#CruiseLiners - Dublin Port welcomed its millionth cruise liner passenger to the capital this morning (Friday 27 September) since numbers were kept 20 years ago.

As Business & Leadership reports, Diane Taylor from Newfoundland in Canada disembarked from the Carnival Legend - the 100th cruise liner to berth in Dublin Bay this season - to much fanfare on shore.

Greeted by Dublin's Lord Mayor and tourism and port officials, Taylor was presented with flowers and provided with a chauffeur-driven VIP tour of the city and €1,000 spending money for her and her husband Doug.

Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn declared: "Today, Dublin has become the cruise capital of Ireland."

The 2013 season has been a bumper year for the Irish cruise industry nationwide, now worth €200 million annually to the economy, with a 50% hike in passenger numbers in some ports. Indeed, cruise passenger numbers are expected to quadruple over the next 10 years.

#CorkCruiseCallers – The Port of Cork cruise season is nearly over in a year that in total will welcome 60 cruise ships carrying in excess of 100,000 passengers and crew to the region, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Today two cruiseships are visiting Cork Harbour. They are Royal Caribbean Internationals Vision of the Seas (78,340grt) berthed at Cobh and upriver is Seabourn Cruise Line's luxury mega-yacht Seabourn Pride.

Seabourn Pride of nearly 10,000 gross tonnes and with just a 204 passenger capacity is berthed on the Lee at Custom House Quay (North), where yesterday the Naval Service OPV L.E. Emer (P21) was decommissioned.

Over the last 10 years, the Port of Cork has invested €8 million in upgrading and improving cruise facilities and this has made a major impact on the number of calls, increasing from 35 in 2005 to 60 for this year.

The Port of Cork has high aims to grow the number of cruise calls to 80 over the next five years and to increase turn-around calls and overnight stays.

Earlier this year, the Port of Cork announced details of their sister seaport agreement with PortMiami, the "Cruise Capital of the World".

The sister seaport agreement will benefit the Port of Cork and PortMiami in collaborating on the exchange of information and ideas, with the intended aim of increasing both cargo and cruise trade between ports.

The final cruise ship caller is Pheonix Reisen's Albatros (28,518grt) with a call also to Cobh in early October. She was launched as Royal Viking Sea four decades ago in 1973 and is to visit the lower Cork Harbour town for around half a day.

#CruiseLiners - The 'floating university' MV Explorer is due to dock at Dublin Port tonight 20 September, according to The Irish Times.

Last year the cruise liner, which operates as part of the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea study programme, visited the west coast and Galway - though it had to drop anchor in Galway Bay as the 590ft long vessel was too large to enter Galway Harbour. 

As previously reported, the Explorer during that same visit to Ireland had also paid a visit to Dublin Port.

Due to arrive tonight around 11pm, the Explorer is bringing 575 students from 20 different countries to Dublin Bay for a three-day stay before heading off to Morocco, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil - and even Cuba in a first for the programme, pending US approval.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

#CruiseLiners - Cruise passenger numbers visiting Ireland could quadruple over the next decade if the right facilities are in place, an Oireachtas Joint Committee has heard.

Chairwoman designate of the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company, Eithne Scott Lennon said the south Dublin port was a suitable location to develop a facility to cater for large, "next generation" cruise ships.

"With our unique setting and recent categorisation as a leisure port in the Government's port policy, I strongly believe that Dún Laoghaire harbour offers the most suitable home for a cruise facility," she told members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications.

For more on this story, The Irish Times has a report

#CarnivalCruises- The 293m long Carnival Legend docked in Dublin Port this morning prior to making a repositioning trans-Atlantic cruise next week, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Carnival Legend arrived overnight from the Greenock, the cruise port for Glasgow which too welcomed the US owned Carnival Cruise Lines vessel which set off on a 12 day round-trip cruise from Dover. She has been operating cruises from the Kent ferryport which was her UK 'homeport' during this season.

On her visit to Dublin Port, the 2,100 passenger vessel berthed at Ocean Pier. She represents one of the more than 100 cruiseships visiting the capital, this compares to last year's total of around 90 such vessels.

Carnival Legend with her customary winged funnel design, pays tribute to some of the world's greatest legends throughout the ages.

Take a dip in the Camelot and Avalon pools, wish for magic at Club Merlin Casino, and taste something savoury at the Truffles Restaurant. There's more than one way to dine at Lido Deck's Unicorn Café, and at The Golden Fleece Steakhouse, the great multi-course meal is not a myth.

This evening she departs Irish shores to coninue her cruise which ends back in the UK. On the repositioning cruise to the US passengers are to disembark in New York.

The 'Big Apple' is one of her US homeports as are Tampa, Florida and on the west coast in Los Angeles, California. Her cruising grounds are to the Caribbean, Panama Canal, Tahiti and Fiji Islands.

#FredOlsen - Boudicca (1973/28,388grt) of the Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines docked in Dublin Port yesterday to embark Irish passengers on a direct no flights cruise to Iberian ports, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The call to Dublin was to take senior citizens on a cruise supported by Active Retirement Ireland.

The four-star 880 passenger cruiseship's first port of call is to be the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Other destinations are Portimao, Cadiz, Gibraltar and Vigo.

