises from three nights to a week in length. Cruises aboard the Quantum Class ship will sail from Haifa to the Greek Isles and are open to Israeli guests, and only those who are vaccinated. Saga’s much anticipated Spirit of Adventure will soon make her first passenger cruise with the ship set to depart from Tilbury in July for a 15 night voyage around the UK. Spirit of Adventure is a near-identical sister ship to the 2009-built Spirit of Discovery – both of which clock in at just over 58,000 tons making them noticeably larger than the retired Saga ships they have replaced. MSC’s Virtuosa will also make her debut in UK waters, with the 181,000ton ship now heading to Southampton from France’s Chanteirs Shipyard where she was built. From Southampton she will make her maiden voyage and undertake a series of UK based cruises with British-only passengers aboard. There’s a lot of activity that will be required to get these and all the other cruise ships back into service & you can actually check out all the details in my video about restarting the cruise ships here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvPM772_Pgw It's a huge job to return the cruise ships to service, but its not insurmountable. During WWI and WWII, many new ocean liners were requisitioned into military and trooping roles before ever seeing a fare paying passenger. This includes some of the most famous liners of all time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lz0no-vNCU). These ships had massive wartime conversions that took months to undo before they could make their maiden passenger voyages. So 2021 will be hard for cruise lines, but not unprecedented. -- Image Support: Andrew Sassoli-Walker https://solentphotographer.com Emma LeTeace Patricia Dempsey https://linerlovers.wordpress.com/ Virgin Voyages - Scarlet Lady (THUMBNAIL) P&O Cruises - Iona Carnival Cruise Line - Mardi Gras Scarlet Lady - Silver Novice - CC-BY-SA-2.0 - https://bit.ly/32g2SPX Scarlet Lady - Sidvics - CC-BY-SA-4.0 - https://bit.ly/2Qldo5R Scarlet Lady - The Silver Novice - CC-BY-SA-2.0 - https://bit.ly/3a5Co80 Celebrity Apex - Jakez Bo - Public Domain - https://bit.ly/3thb1j5 Celebrity Apex - Sebastian Mew - CC-BY-SA-4.0 - https://bit.ly/32dprF2 Odyssey of the Seas - Oldih - CC-BY-SA-4.0 - https://bit.ly/32ctBgd Spirit of Adventure - J.Köster - CC-BY-SA-4.0 - https://bit.ly/3e4titc MSC Virtuosa - ND44 - CC-BY-SA-4.0 - https://bit.ly/3de3H1N Queen Elizabeth - Imperial War Museum - https://bit.ly/3dcoN0B (Public Domain) Queen Elizabeth - Imperial War Museum - https://bit.ly/3dhK3SG (Public Domain) Queen Elizabeth - Imperial War Museum - https://bit.ly/3dTKpxO (Public Domain) Arrow Icon: Matt Scribner / The Noun Project Music: YT Audio #cruisenews #celebrityapex #cruiseship