Despite Australia’s cruise success, Cunard confirms it won’t be bringing any ships here

• Cunard has released its deployments for the 2027/28 season, becoming one of the first lines to do so.
• The announcement confirms the line won’t return a ship to homeport in Australia.
• This follows an industry trend, with several cruise lines reducing or removing their presence in Australia.

Cunard has released its deployments for the 2027/28 season, and sadly, Australia is nowhere to be seen. 

It appears that Australia’s last cruise season will be the final time we see a Cunard ship homeporting in Australian waters for the foreseeable future.

The deployments show Queen Elizabeth won’t be returning to homeport, with the latest deployments confirming that a return to Australia isn’t on the cards for the cruise line.

Cunard, known for its royal elegance, was always a big-hit with Australian sailors, but in late 2023 it was announced that the cruise line would cease homeporting out of Australia after the 2024/25 season. 

This also demonstrates how crucial forward planning is for stakeholders in the cruise industry, cruise lines make their bookings years ahead of time, and if a country or region simply can’t offer stability, ships simply won’t come. 

News like this is often disappointing for Australians, especially as it’s not for a lack of demand.

Australia was just confirmed by CLIA to still be the fourth largest cruise market in the world, and the majority of Aussies prefer taking a cruise close to home. Therefore, Aussies are right to feel left down that despite their consistent cruising, Australia is set to start seeing less and less cruise ships on our shores.

This trend can be seen across other cruise lines, While most aren’t removing homeporting ships altogether like Cunard, they’re cutting down on their Australian cruise capacity and leaving Aussies with fewer options.

For example, it was only just over a year ago that Australia had four Princess ships sailing in its waters, with Majestic Princess, Royal Princess, Grand Princess and Coral Princess all sailing here for the 2023/24 season.

However, for the next two seasons, Princess will send just two ships each season into Aussie waters. 

This trend can be easily identified across the entire industry. Royal Caribbean went from three ships to two, Norwegian Cruise Line will no longer do a full homeporting season, P&O cruises Australia shut down and Virgin Voyages lasted just one season in Australia.

Therefore, as much as Aussies continue to show out in numbers and jump on cruise ships, it appears that the commonly reported factors of costly and complex regulation, steep port fees, capacity issues and more, seem to be repelling cruise ships from placing their faith in Australia. 

Among the highlights of the Cunard season are Queen Anne’s maiden visits to Sorrento, Italy, and La Rochelle, France; Queen Mary 2’s debut in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Queen Victoria’s first arrival in Riga, Latvia; and Queen Elizabeth’s maiden calls in Calvi, France, and Trieste, Italy.

Cruise Passenger has previously explored what the government could do to help reverse this trend, and the head of CLIA Australasia Joel Katz also gave a stern warning that imminent action is needed to keep cruise strong in the region.

“Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific are incredibly popular cruise destinations, but they are also a challenging environment for cruise lines to operate in, so we need a regional focus on encouraging cruise ship deployment in local waters.

“Demand is strong, but we need governments, destinations and industry stakeholders to work together to address the high costs and regulatory difficulties we experience in the region. Cruising supports many thousands of local jobs, but we are going to suffer a decline in cruise ship deployment in this region while other global destinations reap the economic rewards.”

While Aussies will undoubtedly keep showing up and cruising wherever possible, unfortunately it appears this alone won’t be enough to continue convincing cruise lines to send ships to Australia.