Guests on the planned maiden voyage of a huge new cruise ship will have to wait five extra months for it to launch.
Cunard’s Queen Anne will take to the seas in May 2024 rather than the January of that year as originally planned.
The delay has been blamed on "energy shortages and global supply chain constraints" that have pushed back the construction schedule of the ship.
The Queen Anne's new maiden voyage will depart from Southampton on May 3, 2024 for a seven-night sailing visiting La Coruna and Lisbon.
Those who were booked onto her first outing have had their trips automatically moved to the new departure date.
“Due in part to unforeseen events that have occurred in recent years, the shipbuilding industry, like other industries, has faced numerous challenges including energy shortages and global supply chain constraints," a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
"As a result, our new ship Queen Anne will be arriving slightly later than expected.”
All other guests with impacted bookings - voyages departing from January 4 up to and including April 14 2024 - will be given a full refund plus an extra 10% credit for future trips, the company said.
Tickets for the new maiden season to the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, the Canary Islands, and the Norwegian Fjords will go on sale at the start of December.
The Queen Anne is not the only ship to have fallen victim to delays this year.
At the end of October the highly anticipated launch of a new P&O Cruises ship was pushed back by two weeks, meaning early guests will miss out.
Customers were left gutted after learning that the Arvia's maiden voyage had been delayed.
The company said the decision came due to “reasons beyond our control”, adding that it won't compromise on the quality of the ship to get it sailing sooner.
The 5,200-passenger Excel-class ship was slated to launch on December 9, but it will now take its maiden voyage on December 23.
The inaugural sailing will include ports of call in Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands, before the vessel repositions to the Caribbean in January.
In another sign that the industry has been suffering during the pandemic, what has been dubbed the "world’s largest" cruise ship may be scrapped before its first ever voyage.
Unless it can find a last minute buyer the Global Dream II will be scrapped.
Worth £1.2billion and built to carry 9,000 passengers, the ship is a massive 20-deck, 342m long vessel and includes a huge outdoor waterpark and cinema.
It was built by German-Hong Kong firm MV Werften and its construction had nearly finished when the company filed for bankruptcy at the start of the year.
The ship cost a whopping £1.2billion to build - which was still £200million short of its budget - and has long been looking for a buyer to splash £900million on it to save it from the scrap heap.
