TOURS AND CRUISES : What’s New in Ports and Passages

This week’s Tours and Cruises column departs from the usual detailed listings to look at some of the newest cruise-ship itineraries for fall-winter 1991 and spring ’92 sailings. Travel agents and the cruise lines themselves can provide more specific information on availability, dates and prices for the cruises discussed below.

Exotic new ports keep popping up for jaded place-collectors, and, closer to home, new short cruises and private-island calls lure passengers looking for moderately priced mini-cruises. Fifteen brand-new ships plus four extensively renovated ships with new names will appear on the cruise scene by the end of 1992. With more vessels coming into service, cruise lines are playing musical ships, trying to match each up with the ideal home port and itinerary. Here’s a guide to some of the newest itineraries.

The year-old Crystal Harmony--one of several cruise lines that canceled its Mediterranean sailings for 1991 because of the Persian Gulf crisis--will make its maiden voyage to Europe March 26, with a transatlantic crossing from Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona.

The ship will sail the western Mediterranean, then Western Europe and the northern capitals of Scandinavia. Two June sailings visit Gdansk, Poland, and the July 1 round-trip cruise from Copenhagen will include a call at the Soviet Union port city of Murmansk.

Albania, another rarely visited port of call, is offered by Epirotiki’s Odysseus on its 14-day cruises between Venice and Genoa, departing through Oct. 12. Visas will not be needed, according to Epirotiki, since a blanket visa covers all passengers who take the group tour ashore.

Salen Lindblad’s 134-passenger Caledonian Star continues to offer intriguing and unusual ports of call. On three cruises this winter, the ship will call in Vietnam. Its 15-day cruise from Hong Kong Feb. 4 calls in newly opened Haikou, China, before stopping at Haiphong, Hanoi, Hai Long Bay, Hue, Da Nang, Qui Nhon and Nha Trang; the cruise ends in Singapore.

A 14-day Jan. 9 cruise from Bali ends in Saigon after cruising to Borneo, and a Jan. 25 departure sets out from Saigon and calls at the same ports in reverse as the Feb. 4 sailing.

Pearl Cruises’ Pearl of Scandinavia canceled two sailings to India scheduled for Nov. 7 and 19 after a June travel advisory issued by the U.S. State Department. Instead, the ship will offer a 23-day sailing from Bangkok to Hong Kong that includes free air fare from the West Coast and free shore excursions in all ports, plus a three-night land program in Bangkok. Ports of call include Kelang, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Sandakan, Brunei, Manila, Corregidor and Canton.

Cunard’s 805-passenger Cunard Princess will resume its European cruises Oct. 19 after nearly a year of conducting rest-and-recreation cruises for U.S. military personnel under charter to the Defense Department. The ship was commended for “outstanding performance and meritorious service” by Lt. Gen. John J. Yeosock, commander of the U.S. Army Forces Central Command.

The Cunard Princess will sail in the southern Mediterranean, Canary Islands and North Africa this winter on 10- and 11-day cruises priced from $3,335 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare.

Cunard’s Sea Goddess II returns to Asia this winter with new itineraries to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (Jan. 14 and 28) and China’s Yangtze River (March 14 and 28). Fares begin at $9,900 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare, for the 14-day Australian sailings, and $9,500 for the 14-day China cruises.

Several ships have recently added calls to out-islands and private beaches. Dolphin’s SeaBreeze canceled its visit to St. Bart’s in the eastern Caribbean in order to stop at Nassau and the Blue Lagoon Out Island. This change also means passengers now visit San Juan in the daytime instead of the evening.

Admiral’s Azure Seas has added a beach day at Haiti’s Labadee in lieu of the Bahamas Coco Cay previously announced. The ship was transferred from Los Angeles, and began offering short cruises to seven-day sailings out of Ft. Lauderdale earlier this year.

Celebrity’s Meridian will sail alternating eastern and western Caribbean itineraries from Ft. Lauderdale from Nov. 9 through April 4, 1992. The eastern sailings will call at San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Nassau, while the western itineraries include Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Montego Bay and Nassau. When the line’s new Zenith arrives April 4, it will pick up these itineraries.

Club Med 1 returns to the Caribbean Oct. 13 after a seven-day sailing from New York to Martinique, departing Oct. 6. The sailing ship will make alternate sailings from Martinique north to the Les Saintes, St. Bart’s, St. Kitts, Virgin Gorda and St. Thomas, and south to the Grenadines and Barbados.

Clipper Cruise Line’s 98-passenger Society Adventurer, leased for the spring and summer of 1992 from Society Expeditions, will set out for Costa Rica, colonial Mexico, the Sea of Cortez, Baja California, the Columbia River and Olympic Peninsula, and the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, and Alaska. Passengers will go exploring expedition-style in inflatable rubber Zodiac landing craft.

To accommodate the arrival of its two new liners, Monarch of the Seas in November and Majesty of the Seas next April, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line will be moving its refurbished Song of America to Los Angeles for year-round sailings to the Mexican Riviera beginning May 16.

RCCL’s glamorously renovated Viking Serenade recently went from its former pattern of seven-day cruises to three- and four-day year-round sailings from Los Angeles to Catalina and Ensenada. This vessel is the first attempt to upgrade the short cruise market on the West Coast the way RCCL’s Nordic Empress and Carnival’s Fantasy have enlivened the Miami short-cruise market.

Norwegian Cruise Line’s Westward, the former Royal Viking Star, arrives on the West Coast Oct. 26 to begin a winter series of seven-day sailings between Los Angeles and Acapulco.

And Paquet’s Mermoz makes a rare West Coast visit during a 22-day cruise departing Acapulco Nov. 16. The ship will spend two full days each in San Francisco and Los Angeles, plus a daylong call in San Diego.

Special Expeditions introduces four-day cruises in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Delta in November aboard the 70-passenger Sea Lion. Calls are made in the Napa Valley, Sacramento and San Francisco. Fares begin at $600 per person, double occupancy, for departures scheduled Nov. 10, 14, 17, 21 and 24.