Cruise & Maritime Voyages will be offering no fewer than 64 cruises from ports in the UK aboard Marco Polo (1965/22,080gt) and Ocean Countess (1976/16,795gt) in 2012. As the company enters its third year of operations, it is hoping to carry 46,000 passengers, around a third of whom will be first-time cruisers.
Marco Polo is scheduled to undertake 30 sailings, principally from Tilbury, but also from Newcastle and Leith. They vary in length from a two-night Mystery Cruise, where passengers do not know which ports they are sailing to, to a 45-night voyage to the Amazon, Caribbean and the Azores. Most of her other cruises feature the Norwegian Fjords, the Baltic and a round Britain, with a special nine-night Diamond Jubilee cruise roundtrip from Leith on 28 May.
Ocean Countess will be homeported in Liverpool and Greenock during the summer and Hull in the shoulder months, with a return to Liverpool in the autumn. She operates a shorter season of 25 cruises, beginning on 21 April with the first of several cruises to the Norwegian Fjords.
