Adverse Weather Conditions Saw Cruise Liner Call In Early
Adverse weather conditions forecast for the South Pacific last week made MS Explorer of the Seas dock into the Lautoka Port a day earlier its expected schedule.
MS Explorer of the Seas sailed into the Fiji waters on Wednesday last week and lucky enough there was room for it to call into port.
Kenua Fiji Manager Leone Kenua said due to adverse weather conditions developing and affecting the South Pacific Islands, Explorer of the Seas had to deviate its call to scheduled port of calls.
“The bad weather conditions developing in the Pacific Ocean had the captain of the vessel rescheduling its port of call in the Pacific,” Mr Naivalu said.
“It was expected to call into Lautoka Port on Thursday February 21, however, the vessel berthed into Lautoka a day early which was Wednesday February 20,” he said.
“We were fortunate that berth was clear and we were able to call in on Wednesday morning at the Lautoka port.”
The cruise liner carried in a total of 3387 passengers and 1263 crew members in this round trip.
“This cruise is once again carrying a large number of Australian tourists with a number of 2230 out of the 3387 on board.
“This is also the largest number of tourists out of the five cruise liners we have received since January.”
The cruise vessel was on its way to Fiji from New Castle, Australia.
It’s first port of call in Fiji was Lautoka port where it spent a day and it before it called into Suva Port on Thursday February 21.
It then departed for New Caledonia on the same day.
About MS Explorer of the Seas
Explorer of the Seas is a Voyager-class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International, completed in 2000.
She can accommodate over 3000 guests. At launch, Explorer of the Seas had a tonnage of 137,308 GT, exceeding that of her sister ship Voyager of the Seas by 32 GT and making her the world’s largest passenger ship.
She held that record until being overtaken by Navigator of the Seas in 2002.
In early 2015, Explorer of the Seas received major upgrades, including the replacement of the inline skating rink with a Flowrider surfing simulator and increasing her tonnage to 138,194 GT.
The ship’s godmother is American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
MS Insignia
The port of Suva welcomed it’s second cruise liner of the week on Friday February 22.
Cruise liner MS Insignia called into the Suva Port on Friday morning carrying a total of 864 tourists into our shores.
Cruise liner agent Swire Shipping confirmed that Suva was the only port of call in Fiji for the cruise liner.
The cruise liner called into Pago Pago, American Samoa before it made its way to Fiji. From here it made its voyage to Bay of Islands, New Zealand.
MS Insignia is the lead ship of the R class of cruise ships built for Renaissance cruises.
She is now owned by Oceania Cruises as part of its Regatta Class of ships, but recently sailed for Hapag-Lloyd as the Columbus 2.
It was built in 1998 by the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in St. Nazaire, France .
