Princess to call Fremantle home

Beautiful turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean at one of the many beaches in Western Australia's capital city.  This pier is located at Triggs Point in central Perth.

Carnival Cruises has announced the company will utilize Fremantle as a home port for Princess Cruises.

The deal was struck on the basis WA Government would fix infrastructure issues, meaning the redeployment of the Sun Princess which can host up to 2,000 guests.

According to ABC News, Premier Mark McGowan said he became aware of the problems before being elected while speaking on Sun’s sister ship Sea Princess.

“They’d been making submissions to the former government for a considerable period and there’d been no action,” he said.

“It turned out one of the major issues was the dredging of the channel into Broome Port.

“The other was pulling up in Geraldton, there was a problem with what’s called the shore tensioning units.”

Dredging at Broome Port will be carried out next year, enabling cruise ships all-tide access.

The news comes almost a year after Carnival Australia told the previous WA Government it would no longer house its P&O or Princess Cruise ships in the state if the berths were not fixed.

It would’ve meant a loss of $135 million to WA, as well as more than 400 staff job losses.

“Cruise shipping is a vital component of Western Australia’s $10 billion tourism industry,” says Premier Mark McGowan.

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