Cruising to success as Adventure comes to Malaga

Wednesday, 07 July 2010 14:48

Written by Editor

The city of Malaga is no longer merely a gateway to the Costas for holiday makers - and a new arrival at the city's ever-expanding port will help Malaga continue to consolidate its position as a top place to visit as well as boosting the city's economy as thousands more visitors head its way.Tourist and town hall chiefs are busy creating a Malaga worthy to contest the crown for European Capital of Culture in 2016.

And a key part of their programme is to make the city one of the most popular ports servicing the hugely lucrative cruise market. As the second largest port in Spain, with an atmospheric old town plus its hinterland of Nerja, Mijas and Granada, city chiefs have worked hard over the past four years building up its reputation.

Leading cruise companies like Pullmantur, Viva Cruises and MSC have all used Malaga as a home port - and now they have been joined by Royal Caribbean's prestigious Adventure of the Seas, which returned to Malaga last Saturday at the end of her very first week-long cruise using the city as her home port. This giant Voyager class craft offers every amenity. Her 138,000 tons is home to 3,114 guests and she and her Royal Caribbean sisters helped revolutionise the cruise industry by bringing ice skating rinks, rock climbing walls and inline skating rinks to the high seas in a determined bid to provide something for the whole family through three generations. Cruising is no longer just for the well-off - it’s affordable, and  easy now to take the kids. Special clubs cater for them, giving mum, dad and grandparents time to take a break and when you consider the price covers not just your accommodation but the capacity to eat what you want when you  want, more or less 24 hours a day, and top class entertainment, it begins to make economic sense.

So, it may be belt tightening time in Spain - but that did not stop 1,400 Spaniards from heading to Malaga to join  on her first voyage - the first of 22 trips she will now make from the city before returning to winter in the Caribbean in November so she will be a familiar part of the Malaga port skyline each Saturday before she departs at 5pm for Rome, Sardinia, Corsica and Mallorca.  
Other guests from all around the world - including Argentinians, Irish, Germans, Swedes and Britons, formed a League of Nations ready to enjoy  an added bonus on board - the World Cup. Germans sat with Brits and Spaniards in the ship’s bars glued to the big screens in an atmosphere of high tension and high spirits. It was a miserable ending for the Brits - but at least there was plenty of on board distraction to ease the pain.   

And for those 1,400 Spanish passengers - well, it seemed like every one of them, young and old, was decked in a shirt or flag as they poured into the bars to watch Spain beat Portugal. A brilliant, memorable highlight of their Adventure at sea. And with thousands more travellers  waiting to pour into Malaga, a brilliant coup for the city.