Giant Cruise Ships Call on Naples

Lina Mazzucco, general manager of RCCL-Italia

Royal Caribbean will make 30 calls and Celebrity 32 in 2006. Royal Caribbean will operate in the Mediterranean in 2006 with Voyager of the Seas the largest cruise ship to operate in the Mediterranean and Splendour of the Seas in order to give the market the new products it is requesting.

Lina Mazucco general manager of RCCL-Italia said “Cruise in Italy is becoming more and more a mass market as a result of the constant increase in capacity and the continuing pressure on prices. This is no doubt positive and enables more people to take a cruise. In addition as the market matures space is created for a different type of product aimed at the medium/high level of the market. This is the area where Royal Caribbean aims to introduce its products that are innovative, highly technological and 4 star in service.

Celebrity Cruises will offer exclusivity with a taste of luxury and itineries without equal such as those offered by Celebrity Xpeditions to the Galapagos islands”.

International and national market research carried out by RCCL concluded that enormous potential exists in Italy and in Europe for holiday cruises but that the public is not satisfied with the products currently on offer. There are 142 million holiday makers in Europe of which 33% would like to take a cruise. Italy is the country with the highest potential with a 11 million cruise holiday makers with 50% of the total wishing to take cruise but with a high proportion not yet going on cruises.

Voyager of the Seas on its first ever season in Mare Nostrum will depart from Civitavecchia in the middle part of the Italian summer to make weekly cruises in the Mediterranean. Civitavecchia will also be home port for Celebrity Cruises Galaxy for the third year. Splendour of the Seas will operate from Venice on a regular basis from May to October. After a successful 2005 for RCCL operating from Venice, Celebrity Cruises will base Millennium, the second most beautiful vessel in the world in Venice in 2006 for the fourth consecutive year.