Virgin Voyages appears to have strong confidence in the Australian market, with the adult-only cruise line securing multiple slots in key Australian ports for Resilient Lady for the 2024/2025 cruise season.
Resilient Lady‘s inaugural season Down Under is still 11 months away, with the ‘Aussie MerMaiden’ operating roundtrip from Melbourne to Tasmania on 11 December 2023. The upcoming season includes sailings to Sydney, Tasmania and beyond.
While the 2024/25 program and itineraries are yet to go on sale, LATTE can reveal Sir Richard Branson’s cruise line will return to Australia on 26 November 2024, with a transit port call in Darwin locked in.
Cruise port schedules at various locations around Australia confirm Resilient Lady will then remain in local waters until early April 2025. For the 2023/24 season, Virgin Voyages’ ship will homeport in Melbourne for the summer, before its return to the Mediterranean via Singapore and Dubai in late March.
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Resilient Lady will arrive in Sydney at 8am on 3 December 2024, where the 2,700-passenger ship will drop anchor at Athol Bay before relocating to the Overseas Passenger Terminal at 7pm. It’s a similar process that will be repeated on other occasions when the ship returns to Sydney.
Unlike the 2023/24 season, the ship doesn’t appear to be positioning immediately to Melbourne, but instead will operate five roundtrip sailings from Station Pier on 16 January, 7 and 28 February, 26 March and 11 April 2025. This could potentially mean Resilient Lady will cruise across the Tasman to New Zealand, or perhaps the islands of the South Pacific in December and January, from Sydney.
Brisbane cruise port also shows two calls by the vessel on 23 December 2024 and 2 January 2025, providing adequate time to sail to the South Pacific before returning to Sydney for a 12 December turnaround.
Other dates earmarked for Sydney in early 2025 include 4, 5 and 25 February and 20 March.
Resilient Lady‘s first cruise is a Greek Island departure from Athens scheduled for 14 May 2023, bumped back from the originally intended launch in July 2022.