Seven ships are visiting the River Mersey, UK, for the first time in 2012.

Three of these belong to Saga, Saga Pearl, Saga Sapphire and Quest for Adventure. The remaining four are Princess Cruises’ Caribbean Princess, AIDA Cruises’ AIDAcara, P&O Cruises’ Adonia and Phoenix Reisen’s Albatros. 

Holland America Line’s Prinsendam berthed alongside Scrabster for the first time this year and to date is the largest vessel to do so.

This year there were nine transit calls bringing 3,846 passengers to the port which is four hours’ steaming time from Kirkwall in Scotland. Next year there will be 13 calls and 4,099 passengers.

For five years now Hebridean Princess has been doing two or three turnarounds in Scrabster following being diverted from Invergordon due to bad weather. A summer easterly gale prevented the ship making the passage from Orkney to Invergordon.

In 1991 the Port of Cork welcomed 10 cruiseships carrying 9,552 passengers and crew to Cobh and by 2011 this has increased to 54 calls carrying 100,902 passengers and crew. One vessel to visit this year was The World (pictured).

This significant growth shows that the Port of Cork’s investment in a dedicated cruise terminal in Cobh has paid dividends. Cork is the only port in Ireland that can berth the larger ships alongside in a deepwater sheltered environment.

Holland America Line’s Ryndam and Kristina Cruises’ Kristina Katarina called Skagen for the first time this summer.

On August 12, Holland America Line’s 55,575gt Maasdam came alongside Falmouth, UK. She is the largest ship to have called the port so far.

On July 19 Cork accommodated three ships in one day for the first time in its history, carrying about 7,000 passengers and crew.

On July 26 100,000 people converged on the Norwegian capital to remember those killed in Friday’s twin attacks.

Amsterdam is expecting 84 turnaround calls in 2012 compared to 58 this year, a 45% increase.

There is no doubt that cruiselines prefer to come alongside than tender and that voice is getting louder as delegates heard at the Cruise Europe conference in Stavanger (pictured) in May.

Skjolden-Sognefjord is expecting 20 calls carrying 27,500 passengers in 2012 compared to 11 calls this year, according to Iren Vatne of Cruise Destination Skjolden-Sognefjord.