Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
viking cruises is most famous for their european river cruises. they've since branched out to become a global cruise line, but their niche is still in smaller-scaled, more specialty oriented cruising, and these new great lakes and polar expedition cruises certainly fit right into that mold. they don't operate any of those 5,000+ passenger beasts that sail the caribbean and the med. they sail in those waters too, but with much smaller ships. they're oriented towards the market that is looking for something a little different, and can afford to pay for it.
a huge part of their clientele for these great lakes cruises will be wealthy europeans who are looking for something different, something off the beaten path.
btw, to put the size difference of this new viking ship into perspective, i looked up the sizes of some of the current ships that cruise the great lakes:
Victory I: 300' LOA/5,000 tons
Victory II: 300' LOA/5,000 tons
Pearl Mist: 325' LOA/5,100 tons
Hanseatic Inspiration: 470' LOA/15,000 tons
Viking Octantis: 670' LOA/30,000 tons
in terms of size, this is a whole other level of cruise ship, the likes of which the great lakes have never seen.
and considering the locks on the st. lawrence seaway/welland canal limit max. ship size to ~740' in length, this ship is getting pretty close to the maximum size cruise ship that could ever get into the great lakes. we'll never see anything substantively larger than this ship cruising on the great lakes.
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Yes, and the other hindrance is that larger, ie.; taller ships can't sail under the bridges at and East of Quebec City. The Laviolette bridge in Trois-Rivières is pretty tall, it might, but the two big bridges that span QCity's shores wouldn't. QCity's
can and does receive the very big cruisers and there are more visitors every year from Europe on these trips. Montreal gets a lot of cruise ships too, but the much bigger ones stop in QC. Some of the Montreal bridges would also hinder the passage where the Seaway locks begin. There are 4 major spans, 5 if you count the Lafontaine tunnel-bridge. The old Champlain bridge will be demolished soon, and was purpose built with the idea of large ships in the fifties,
but I doubt the new Champlain bridge which is much taller on the locks side would allow the tallest cruisers. Either way, what distinguishes the largest of these ships is the height, as much as the length of them.