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Helen Caron has been appointed Managing Director of Thomson Cruises

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: More News More News; Published: 03 December 2013 03 December 2013

Helen Caron, currently Director of Ireland, will now be responsible for managing the Thomson Cruises business, said TUI UK & Ireland, part of TUI Travel plc that is parent company of the two.

Caron will report to Fraser Ellacott, her predecessor in her new post, who is now Customer Operations Director and starts her new role on 2nd January 2014.

Ellacott commented: “We have an extremely successful and popular cruise business in the UK and as the third largest operator, it continues to play an extremely important part in our overall strategy. We have been focused on driving a programme of innovation and modernisation forward in the past few years and have developed a successful brand strategy. I am delighted that I can hand the baton over to Helen who will continue to strengthen this approach and has done a fantastic job of transforming our Irish business.”

Thomson Cruises operates five vessels on the British market. They are all built between 1982 and 1992 and range in size from 34,000 to 57,000 gross tons.

P&O Cruises to unveil details about Britannia 12 February

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: More News More News; Published: 02 December 2013 02 December 2013

P&O Cruises, the contemporary market unit of Carnival Corp & plc in the UK, will unveil details about its eight vessel, the 143,000 gross ton Britannia that is currently under construction in Italy, on 12 February 2014.

The Southampton based company has called a press conference on that date.

Britannia will be based on the same platform design as Royal Princess and Regal Princess of sister brand Princess Cruises, but its interior will differ from the two Princess ships and the layout will also feature some differences, company officials have said.

The ship is due to enter service in March 2015 and it will be based in Southampton.

Laid up Ocean Countess hit by fire

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: More News More News; Published: 01 December 2013 01 December 2013

Ocean Countess, the1976 built cruise ship of Majestic International, has been hit by fire while the ship has been laid up in Chalkis in Greece, media reports say.

The 17,593 gross ton ship has last traded on charter to Cruise & Maritime Voyages, the UK based operator of chartered tonnage, which used it for a few years after commencing operations in 2009.

The ship was built as Cunard Countess for Cunard Line and it was the first unit of two similar, high density vessels with accommodation for about 800 passengers the company introduced in the mid-1970s. Their hulls were built in Denmark and they were towed to Italy for fitting out.

Court approves Kristina Cruises' debt restructuring application

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: More News More News; Published: 30 November 2013 30 November 2013

A court in Finland has approved an application by Kristina Cruises, the owner and operator of the 12,700 gross ton Kristina Katarina, to commence debt restructuring of the company. The application was backed by the two biggest creditors of the family owned company that is based in Kotka in south eastern Finland.

Earlier this week, the company terminated a programme of fly cruises in the Canary Islands from Finland to stem losses and filed an application with the regional court is Southern Karelia to enter debt restructuring, a procedure similar to Chapter XI in the US.

It plans to resume its operations in the spring.

Today the company said it would commence talks with its 200 strong staff about layoffs or redundancies as it has closed down its operations for at least four months. Such talks are requirement of the Finnish law, but the law does not require that the parties agree on the measures to be taken.

Kristina Katarina was built in Poland in 1982 and it underwent an extensive refit before entering service with Kristina Cruises in 2010. The company operates the vessel under the Finnish flag and it also sells its cruises on the Finnish market, which has suffered from a severe downturn of the Nordic country's economy.

Thomson Celebration re-enters service with 24 balcony cabins

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: More News More News; Published: 30 November 2013 30 November 2013

Thomson Celebration of Thomson Cruises in the UK has re-entered service following a refit in Germany that saw the vessel upgraded to the TUI Travel plc unit's Platinum class, which included adding balcony cabins.

A total of 18 existing cabins on the uppermost deck of the 33,930 gross ton vessel that started life as Noordam of Holland America Line in 1984 received balconies. Six new cabins were built in the space previously occupied by a cinema on Broadway deck that houses the principal public rooms of the ship, deck plans issued by Thomson Cruises on their website show.