La Verdad
The six ships that will make this month break for the first time the seasonality since the city began to enhance this traffic
The ‘Aidamar’, with 2,600 tourists on board, yesterday became the first cruise to arrive in Cartagena in January.
Another five will contribute to bring 11,000 people before the end of the month, what has never been seen since a little over a decade ago the Port Authority opted to promote this route to attract visitors to the municipality. The hoteliers benefited this Thursday from this avalanche of clients to complete their Christmas income and the merchants incorporated them as buyers, just started the sales season.
The ship of the shipping company participated by British and American capital Aida Cruises made the third of the six scales foreseen in this change of year. The first took place in December, the month in which the port began this new journey as a stopover for boats during the low season. In the last month of last year, eight ships arrived with some 17,000 passengers on board. Before the high season begins in March, another 19,000 will have arrived here.
More passengers
Thanks to its incorporation into the network of ports integrated in these winter crossings, it is foreseen that Cartagena will exceed this year by 10,000 the number of cruise passengers and eleven the transatlantic that arrived last year. Until now, these boats have been in the Caribbean, the Canary Islands and other destinations with a warm climate for the winter season. Not just Aida Cruises. Also the companies MSC Cruises, Viking Ocean Cruises, Saga Shipping and Gran Cicle Cruises Line have included Cartagena in their voyages of these months.
The merchants serve satisfied these customers between the end of Christmas and the start of the sales
In addition to extending the season throughout the year, the port prepares to host 28 double stopovers (at least one each month). In five days there will be three tourist boats at once (two in May and one in September, October and November, respectively). Sonada will be the presence of four ships on September 12. The months with more activity will be May and October, as usual.
May will be the month with the most stopovers, since 27 ships with 40,000 passengers are expected to be on board. On the 24th, the scale of the ‘Disney Magic’ will make Cartagena break another barrier, by receiving the first tourist cruise aimed at children.