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Boat Safari Guide - Compare Tanzania with The Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sailing Areas
The Aegean Islands, Antibes, Amalfi Coast, Barcelona & Spain, Bormes, Cannes, Balearic Islands, Corsica, Croatia, Cyclades Islands, Elba, Costa Esmeralda, French Riviera, Greece, Ibiza, Iles d'hyeres, Ionian Islands, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Naples & Capri, Nice, Palma, Portofino, Porto Cervo, Porto Vecchio, Procida, Sardinia, Sicily, Turkey, Venice, Valencia.
Richard Sasso, chief executive officer of MSC Cruises, said cruise operators were bringing more and more ships to the Mediterranean each year. "The old world has become the new world for cruising. Europe will grow faster than the US because it has a golden pot of ports and destinations," he said. Mr Sasso predicted that within a decade Europe would be the base for more cruise holidays than anywhere else. Recent figures supplied by Mediterranean port authorities support Mr Sasso's point. In the past four years, passenger numbers have more than doubled in Athens, Monaco, Dubrovnik, Venice and Valencia. The port of Monaco, for example, received 53,323 passengers in 2002, and almost three times as many in 2006. Eight ships have already been launched this year and a further 37 vessels are to be delivered before 2012. "Ports in Europe are becoming steadily more congested, and there are fears that this will increasingly disrupt or impair the quality of cruises," said Roberto Ferrarini, of Costa Cruise Lines, in a recent interview with the World Cruise Review. "Many ports are historic and in the middle of town." Douglas Ward, author of The Pocket Guide to Mediterranean Ports of Call (Berlitz, £5.99), said that Athens, Barcelona, Cannes, Nice, Portofino and Venice, in particular, already suffer from congestion. "Some port authorities, strangled by official bureaucracy, have been slow to respond to the increase in demand for cruising," he said. The Passenger Shipping Association (PSA), which represents the leading cruise companies in Britain, recently reported that the number of Britons taking a cruise grew 12 per cent last year to 1.2million. The figure is forecast to rise to 1.5million in 2008. A spokesman for the PSA said environmental concerns about long-haul flying, strict immigration procedures in the US and excitement about new destinations in Europe were combining to fuel the Mediterranean boom. It is not just the number of Mediterranean ships that is growing, but their capacity. Earlier this year Royal Caribbean launched the Freedom of the Seas, which carries up to 4,375 passengers - twice the capacity of the Queen Elizabeth 2. Albert Poggio, vice- president of the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports (Medcruise), admitted that congestion was a problem. "Cruise lines are bringing in new ships as fast as shipbuilders can build them," he said. "We are trying to persuade them to use smaller ships when visiting small destinations. We are also asking them to be flexible with their itineraries - for example, if Gibraltar is at saturation point, they could stop at Ceuta, across the bay." Questions are being raised about the environmental impact of the growing number of ships. Last month Telegraph Travel reported that cruise ships have been banned from anchoring at George Town in the Cayman Islands because of the damage caused to coral reefs and marine life. Telegraph readers have said that port congestion has affected their holidays. Brian Mulligan, of St Albans in Hertfordshire, who took a cruise holiday last month, said his ship was one of five to be docking simultaneously at the Greek island of Santorini and that the total number of passengers going ashore was more than double the island's population of 11,000. "We had to wait up to 90 minutes just to get out of the port," he said. "If Santorini is not to lose its charm, the cruise companies and the local officials need to establish a procedure to make the journey ashore less of an ordeal." Article from The Telegraph - click here for more
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