By
Laura Hyde |
MSC Cruises has added new ports of call to two of its three itineraries in the Middle East during the winter 2023-2024 season.
MSC Virtuosa will sail 17 new seven-night Arabian Gulf voyages from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), calling at Abu Dhabi and Sir Bani Yas Island in the UAE, Doha in Qatar, and new port Manama in Bahrain. International guests have a choice of three embarkation ports: Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
MSC Orchestra will operate a new seven-night itinerary from Safaga in Egypt, which features visits to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Aqaba (for Petra) in Jordan, new port of call Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt and Sokhna Port (for Cairo) in Egypt. International guests can embark at Safaga, Jeddah, Sharm El-Sheikh and Sokhna Port.
In addition, MSC Opera will return to the region after a successful 2022-2023 season and sail 22 seven-night roundtrips from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, Sir Bani Yas Island, either Khasab in Oman or Fujairah in the UAE, and Muscat, Oman.
The company has also added 80,000 return air seats as part of its Middle East ‘Fly&Cruise’ programme, 60,000 of which will be available from Europe, South America and Canada. This will include non-stop flights to both Dubai with Emirates and Doha with Qatar Airways.
“Winter cruises in the Middle East are forever growing in popularity with our guests from all over the world and the region is a particularly important aspect of our growing business, which is reflected in the uplift of 80,000 return air seats in 2023-2024 with leading airlines to fly into a range of embarkation ports for our three ships,” said Achille Staiano, senior vice president of global sales at MSC Cruises.