LONDON: South Africa’s ports are ramping up for a bumper cruise season with at least eight luxury cruise lines and over ten passenger vessels of varying sizes set to ferry international and domestic tourists across the country’s port cities.
The South African cruise season kicked off officially in October with a number of smaller vessels already having called at South Africa’s ports. They are en route to and from travel hotspots in Africa, Europe, the Far East, the Mediterranean, South America and more.
However the MSC SINFONIA – the largest and most popular cruise ship in the local cruise calendar – marked a highlight in the 2015/16 cruise calendar when she arrived in her homeport of Durban in the early hours of Thursday, 19 November. This was her first South African call this season.
Fresh from a 50 million Euro revamp, the already impressive vessel has been upgraded with new features and facilities, including lengthening by an extra 24 metres and the addition of around 200 extra balcony cabins with capacity for around 500 more passengers.
