MANGALURU: With the onset of cruise season, two cruise vessels – M V Norwegina Star and M V Nautica were received at the New Mangalore Port on Wednesday. M V Norwegina Star – a giant cruise vessel with a length of 294 metres, 2,064 cruise passengers and 1,048 crew members and M V Nautica with 590 passengers and 398 crew members are the cruise vessel. In addition to this, 109 passengers rejoined the vessel – Nautica and 77 in Norwegina Star at the port, flying to Mangaluru from Mumbai. The vessels were berthed at alongside berths three and four. This was for the first time two big vessels were handled at alongside berths. Both vessels came from Goa and sailed out to Kochi in the evening.
Majority of the passengers are from USA, UK, Canada and Brazil and have opted for ground tour and enjoyed the scenic beauty and cultural heritage of Dakshina Kannada district like the 1,000 pillar Jain temple, monolithic statue of Gomateshwara, Gokarnanatha temple. They also visited the St Aloysius chapel, Kadri temple, cashew processing units, and also enjoyed city shopping. These tourists were taken around by M/s Lia Travels, the local agents of the main tour operator M/s Ventours, Mumbai. Agents of the ship are M/s J M Baxi and Co, a communique from the traffic manager of New Mangalore Port Trust stated. The local agent arranged for luxury buses to ferry the tourists to these places.Cruise traffic at the port has steadily increased during the last three years. During last fiscal, the port handled 23 cruise vessels and 19,160 passengers.
The port has created all infrastructure required for cruise traffic such as state of the art cruise lounge, neat and tidy berth area, concretised roads, security arrangements, immigration facility, greenery in and around the port, availability of local ground tour operators, proximity to tourist areas, etc. The next vessel is scheduled to call at the port on Thursday. During the current fiscal, 30 cruise vessels are scheduled to call at the port.
