For Windstar Cruises fans, it's a whole new era
An unprecedented expansion of the Windstar Cruises fleet over the past 18 months is bringing the line's fans something they haven't seen in a long time: A wide range of new itineraries.
In addition to operating a greatly expanded number of sailings to Costa Rica and Panama, the small-ship operator this winter is more than doubling the number of distinct routes it offers in the Caribbean.
Windstar also is offering year-round sailings in French Polynesia for the first time in more than a decade, and next summer it will operate its first circumnavigations of Iceland.
"The additional capacity really allows us to do things that we couldn't do before," Windstar president and CEO Hans Birkholz tells Paste BN in an exclusive interview to discuss the expansion.
As Birkholz notes, the Windstar fleet has grown from three to six ships since May 2014 with the addition of three former Seabourn vessels: Star Pride, Star Breeze and Star Legend.
Carrying 212 passengers a piece, the newcomers are motor ships that can operate at a faster speed than Windstar's three existing vessels, which are sailing ships. Dubbed Wind Star, Wind Spirit and Wind Surf, the latter hold 148, 148 and 312 passengers, respectively.
Birkholz says the new ships not only allow the line to add more capacity to areas where demand has been strong but to go to places to which it couldn't go in the past due to the limitations of sailing ships.
Two sailings between Dublin and Lisbon on the Star Legend scheduled for next summer, for example, will include an overnight visit to Bordeaux, France, a town inaccessible to the line's sailing ships due to their tall masts.
"We're able to transit canals and rivers that were previously blocked because of bridges," Birkholz says. With sailing ships, "we have not only water draft but air draft to worry about."
Birkholz says Windstar has moved the sailing ships, which the line calls yachts, to destinations where having a vessel with sails makes the most sense such as the Caribbean and French Polynesia. Both regions have reliable trade winds and routinely warm weather.
"It is not a coincidence that a sailing yacht is in the leeward islands of Tahiti," he says, referring to the Wind Spirit's recent move to French Polynesia year-round. "Because of the trade winds and the setting, we believe that a sailing yacht provides a better and differentiated experience than you can get in other types of travel in Tahiti."
Birkholz says the sailing ships have a lot of open deck space that makes them great for warm-weather destinations. The motor ships are better fit for colder destinations or destinations where the distances between ports are longer or the water conditions more variable, he suggests.
Thus it is the Star Legend that the line is using for its first circumnavigations of Iceland, which kick off on July 1.
Five new Windstar itineraries in the Caribbean this winter include seven night sailings out of San Juan, Puerto Rico to the volcano-scarred island of Montserrat as well as the British Virgin Islands, St. Martin and St. Barts. Another new seven-night itinerary between San Juan and Barbados includes stops at Montserrat as well as Isla Culebra, St. Barts, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia and Bequia.
Windstar is becoming the first major cruise operator to resume regular sailings to Montserrat since a volcanic eruption brought tourism to a standstill in the 1990s.
"It's awesome," Birkholz says of the stop in Montserrat, where the Soufriere Hills volcano continues to erupt. "You get a history of the island, you get to understand how people come back (from the devastation the eruption caused), and you actually see it, which is amazing."
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For a deck-by-deck tour of one of Windstar's new ships, the Star Breeze, scroll through the carousel below. The carousel at the top of this story offers a look inside one of the line's sailing ships, the recently revamped Wind Spirit.