On the 16th of March during a meeting held at the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention together with Pullmantur, Minister Edison Briesen, Aruba Ports Authority N.V., S.E.L. Maduro & Sons Aruba, and the Palm Tours, a one year deal was reached with Spain’s leading Cruise operator; Pullmantur. Every Saturday they are going to do a partial turnaround starting from November 4th, 2006 at the harbor in Oranjestad. At the beginning of this year Pullmantur marked its first period as owner and operator of Cruise ships with and expansion of its fleet this with the purchase of ‘Delphin Renaissance’ (ex-R seven).
This ship was renamed Blue Moon, and it will start this November with a South Caribbean itinerary. This ship will join their existing ship Blue Dream (ex R six) which navigates in the Mediterranean and South America. The ship Blue Moon is 181 meters and has a capacity for 800 passengers. This itinerary which includes Aruba as a homeport will be every Saturday at Oranjestad’s harbor doing a turnaround of its passengers which will be arriving on a 747 operated by Pullmantur directly from Spain. The Cruise will leave Aruba Saturday night and will be in Curacao on Sunday, Monday at Margarita Island were it will complete its turnaround, on Tuesday it will go to Tobago, Wednesday in Grenada, Thursday in Barbados, Friday at day at sea, and Saturday morning it will be back on Aruba. Aruba Ports Authority is very pleased with this development, this marks the come back of a European Cruise operator since Sun Cruises/Aitours left the market a couple of years ago.
The fact that Aruba will receive additional exposure in this market will help Aruba Ports Authority in its efforts with the Southern Caribbean Initiative; to attract more European operators especially in the low season. The success of this new itinerary is crucial in our intents to expand and diversify our Cruise market in general but especially in the low season. That is why we ask all stake holders and Aruba in general to make sure the service and experience we offer to these new visitors is one of high quality and one they will not forget. In doing so, we can create a success story which will bring with it that the sales of this itinerary will be more marketable for other European Cruise Operators.
During this meeting Minister Edison Briesen launched the idea of having the possibility of combining the Cruise with a land based vacation in Aruba, seeing that Europeans take a longer vacation than Americans. The Minister also emphasized the fact that soon Occidental Hotel will open completely renovated and that TUI has included Aruba in its product mix again, together with Riu Hotel (ex Aruba Grand). They all have a key presence in Spain’s tourism market, this will make Aruba’s efforts in this market one which can create a lot of positive opportunities for our target market particularly Europe and Spain.
Read more on the Aruba Ports Authority website
