Tag Archives: spain

MSC Announces Grand Voyage to Shanghai

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MSC Cruises has officially announced plans to make its first sailing to China, with the newly-renovated MSC Lirica calling in Shanghai on May 1, 2016 after having traveled across continents.

The 65,000-ton ship will make the company’s maiden call in China’s biggest megalopolis after a 60-day round-the-world Grand Voyage which departs on March 3, 2016 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“We are delighted to once more be able to offer our guests a brand new itinerary – from Brazil to China via Europe – which offers the chance to visit some of the most appealing places on earth, certainly across a huge array of people and cultures,” said MSC Cruises CEO, Gianni Onorato.

Onorato added: “This new Grand Voyage offering is proof of our steadfast commitment to offer our guests innovative and sought-after destinations. As MSC Cruises continues to expand the destinations it calls – such as Cuba which we recently announced – we are further enhancing our global offering while providing travelers best-in-class experiences and service.”

MSC Cruises is offering travelers the opportunity to choose from three different versions of the Grand Voyage, with the ability to embark in either Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (60 nights), Genoa in Italy (41 nights) or Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (26 nights), before arriving in Shanghai.


Shanghai at night taken by Dave Jones

Before setting sail, MSC Lirica will be fully renovated and enlarged under MSC Cruises’ Renaissance Program, which entails a comprehensive overhaul of the ship due to be completed in November 2015.

Prices for the full 60-day Grand Voyage on MSC Lirica will start at $4,799 per person. Included in the price are beverage and laundry packages as well as 8 shore excursions.

During the first leg of MSC Lirica’s 60-day journey, the ship will depart on March 3, 2016 from Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro and sail north along the coast of Brazil – with calls in Buzios, Salvador, Maceio and Fortaleza. The ship  will then cross the Atlantic on a northeast course towards the Canary Islands – with a stop in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife – before reaching mainland Europe and visiting Cadiz, Spain.

From there, MSC Lirica will call the three largest ports in the Mediterranean – Barcelona, Spain; Marseille, France; and Genoa, Italy – providing travelers an opportunity to embark in any of these ports in Europe and providing maximum flexibility as guests journey towards Asia.

After leaving Genoa, MSC Lirica will call Naples, Italy and the island of Crete with Heraklion in Greece. The ship then heads south to Aqaba in Jordan; Muscat, Oman; and Khor Al Fakhan and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.  The ship is scheduled to stay in Dubai overnight and travelers interested in sailing from Dubai to Shanghai will have the ability to embark.

During the last leg of the journey, MSC Lirica sets sail towards the East and the Indian cities of Goa and Cochin, prior to calling Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka. She then heads to Phuket, Thailand, and Penang and Port Kelang/Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, before reaching Singapore.

After an overnight stay in Singapore, the ship will bring its guests to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and then to visit Hong Kong. Shanghai is the next call and includes an overnight stay before sailing across the China sea to Fukuoka in Japan. From the Land of the Rising Sun, MSC Lirica heads back to the high seas one more time, returning to Shanghai on May 1, 2016.

Pleasant surprises at off-the-radar ports

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One of the pleasures of cruising is discovering places that aren’t necessarily on your radar.

In planning a land vacation, people naturally pick destinations and sights they’ve been pining to see. So, too, for cruising. But there are often ports on an itinerary that aren’t at the top of the list.

And sometimes you pick a cruise for the ship, not the destinations. That was the case with a recent cruise on the Anthem of the Seas, the newest ship from Royal Caribbean International.

After an April debut, the ship has been stationed in Europe this summer, doing mostly 14-night itineraries, which is a bit too long for my schedule.

One of the few seven-night itineraries featured several ports I would not have picked solely for the destinations. But the two ports in northern Spain — Gijon and Bilbao — were thoroughly enjoyable.

Gijon has a pleasant downtown. We stopped at a bakery for some early morning pastries, and for coffee at a tavern that had plenty of personality. We rode the bus to Oviedo, a bigger, inland town famed for its siderias, or cider restaurants.

In Bilbao, there’s far more see beyond its world-renowned Guggenheim Museum, including a chic financial district and a charming medieval old town.

Our third stop, Guernsey, a British dependency off the coast of Normandy, offered a scenic shore hike on a well-marked trail through an amazing diversity of foliage.

The final stop was in Le Havre, the French port at the mouth of the Seine River.  Le Havre itself is not very picturesque, having been 80% destroyed in World War II. There were several excursions to Paris, but the prospect of a two-and-a-half-hour bus trip each way discouraged us from that option.

Instead, we took a taxi over the last bridge on the Seine to the town of Honfleur on the south bank of the river. The town is not much more than a harbor, a church and two main streets, but the harbor is quaint and lined with cafes, and the main streets had enough intriguing restaurants and shops to make me want to return.

I had never heard of Honfleur before. Thanks to my cruise I will be looking for an opportunity to go back.

UK consumer spend abroad rises to £35.5 billion in 2014

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Spending by UK consumers abroad rose by £3.7 billion to £35.5 billion last year over 2010, according to latest calculations.

This represented an 11.7% increase in the four-year period with Spain being the major benefactor.

British travellers spent £6.14 billion in Spain in 2014 – the most for any country in the world � and £3.91 billion on visits to the US.

Some £3.51 billion was spent across in France, whilst Italy was fourth with £1.68 billion.

The research by the travel money business Centtrip also showed that Romania had seen a 114% increase in spending by UK residents between 2010 and 2014. This equated to an extra £102 million.

Lithuania and the UAE saw increases of 74% while Norway and Mexico saw increases of 69%, 60% respectively.

Analysis by the company found that Britons took more than 60 million trips abroad, with an outlay of £35.5 billion in spending money.

Centtrip co-founder and managing director, Brian Jamieson, said: “Overseas travel is increasing, but as people visit more countries, they need to make sure they are getting a fair deal when buying foreign currency, and keep charges down to a minimum.”