New Brunswick is blossoming into a popular cruise destination

This year, Disney will have one of the five ships making inaugural calls in Saint John, the province’s top cruise port.

For the first time, Carnival will sail from Boston to Saint John. And a new cruise terminal will debut in September.

Last year, 184,790 cruised to Saint John on the Bay of Fundy, which New Brunswick shares with Nova Scotia, and for 2012, some 75 ship calls will bring 190,000 cruise passengers.

New this year:

•  Starting June 13, the Disney Magic will call at Saint John nine times between June and September.  The port will participate in the Disney Legacy Project.  Each child taking the “Whale of a Time” shore excursion will paint a mosaic tile as part of a mural to be displayed at the new cruise ship terminal.

•  2012 marks the first year Carnival will be sailing from Boston to New Brunswick.  Saint John is a port of call on all the four-, five- and seven-day Carnival cruises from Boston, and it is the only stop on the four-day itinerary. Halifax is added to the five-day cruise, and the seven-day itinerary also includes Sydney, Nova Scotia.

•  Saint John will receive six inaugural calls from five cruise lines: Disney Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Blount Small Ship Adventures, Saga Shipping and Phoenix Reisen.

•  The $19.7 million expansion of the port of Saint John is scheduled to be completed by September.  In addition to the existing Marco Polo cruise terminal, a second cruise terminal will be built at Pugsley C to facilitate embarkation.  Berthing capacity will be expanded at that pier and at Long Wharf.  Funding is being provided by the Saint John Port Authority and both the provincial and federal governments.

Two other ports in the province will welcome cruisers this year.  The charming turn-of-the-century seaside resort of St. Andrews-by-the Sea will welcome five new ships: Blount’s Grand Caribe and the Grand Mariner, Saga’s Quest for Adventure and The World. Passengers will be able to visit Campobello, Roosevelt’s summer “White House,” and charming Grand Manan Island. New Brunswick has a rich Acadian culture and is Canada’s official bi-lingual province.  Passengers aboard Travel Dynamics’ Yorktown will experience that French flavor at Caraquet on the Acadian Coast.