Cristina Hodgson
IN a typically quiet month for cruise activity to Malaga, the international seaport will welcome seven cruise line stopovers this month—almost four times more calls than last year.
Last February, stopovers totalled a mere two tourist liners and seven with ships on technical stopovers without passengers.
So far this month, two cruise ships have made calls at the Malaga cruise facilities with the majority of dockings to take place between Valentine’s day and February 24.
The forecast seven cruise ship calls will be made by three different shipping companies, two of them the Norwegian Sun and MSC Lirica are docking in Malaga as part of fixed itineraries.
The Norwegian Cruise Line ship, which has already docked on Friday 3 of this month, has been immersed in a Malaga campaign since November 29 2022, and has scheduled calls on the 14 and 24, the first being the start and end of the voyage.
Likewise, the MSC Lirica of MSC Cruises, which already called last Saturday, February 4, has two more visits planned on the same dates as the Norwegian Sun.
Unfortunately, though the presence of these tourist liners come as a welcome boost to the local economy, in a month that is typically slow, it will be brief as the majority of the stopovers are for embarkation and disembarkation.
One of the high seasons of cruise traffic in the Port of Málaga typically starts in Spring, specifically from April to June, and port authorities point to a clear increase in cruise activity in the months to come.
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