Key Points
- MS The World is described as the "largest, privately owned residential yacht on earth".
- It's currently cruising along the northern coast of Australia.
- There has been increased demand for both very short and very long cruises, according to an expert.
Passengers who disembarked from a luxury cruise ship in a small town in the remote Kimberley region earlier this week are part of those embracing a growing trend for longer cruises.
While the residential yacht, MS The World, might be a little different from the cruising arrangements of the average traveller, Emeritus Professor of tourism at Edith Cowan University Ross Dowling believes more people are looking to cruise for longer periods.
'You'd need to be a multimillionaire'
Touted as the “largest, privately owned residential yacht on earth”, MS The World’s cabins are owned by individuals or families.
Dowling, also chair of Cruise Western Australia, said while those who own the one-, two- or three-bedroom residences onboard can live on the ship permanently, the majority would "come and go".
While the ship’s website does not state how much it costs to purchase one of the 165 residences, Dowling said he had no doubt you would "need to be a multimillionaire" to be onboard as a passenger.
"Any cruise ship is very expensive, and with all the costs of running a ship, the maintenance, the registration fees, the port fees, the fuel, the maintenance, the crew, you can imagine, shared between maybe 200 people, that's a lot of money," he said.
MS The World turned a few heads when it docked in Wyndham, a Western Australia town of less than 1,000 people, on Wednesday. Source: Supplied / Janet Robinson
Itineraries are decided upon through a voting system involving residents.
At sea for longer
Dowling said there had been increased demand for both very short and very long cruises,
He said Americans, who often had less holiday time, were driving a trend for cruises of just a few days at a time.
"But many cruises are getting longer, you will see cruise lines now advertising around-the-world trips," Dowling said.
"Ten years ago, you would never have heard of a 29-day cruise, let alone a 155-day around-the-world cruise."
What was dubbed "The Ultimate World Cruise" will have taken in more than 60 countries over 274 nights when docks at its home port of Miami, United States, in September.
The starting price for the entire cruise was US$60,000 ($88,200).
While some passengers joined just for segments of the cruise along the way, others have been on board since the cruise began in December 2023.
Cruising down under
While the Ultimate World Cruise was in Australian waters earlier in the year, MS The World has a few more stops.
It is understood those on board when the ship docked in Wyndham, Western Australia, were taken via coach to Kununurra to either do a cruise of the Ord River or a flight over the Bungle Bungles before returning to the ship and heading to Darwin.
The ship is expected to make multiple stops along the Queensland coast including in Brisbane, and Sydney.
Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are also on the itinerary.
The cruise industry has rebounded
Cruises were all but suspended , which began in early 2020.
According to Cruise Lines International Association Australasia, the number of Australians taking holidays at sea has overtaken pre-pandemic levels
Figures for 2023 showed the number of Australians who took an ocean cruise during the calendar year reached 1.25 million, slightly above the 1.24 million who sailed in 2019.
Internationally, cruise passenger numbers are expected to be up by 6 per cent in 2024 compared to 2019.
