Her last scheduled sailing is on 13 September, returning to Valencia on 18 September. She will be sold after that. Apparently, Quail Cruises want her, but because OCEANIC is so hugely successful in Spain, Pullmantur do not want her to go to any local competitor.

OCEANIC will have an extensive month-long drydocking here in Gibraltar in January, while EMPRESS will also be drydocked here next month.

Another bit of news is that next year, SKY WONDER (and not OCEAN DREAM as previously thought) will be based year-round on weekly Mexican Riviera cruises from Acapulco. She knows these waters well from her days as Sitmar's FAIRSKY.

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Originally posted by Neil Whitmore ( Bob ex P&O Cruises):
Perhaps the new Orient Line may be interested in Oceanic as they want a fleet of classic ships and have already bought one with steam turbines.

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Best,

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Originally posted by Rego007:
Does anyone know for sure if OCEANIC is SOLAS 2010 compliant? If another line is interested in her after her Pullmatur duty, I would assume she is or can be made compliant fairly easily.

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During our 2006 cruise on Oceanic, the captain assured us that she is Solas 2010 compliant.

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Originally posted by Waynaro:
With OCEANIC's steam plant and high fuel consumption, its hard to imagine who would want to operate her.

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I was told today that OCEANIC has been Pullmantur's proverbial "golden egg" and notwithstanding high operating costs, has always been profitable.

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Originally posted by Rego007:
Does anyone know for sure if OCEANIC is SOLAS 2010 compliant?

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Originally posted by Redlinekid2:
Perhaps Orient Line might buy/lease both Oceanic and Regal Empress to their fleet of ships. Would you consider asking them about this possibility? I'll ask them about it as well. It never hurts to ask about this suggestion.

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OCEANIC might work but REGAL EMPRESS... Never. Not least because she would cost a fortune to upgrade to be SOLAS compliant. And her accommodation is not remotely close to the standard needed by Orient Lines.

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Originally posted by Waynaro:
With OCEANIC's steam plant and high fuel consumption, its hard to imagine who would want to operate her.

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In fact I am quite surprised that she may not outlive MAXIM GORKIY (though I haven't seen her fuel consumption figures).

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Doug,

on my recent "Maxim Gorkiy" cruise (the sailing prior to the OLS cruise) I was told that at top speed, "Maxim Gorkiy" burns approx. 100 metric tons of fuel in 24 hours.

It was a pretty interesting sailing, by the way, as an Orient Lines delegation led by Wayne Heller and Bruce Nierenberg was aboard, as well.

Best,

(The bridge officers, however, debated whether OCEANIC is actually able to reach 20 knots in her current configuration as she usually only reaches 18 knots.)

Regal Empress is totally unsuitable as she is far too old, outdated, doesn't have the standard of accomodations nor the provisioning and fuel capacity.

Oceanic would require far too extensive a refit and is for all intents and purposes too large. I believe Orient is looking to keep capacity under 1,000 pax per ship.

As for fuel consumption, most of MP II's itineraries in Europe were designed for a 12-15 knot cruising speed, so she should be fairly easy on fuel for a ship of her build and vintage.

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Originally posted by r.fiebig:
on my recent "Maxim Gorkiy" cruise (the sailing prior to the OLS cruise) I was told that at top speed, "Maxim Gorkiy" burns approx. 100 metric tons of fuel in 24 hours.

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In that case she should do quite well in terms of fuel consumption on her new itineraries, which as Tim has already noted are geared for rather slow speeds.

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Originally posted by r.feibig:
It was a pretty interesting sailing, by the way, as an Orient Lines delegation led by Wayne Heller and Bruce Nierenberg was aboard, as well.

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[ 10-06-2008: Message edited by: dougnewman ]