Thomson Cruises has announced its winter programme for new ship Thomson Dream, which it hopes will attract Ocean Village customers once the line closes down.

The line revealed the 1,500-passenger ship’s Caribbean deployment for winter 2010-11 at a gathering on Thomson Destiny in Barcelona during the Travel Convention.

The new ship, along with additional capacity in the Island brand, which will base its ship Island Escape in the Canary Islands, will increase the line's capacity by 25%. This means it will look more to third party retailers to drive sales.

Thomson Destiny also hosted a presentation for cruise agents at the convention, which for the first time had a standalone cruise forum.

Thomson Dream will operate a 21-night circuit between bases in Barbados, Cuba and Jamaica, offering a choice of three 14-night itineraries: Caribbean Experience, Classic Caribbean and Cuban Adventure.

The itineraries will include Havana, Santa Marta and Roatan – three new destinations for Thomson Cruises – and offer UK customers the chance to visit Havana in Cuba, where US lines are not able to visit.

Selby said the programme, which goes on sale on November 5, had not been designed specifically to mimic Ocean Village itineraries but he said he expected it to appeal to the line’s 100,000 customers.

Thomson Cruises director David Selby said: "This is something new for us and as a programme it’s very creative.

"It is a good way of using our airline, which operates on the basis of weekly flying, and we can go to places we have never been to before."

Prices will start from £1,499 for 14 nights and Thomson hopes the programme will encourage guests to take longer cruises than traditionally offered by the line.

Selby said he believed the operator had managed to maintain prices in the recession better than rivals.

"I think we held our nerve on pricing better throughout the booking season," he said. 

"We find the more people spend on ticket prices the more they spend on board and the fact that we have sterling prices is a plus.

"We are quite a bit ahead in volume of where we need to be and 2010 is selling well for summer both on price and volume."

Third-party agents are keen to sell Thomson Cruises, which enjoy impressive satisfaction ratings from guests and are rated top for food, service and entertainment by customers on cruise community website Cruise.co.uk.

Thomson Dream, currently operating as Costa Europa, will join the fleet next April and the operator hopes to host an inaugural naming event in Barcelona before it moves to what will be its homeport, Palma in Majorca.

Selby also announced that Island Escape will undergo a £4 million refurbishment of all its cabins while it operates its first European programme for the operator.


• TC 2009: British cruisers grow 5% to 1.55m (7 Oct 2009)
• Thomson plans to expand cruise fleet (7 May 2009)
• Thomson Cruises: 2010 programme (15 Apr 2009)