Princess Cruises’ Emerald Princess is having a rough start to her Greenland sailing due to unexpected difficulties with refueling at her homeport of Boston, Massachusetts.
Though the ship is being refueled, the operation is taking longer than typical and has resulted in a delayed departure and a cancelled port visit.
Emerald Princess was scheduled to depart Boston at 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 11, 2024, but instead, she needed to remain in port to finish refueling operations in preparation for her trip to Greenland. Guests onboard have reported that trucks were necessary to refuel the cruise ship instead of the typical barge.
Because of the quantity of fuel the ship requires – particularly for this 17-night Greenland sailing – multiple trucks were required to fully refuel the vessel. This took longer than anticipated, and Emerald Princess remained docked in Boston overnight.
It is not known why the refueling barge, which is able to carry much more fuel, was unavailable, or if there were technical difficulties that meant the barge could not properly refuel the cruise ship. Nevertheless, trucks were substituted to resupply the ship.
Now, Emerald Princess is enjoying a port day in Boston and will depart in the early evening on Monday, August 12. This has necessitated an itinerary change and the ship will not be visiting her first planned port of call, Sydney, Nova Scotia.
That visit was to have been on Tuesday, August 13. Instead, the ship will spend Tuesday at sea and will arrive in Corner Brook one day early, on Wednesday, August 14.
Three days at sea will follow the visit to Corner Brook, bringing the ship to Nuuk, Greenland as expected on Sunday, August 18. This returns Emerald Princess to her planned itinerary and hopefully there will be no additional changes.
The 113,561-gross-ton, Grand-class Emerald Princess can welcome 3,114 guests at double occupancy, and is also home to approximately 1,200 international crew members.
The August 11 departure for Greenland is the ship’s last sailing to the remote destination this year, and includes ports of call in Canada and three Greenland destinations – Nuuk, Qaqortoq, and Nanortalik – before returning to Boston on Wednesday, August 28.
Emerald Princess will remain homeported in Boston through early October, alternating departures with Quebec City for 10-night one-way sailings. Her last departure from Boston is October 7, 2024, and after she leaves Quebec City on October 17, she will visit Boston once more on her way to Fort Lauderdale.
From Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Emerald Princess will offer 12-night Panama Canal and Costa Rica cruises through the winter season, visiting such top ports of call as Aruba, Curacao, and Colombia, among others.
The ship will return to Greenland for select sailings in the summer of 2025, departing from Southampton and also calling on Iceland along the way.
Why Are Greenland Cruises so Challenging?
Greenland itineraries are notoriously difficult for cruise lines to maintain, as the ports in Greenland require the use of water shuttles and rough weather or choppy seas can easily mean a port cancellation. These itineraries are highly sought after for late summer and autumn sailings, however, for the seasonal beauty in the region.
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Unfortunately, late summer and autumn tropical storms that turn north can also have a strong impact on Greenland, bringing very stormy weather to the region and causing dramatic itinerary changes.
There is a tropical system likely to develop east of the Bahamas in the next few days with a forecasted northern turn. That storm – which will become Hurricane Ernesto – could have an impact on Emerald Princess‘ plans for Greenland, depending on how much the storm intensifies, how quickly it moves, and what exact track it follows on its way north.
Guests onboard Emerald Princess will want to remain flexible with their cruise expectations, knowing that Princess Cruises will make every effort to preserve the ship’s itinerary while keeping safety as the top priority.
