By
Rebecca Gibson |
The Port of Tallinn in Estonia is set to receive a record number of cruise calls during the 2013 season, with 328 ships and approximately 450,000 passengers visiting the port.
Transocean Tours’ Astor officially launched the cruise season at the port when she berthed in Tallinn’s Old City Harbor on 30 April as part of a 12-day itinerary, which departed from Kiel and called at Karlskrona, Visby, Stockholm, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Tallinn, Sassnitz and Bremerhaven.
During the season, which ends on 26 September, ten vessels will make inaugural visits, while Spanish operator Pullmantur will offer five turnaround cruises in Tallinn as part of its Baltic Sea sailings. There will be one partial turnaround call, while passengers are also expected in October, November and December.
Tallinn expects to welcome up to 9,000 cruise passengers on its busiest days, with 3,000 passengers arriving on Adventure of the Seas and over 2,800 on Celebrity Eclipse, which is the longest ship to berth at the port this year.
In order to cater for the increasing passenger numbers, the interior of the main cruise building in the Old City Harbor was renovated in 2012. The port will also launch its new cruise tourism smartphone application later this year, enabling cruise services companies to access information about the cruise ships visiting Tallinn.
“The number of cruise ships to moor in the Old City Harbor almost every day during the summer season that is about to start will range between one and six, and on the busiest days in the middle of summer up to 9,000 cruise passengers a day will come ashore to see Tallinn,” said Sirle Arro, head of the marketing and communication department at the Port of Tallinn.