Saga Cruises Postpones Launch Of New Ship Spirit Of Adventure

Despite plans to debut its brand new ship Spirit of Adventure this year, Saga Cruises has pushed back the launch until next year.

Spirit of Adventure was set to sail in November 2020, but will now complete her inaugural sailing on 5 February 2021.

Along with the push back of the launch, the cruise line also announced an extension of the suspension of sailings on Spirit of Discovery.

The boutique cruise ship, which launched last year, was due to resume operations in November, but will now sail again on 7 March 2021.

The news was announced following travel and cruise uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and in response to the UK government’s advice against cruise ship travel.

“This year, we have all faced unprecedented challenges as a result of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Saga’s managing director Nigel Blanks.

“For us at Saga Cruises, this has meant that we haven’t been able to sail since March when we introduced a suspension of our operations to keep our guests and crew safe.

“Over the past few months, we have been working hard to put into place detailed plans to safely return to cruising when the time is right.

“Whilst we have made fantastic progress with this work, sadly, most countries around the world are not accepting cruise ships and we do not see this changing for the remainder of this year.

“Therefore, against the backdrop of the recent news that Covid-19 is again on the increase and the announcements of further restrictions, I am writing to inform you that we are postponing the inaugural cruise of our new ship, Spirit of Adventure until 5th February 2021 and extending the suspension of our cruising operations up to and including 4th February, 2021 for Spirit of Adventure and 7th March 2021 for Spirit of Discovery.

“I know how disappointing this news will be for many of you who were so looking forward to a return to cruising and, perhaps particularly, for those who were as excited as we were to see Spirit of Adventure set sail later this year.”

Spirit of Adventure‘s inaugural sailing will now be a Canary Islands cruise.

Spirit of Discovery will return with a springtime cruise around the coast of Croatia, sailing from Southampton and also stopping in Spain and Italy.