Fred Olsen Pull out of the Caribbean!!

It has just been announced that Fred Olsen is pulling Braemar out of Caribbean sailings after next winters sailings.  She will be sailing out of the UK starting in 2012.  As the fuel prices increase more worldwide I am not surprised that this has happened.

There are many ships which sail the Caribbean in our winter months but these ships are based in the U.S. and its not just the flights there,  the other costs include an ESTA entry into the U.S. an overnight stay, and the cost of transfers from the hotels to the ships which builds up the cost of the cruise.

To get to the favored Caribbean ports of call of the British such as Barbados and Antigua the best way to get there was with chartered flights with the likes of Fred Olsen.

So the better way to get to these ports of call was flying directly to Barbados.  It is actually more cost effective for ships to sail to the Caribbean from the U.K. however not everybody can take upto 3 weeks off work to allow for this.  Oh and of coarse you have the Transatlantic crossing to deal with too!!

With the escalating fuel and flight prices will any other British based cruise companies suffer?