Prices for the 10 nights cruise which also incorporates a call to Gibraltar cost from € 1,184 per person.

Boudicca was originally Royal Viking Sky, one of trio of sisters commissioned for Royal Viking Line from a Finish shipyard. Her fleetmate Black Watch began her career as Royal Viking Star.

The final member of the handsome and well proportioned trio of cruiseships was launched as Royal Viking Sea. As previously reported this cruiseship currently serves Phoenix Reisen as their Albatros and her fleetmate flagship Amadea is visiting Cobh today.

Now in her third decade of service, Boudicca has operated for many owners and this is the ninth name in which she has carried.

#MunsterCruise – German tourists are on a cruise around Ireland which included a visit to Foynes yesterday followed by a short overnight passage to Cobh today, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The cruise on board Phoenix Reisen's Amadea 29,008 tonnes vessel marked the final caller to Foynes this season, which was opened by Holland America Line's 37,845 tonnes Prinsendam a month ago.

Amadea, formerly the Japanese cruiseship Asuka,  is the 'flagship' of the German cruise operator which runs the 1984 built Artania, well known to cruise buffs as the former Royal Princess. In addition the small fleet includes Albatros, originally Royal Vikling Sea, one of a trio of Finish built sisters commissioned for Royal Viking Line.

A third caller was due to start the season at the Shannon port, Voyages of Discovery's 15,396 tonnes Voyager, however the vessel had technical problems forcing the cruise to be curtailed in Killybegs.

#CruisePromotion – The Southern Star writes, that communities in West Cork have been asked to play an active role in attracting the cruise ship operators to the region.

Five key people involved in the initiative gave a concise presentation at the Celtic Ross Hotel last Thursday and explained how the proposal could be of commercial benefit to the region as a whole.

The chairman of the Western Committee of Cork County Council, Mary Hegarty, explained how traditionally Glengarriff does well out of visiting cruise ships coming into Bantry Bay.

Historically, she said, the largest of these came in 1951, with a cruise ship that was carrying 1,000 passengers and 600 members of staff. However, today some of the very big cruise liners docking in places like Cobh can carry up to 4,000 passengers.

She said the market that West Cork needs to concentrate on are the type of cruises that can take 12 people on a guest liner, 50 people on a touring holiday, or 130 people who are interested in adventure activities and outdoor pursuits.

For much more on this story, click HERE for the report.

#CruiseSector - The best Irish cruise liner season in 60 years has reached a 50% hike in passenger numbers at some ports.

More than 100 major cruise liners have visited Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Belfast this summer, with the trade now worth almost €200m to the economy.

Cork has topped the cruise earnings list with more than €40m in spending as 135,000 visitors on 61 giant ships visited the port. This represents a 50pc hike in passenger numbers, compared to 2012 when 88,000 passengers disembarked.

For more on this the Independent.ie has a report.

#CruiseLiners – Dublin Port has two cruiseship callers today, Thomson Spirit (1983/33,930grt) and Ocean Princess (1999/30,277grt) both are approximately the same in tonnage terms, yet they are starkly different in design, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Thomson Spirit had sailed from Belfast and flying the Thomson Cruises brand which celebrates 40 years having been founded by Canadian entrepreneur Roy Thomson who began cruises in the Mediterranean.

She is on a 13-day British and Irish itinerary with calls to Leith (Edinburgh) Kirkwall, Portree, Holyhead, Cobh, Torquay and Le Havre.

Ocean Princess sailed from Falmouth and she is one of the former Renaissance Cruises octet of 'R' class cruiseships commissioned as their R4. She is now operated by Princess Cruises, one of the many cruise brands of the US based Carnival Cruise Corporation.

The R Class were built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, and they have an emphasis in that cabins have individual balconies, which is increasingly the norm, particularly at the higher end of the market. Passenger areas and open decks are mostly situated above these accommodation decks.

Thomson Cruises have a fleet of five vessels which asides Thomson Spirit includes her one-year younger sister Thomson Celebration. Together they started careers for Holland America Lines (HAL) operating for the North American cruise market.

They too were built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, with Nieuw Amsterdam (Thomson Spirit) entering service followed by Noordam (Thomson Celebration).

Upon reflection the pair compared to modern newbuilds are more inclined towards the liner era in design and layout in that they have considerably more open deck space, featuring two pools. Plus a full wraparound boat deck that incorporates not just the stern but views for passengers overlooking the bow.

The lifeboats are set much further apart rather than confined in enclosed deck spaces as found on Ocean Princess.

Arguably Thomson Spirit has only one 'full-length' passenger deck and a further three shorter decks above set within her superstructure which is highly unusual these days.

The internal layout also reflects a more traditional arrangement of facilities as the main passenger areas are concentrated along three central decks. While accommodation is located above and below these decks, which combined total seven cabin decks.

Holland America Lines present-day Nieuw Amsterdam is a cruiseship of the 'Vista' class built in Italy. Variations of the Vista series each of around 90,000 gross tonnes, include P&O Cruises Arcadia and Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth. Both vessels made anchorage visits off Dun Loaghaire Harbour this season.