Ambassador has put its own name on the French cruise line it merged with last year. Compagnie Française de Croisières, known as CFC, is now Ambassador Croisières.
The ship is Renaissance, the 1993-built former Maasdam that also sails for Ambassador’s British passengers over the winter. She is the third ship in the group, alongside Ambience and Ambition.
What changes
The name, and little else. Ambassador Croisières keeps its French office and staff, and continues to sail only from Dunkirk and Marseille, with announcements and food pitched at a French audience.
Cruise Industry News reports that Maëlysse Pierrot-Guibourt, president of the renamed line, said the change “does not call into question our presence in France”.
Christian Verhounig, chief executive of Ambassador Cruise Line, said the group’s aim is to be one of Europe’s leading cruise companies for the over-50s, and that a single brand gives it more visibility to do that.
The ship UK cruisers know
Renaissance leads a double life. From spring to autumn she runs the French programme from Dunkirk and Marseille.
At the end of October she repositions from Tilbury to Barbados for the winter, where Ambassador sells her to British passengers on 14-night round trips from Bridgetown with charter flights from Heathrow and Manchester. This winter is the second season of that arrangement.
Ambassador Croisières runs its own Caribbean sailings on the same ship from Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe over the same months. That continues.
Guadeloupe is where Death in Paradise is filmed, with the fishing village of Deshaies standing in for Honoré, and the island is a port call on Ambassador’s Barbados itineraries too. Independent operators such as Karukera Experiences run location tours with pick-up at the Pointe-à-Pitre cruise terminal, timed to the ship’s day in port.
Nothing in the announcement changes what Ambassador sells in Britain.
2028
The new French programme goes on sale shortly. It returns to Norway, Iceland, the Baltic, Greece, the Adriatic, Spain and the Caribbean, and adds a few things.
Egypt is new, a 14-night cruise from 28 May to 11 June 2028 with two days in Alexandria for the Pyramids. Ireland returns after an absence, 16 to 24 July, calling at Cork, Dublin, Liverpool and the Isles of Scilly. And a six-night cruise to Oslo, southern Norway and northern Denmark runs from 28 September to 4 October.
The bottom line
This is a name change, not a fleet change. The fourth ship Ambassador promised for this year is still unnamed, and the French line still has one vessel.
What it does confirm is that Renaissance is staying French for half the year. British passengers get her for the Caribbean and nothing else, and that isn’t changing in 2028 either.
