An Asian company is believed to be the buyer of a cruiseship sold by Carnival subsidiary P&O Cruises Australia.
The cruise giant's Australian-focused line has confirmed that its 70,000-gt, 1,912-passenger Pacific Jewel (built 1990) has been sold.
The company said in a statement that the ship will be handed over to its new operator in March 2019.
No details about the buyer or the price have been disclosed, but Asian cruise industry observers said that the ship is going to Singapore-based buyers.
P&O Cruises Australia will be replacing the Pacific Jewel and 55,900-gt, 1,613-passenger cruiseship Pacific Eden (built 1993), which was sold to UK-based Cruises & Maritime Voyages (CMV) earlier this year, with two larger ships that will be transferred across from Carnival’s Princess Cruises subsidiary.
Replacing vessels
The 109,000-gt, 3,300-passenger Golden Princess (built 2001) will begin operating for P&O Australia in October 2020, with the identical 109,000-gt Star Princess (built 2002) following in 2021.
This has been a busy year on the sales front for Carnival as it sheds older ships ahead of taking delivery of a raft of newbuildings that will be spread across its various cruise brands.
In addition to the Pacific Jewel and Pacific Eden, the company’s Holland America Cruises brand tied up a deal in July to sell its 38,800-gt, 835-passenger Prinsendam (built 1989) to Germany’s Phoenix Seereisen, with delivery set for next July. At the same time, UK-based P&O Cruises concluded a deal to sell the 69,800-gt, 1,928-passenger Oriana (built 1995) to as-yet undisclosed Chinese interests with delivery scheduled for August 2019.
Cruise clearance
Carnival’s plans to sell off its older ships has been welcomed by second-tier cruise operators, which have previously faced difficulty sourcing tonnage on the secondhand market when major players of the cruise industry opted to filter ships down their various brands rather than sell them to others.
Cruise operators lower down the food chain were left operating very old ships that were looking increasingly obsolete in the face of new tonnage entering the market.
Carnival reversed that trend a couple of years ago when it said it would sell two to three ships a year.
Industry sources say the company is not actively marketing ships at the moment, although it is willing to consider offers on any of its older ships.
