This coming Friday, Karl Holz, President of Disney Cruise Line will announce the new itineraries for 2011. There has been much speculation as to where the new destinations and ports of call will be, with Alaska seeming to be one of the favorites.

This little map is shown on the website advertising the new itineraries webcast. A question mark is placed over Alaska, with another to the right of Australia, and an arrow pointing towards South America.

Alaska has been touted as a possible destination for the last few years, and seemed to be pretty much confirmed as a future itinerary when Disney Cruise Line applied for a 10-year permit to visit Glacier Bay last year. The permit would have been valid from 2010 to 2019. But then, in January this year, Disney withdrew it’s application, saying “for now, Glacier Bay doesn’t fit in our future itinerary plans,” but following on with “We’re continuing to explore many future itinerary options and, certainly, Alaska remains on our radar.” Glacier Bay National Park is the most popular destination for cruise lines sailing to Alaska, and although the permit withdrawal doesn’t necessarily mean that Disney won’t sail to Alaska in the near future, it does seem odd if they did an Alaska itinerary and didn’t visit Glacier Bay. The cruise season in Alaska is quite short, with sailings only going from May through to the end of August. So even if Disney did choose the Alaska option, it would only be for part of the year.

Another destination often mentioned / wished for by many is Hawaii, but none of the marks on the map correspond with the location of Hawaii. The asterisk / arrow is too far south, and the question mark on the right is a bit too far east for Hawaii.

The only land in the region of the asterisk is Easter Island. Or is it not marking somewhere specific? Is its real job to point towards the west coast of South America? Other cruise lines visit South America’s west coast, sailing to Chile and Argentina, with Peru also being a possible port of call.

The arrow on the right hand side starts off in the Indian Ocean and curves around underneath Australia, finishing at the question mark, which is in the region of Fiji and Tonga. So what does that tell us? Maybe a cruise from somewhere in the Indian Ocean or South Africa? If the arrow is to be taken literally, then a starting point for the cruise is needed somewhere in that region. Royal Caribbean have just started sailing to Dubai, which is always an option. Sailing around the south coast of Australia would provide the opportunity for some wonderful ports of call, including Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania and even New Zealand.

One other option, although not marked on the map and therefore perhaps a rank outsider, is East Asia, taking in China, Hong Kong and Japan, with visits to Disney’s two theme parks in that region.

The new Disney Dream ship, scheduled to be completed and ready for sailing in 2011 is to be based at Port Canaveral, along with the Disney Fantasy which will follow a year later in 2012. The Disney Wonder is to operate from the Port of Los Angeles from 2011, and it’s expected the Disney Magic will remain at Port Canaveral at least until the Disney Fantasy is ready.

All of the itineraries mentioned above are quite a distance from both home ports which leaves one wondering if any of the ships would actually reposition, or simply sail on longer cruises than at present?

And of course the map shown could just be there to throw us all off on a tangent! So, we’ll just have to be patient and wait for the big announcement on Friday. You can view the webcast live at 12pm EST (9am PST) on Friday September 11.

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