Cunard Picks Melbourne As Homeport Of Choice For Queen Elizabeth

Cunard has picked Melbourne over Sydney as its homeport of choice for Queen Elizabeth when she is based in Australia in the summer of 2019-20.

Queen Elizabeth will be based in Australia for 101 days undertaking six roundtrip cruises from Melbourne as well as two from Sydney. These cruises will feature different itineraries heading to destinations such as Southern Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tasmania between December 2019 and March 2020.

This new deployment will see Queen Elizabeth spend almost double the amount of time in Australia in 2020 than she is next year in 2019, where she will spend 54 days in February and March sailing from Sydney and Melbourne.

Senior Vice President of Cunard, Simon Palethorpe highlighted the importance of the Australian cruise market to Cunard, as well as Melbourne itself, as a growing cruise hub.

He said: “Over the past few years we’ve seen unprecedented growth in demand for the Cunard experience in Australia so it made sense for us to invest further in the market and extend the sailing season of Queen Elizabeth even more in 2020.”

He also added: “Our new 2019-20 summer season will not only feature more cruises, it will also offer some exciting new itinerary options which we hope will entice even more Australians to experience Cunard’s legendary service and style.”