Last stop Gibraltar?

[kentchris]

This is possibly to stop the itineraries being too port intensive. If I was being cynical I would suggest that one reason is to ensure people stay on board, where they will pay for drinks and make the cruise line money.

That's going to be marginal at best as the food costs will be higher if pax aren't buying lunch ashore, even allowing for all the pax who wouldn't have bothered to land anyway. Occam's Razor would suggest that P&O are catering for people who like sea days, after all they're a primary reason for taking an ocean cruise as opposed to any other sort of holiday.

 

I'm thoroughly looking forward to three whole sea days down to Funchal on my Cunard cruise in December. I can't think of any better way to get to know and enjoy the ship and its facilities, build the anticipation of the first landfall, and simply relax on holiday.

[danielundecided]

That's going to be marginal at best as the food costs will be higher if pax aren't buying lunch ashore

 

 

However, P&O will probably make quite a bit of money on drink sales, especially if it's nice weather. The food in the buffet is also going to be there regardless of whether people eat it (on a sea day), or not (on a port day).

 

Dan

 

 

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[simonpjd]

You are all missing the answer. Gibraltar has the cheapest bunkers in the Mediterranean. It is simple economics. All the ships fill up with fuel there.

 

 

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[terrierjohn]

You are all missing the answer. Gibraltar has the cheapest bunkers in the Mediterranean. It is simple economics. All the ships fill up with fuel there.

 

 

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I don't think we have ever re-fuelled in Gibraltar on any cruise ship.

[jeanlyon]

I have refuelled every time we have been in Gib. Sometimes you don't see the bunker at the opposite side of the ship, but the red flag will be flying.

[kevinyork]

I don't think we have ever re-fuelled in Gibraltar on any cruise ship.

 

 

 

Here's the fuel tanks next to the cruise dock which went up in flames whilst Independence of the Seas was docked.

 

 

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[simonpjd]

The bunker barge comes alongside and the Prom deck is normally closed for the couple of hours it takes. When I was the Navigation Officer at sea we always stopped for bunkers there. Then ashore I worked in the oil trading desk for a multi national trading company.

Remember wages and oil take up to 85% of costs. Finding and using the cheapest oil is really important. And even more so now that cruise ships are required to use ULSD , ultra low sulphur diesel, which is a clean fuel and quite expensive. They used to use heavy, which is black and horrible - like the stuff that came out of Torres Canyon.

 

 

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[mickey89]

You generally find American based cruise lines and those heavily used by Americans are more port intensive because Americans do not like sea days and prefer port intensive cruises. On our up and coming Princess cruise there are 9 ports of call in 14 days and their British Isles cruise that we have done had 9 ports in 12 days but they now do on occasional cruises an overnight in Dublin and drop a port so only 8 ports but still same amount of sea days.

P&O still use the heavy fuel oil on all their ships when in the Caribbean, as the laws are more relaxed. Thats why Britannia rear end is plagued with soot fallout.

[majortom10]

P&O still use the heavy fuel oil on all their ships when in the Caribbean, as the laws are more relaxed. Thats why Britannia rear end is plagued with soot fallout.

 

Britannia has problems with soot wherever it is in the world we had problems on our balcony on maiden cruise in the Med. Royal/Regal Princess also has the same problem which I think it is more to a design problem not sure it is down to using heavy oil fuel.

[simonpjd]

If the propellers are the pod type then they are electrically powered, so the fuel used is just to power the generators. If so it would be a diesel fuel. Which comes in lots of different types. But would probably be marine diesel or ULSD.

 

 

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[daiB]

If the propellers are the pod type then they are electrically powered, so the fuel used is just to power the generators. If so it would be a diesel fuel. Which comes in lots of different types. But would probably be marine diesel or ULSD.

 

 

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No standard propellers only ship with pods in the fleet is Arcadia.

 

 

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[terrierjohn]

If the propellers are the pod type then they are electrically powered, so the fuel used is just to power the generators. If so it would be a diesel fuel. Which comes in lots of different types. But would probably be marine diesel or ULSD.

 

 

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Most modern cruise ships are powered by Wartsilla diesel engines whether they are propeller or azipod driven. So I imagine they all use similar fuels, subject to local or international pollution controls.

[brillo]

We enjoy sea days as much as we enjoy port days, one of the main reasons that are next cruise is Ventura N271 17 days with 8 sea days.

[brillo]

I meant to say also that the ship has bunkered every time that we have stopped at Gibralter, always from a barge on the sea side of the ship.

[Josy1953]

On Ventura in March the chief engineer gave very interesting talk during which he said that the reason for calling in Gibraltar was because the price of fuel was a lot lower there so they try to buy it there as often as possible.