MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Increasingly positive outlook for Falklands cruise season

Veendam and Star Princess have planned nine and six visits respectively

With only two months to go before the first cruise ship arrives in the Falkland Islands for the 2010/11 season the situation is looking increasingly positive.
An initial prediction of 58 visits to Stanley may this season in reality be closer to 75 (according to the latest schedule) while the smaller expedition ships are planning almost 100 outer island visits.

If ships were to operate at full capacity this would mean around 55,500 visitors will enjoy the Falklands experience; this, however, would be a best-case scenario.

Last year 45,333 passengers landed in the Falklands and a 16% decline was predicted for the 2010/11 season, due to the withdrawal of the Norwegian Sun and the Minerva. Tourist Operators in the Falklands are now hopeful that this decline may be far less than expected, boosted by the nine planned visits by the Veendam, and six visits from the massive Star Princess; the former can carry 1,350 passengers while the latter an impressive 3,102.
Infinity (2,449 pax) will also make two visits while AIDAcara (1,339 pax) will call once to Stanley as will Aurora (1,950 pax)

Thirty-two different cruise ships have confirmed their schedules, the majority of those being hardy expedition vessels carrying numbers anything between 100 and 800; the smallest is Polar Pioneer, which carries an exclusive 56.

The beautiful northwest islands of Carcass, West Point and Saunders are set to benefit most from expedition ships, with Carcass receiving 26 visits, West Point 20 and Saunders Island 18. New Island to the north and Sealion Island to the south are also popular destinations.

Shore excursions conducted out of Stanley are “already selling well” confirmed a tour operator, who added, “in fact oddly enough bearing in mind all the gloomy predictions over the past couple of years, I think from the booking so far, this is going to be our best season yet – weather permitting.”

Unfortunately due to the high winds around the Falkland Islands the larger ships are occasionally obliged to sail straight past – a situation that dismays waiting guides who very often take annual leave from their full time jobs in order to drive visitors to their excursion destinations.

The tiny Stanley populationn of less than 2000 people will once again be overwhelmed this year when more than 6500 thousand visitors are expected on February 2 and 5,500 on February 16.

By Lisa Watson – SeAledPR – Stanley