{"id":24926,"date":"2015-07-23T01:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T08:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=24926"},"modified":"2015-07-23T01:00:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T08:00:24","slug":"thursday-138","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=24926","title":{"rendered":"Malta\u2019s Day Sign Of Cruise Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Valletta<\/a>Photo by John Haslem (Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhere we read that 1 in 4 people don’t know where Malta is. That means three-quarters of us do and, while we couldn’t have come up with the co-ordinates on a map, we knew it was in the Mediterranean Sea — well, sort of — and that there must be falcons there because there once was a movie called The Maltese Falcon<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Whether that qualifies us to be 1 of the 3 in 4 or not, one thing we do know is that more people on cruise ships are finding <\/span>Malta<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take yesterday.<\/p>\n

In Valletta<\/a>, the capital of Malta, there was a record number of cruise ships — five — and 14,000 tourists were on them. This is a city of 6,444 residents, according to a 2014 census. The equivalent of that is having a million people arrive in Miami<\/a> on the same day. Can you just imagine what the waterfront was like when the MSC Fantasia<\/a>, Norwegian Jade<\/a>, Celebrity Equinox<\/a>, Costa neoRiviera<\/a> and the CDF Zenith (?)  were all sending passengers ashore?<\/p>\n

This tidbit comes from Cruise Industry News<\/a>, one of the websites we regularly monitor for information on cruising. To say that CIN is the bible of cruising is probably not inaccurate, and purchasing that “bible” — its annual report — costs $895. <\/p>\n

The bottom line is when Cruise Industry News reports, everybody in the industry reads.<\/p>\n

That brings us to another tidbit. In that annual report, and this part is free, it says “the average big-ship new-build” will carry between 4,000 and 5,000 passengers. That means the average<\/i> ship of the future is going to carry a minimum of 4,000…think Quantum of the Seas<\/a>, Norwegian Epic<\/a>…maybe even Oasis of the Seas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And they’ll probably all be going to Malta, right?<\/p>\n

By the way, it’s south of Italy, about where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Adriatic. But you knew that, didn’t you?<\/p>\n

In the news…<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n

• Princess partners with TV celebrity chef and best-selling author Curtis Stone
\n\t• Bookings open for Holland America's ship Koningsdam, coming in April
\n\t• Royal Caribbean loyalty program taking new members before they cruise<\/p>\n

Today at portsandbows.co<\/span><\/a>m: Royal Caribbean's s<\/strong><\/em><\/span>pecial-interest shore excursions<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Norwegian Epic<\/a>
\n\t7 nights
\n\tOctober 18, 2015
\n\tSouthampton<\/a>, Vigo<\/a>, Lisbon<\/a>, Grenada<\/a>, Cartagena<\/a>, Barcelona<\/a>
\n\tInside: $449
\n\tCost per day: $64<\/strong>
\n\twww.ncl.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by John Haslem (Wikimedia Commons) Somewhere we read that 1 in 4 people don’t know where Malta is. That means three-quarters of us do and, while we couldn’t have come up with the co-ordinates on a map, we knew it was in the Mediterranean Sea — well, sort of — and that there must… Continue reading Malta\u2019s Day Sign Of Cruise Future<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,31,19,15],"tags":[138,584,1567,912,72,1492,1568,819,51,2026,86,35,2027,29,22,2028,144,1144,126,680,53,26,27,1186,2029],"class_list":["post-24926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-ports","category-ships","category-stories","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-celebrity-equinox","tag-costa-neoriviera","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruise-figures","tag-cruise-industry-news-2","tag-cruise-news","tag-cruise-ports","tag-cruise-projections","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-cruising-future","tag-epic","tag-european-cruises","tag-malta","tag-msc-cruises","tag-msc-fantasia","tag-norwegian","tag-norwegian-jade","tag-oasis-of-the-seas","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-quantum-of-the-seas","tag-valletta","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}