By
Rebecca Gibson |
Saga Cruises’ Saga Pearl 2 was welcomed with a water fountain display when she made her debut in Kiel on 19 May.
Sailing from England, the ship passed through Kiel Canal overnight and was greeted at the entrance to the Kiel Fiord by a port tug, before being escorted to the Ostseekai berth.
To commemorate the occasion, Saga Pearl’s cruise director was presented with a first-call plaque by Hans-Werner Tovar, Kiel’s City President, and Dirk Claus, the port's managing director.
“Kiel lies directly at the exit to the Kiel Canal and is the gateway to the Baltic,” said Dirk Claus, managing director at the Port of Kiel. “So the port is perfectly placed for a stop-over and passengers are able to get to see the places of interest in north Germany during a day onshore.”
Cruise guests visiting Kiel can enjoy a varied shore excursion programme, which includes city tours, trips to the Schleswig-Holstein region, the Hansa city of Lübeck and Hamburg. In recent years, the number of foreign passengers participating in these daily excursions has increased steadily, reaching 60,000 in 2013. The majority of these tourists were English-speaking.
“A visit to north Germany is worth it,” said Claus. “The tourist infrastructure has been extensively developed and the destinations are more than mere sight-seeing experiences.”
Saga Pearl is the second of five vessels to make maiden calls in Kiel this year. Azores, on charter to Ambiente Kreuzfahrten, visited on 15 May, while Hapag-Lloyd’s Europa 2 and P&O Cruises’ Adonia will berth in Kiel on 11 and 28 June, respectively. In addition, Kiel will be the first German port to welcome TUI Cruises’ latest newbuild Mein Schiff 3, which will berth at the port on 26 May after sailing from STX Finland’s yard. This year also marks the first time all three of TUI Cruises’ ships have visited Kiel.
In total, Kiel will handle 125 visits from 22 cruise vessels during the 2014 season, which ends in mid-October. These include twelve calls from Costa Cruises’ Costa Pacifica – which will be the largest vessel to berth at the port – and return calls from Phoenix Reisen’s Amadea and Artania, Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ Astor and Vishal Cruises’ Delphin. Hapag-Lloyd’s Hamburg and Europa will also return to Kiel.
Kiel is currently constructing a passenger pavilion at Berth 1 in Ostuferhafen. Scheduled for completion in May, the pavilion will enable the port to simultaneously process passengers on three large cruise ships for the first time. The new passenger area at Berth 1 will be opened on 2 June to coincide with the arrival of Costa Pacifica.