Small-ship line Windstar Cruises will broaden its winter presence within the Mediterranean by a minimum of the 2024/2025 season, providing 5 distinctive itineraries aboard one ship, Star Legend. The ship started providing winter sailings in Europe in late 2023, and excessive demand has prompted the boutique line to decide to the area on a longer-term foundation.
Visitor Suggestions Prompts Deployment Change
For the primary time in its historical past, Windstar Cruises deployed one in every of its six ships to the Mediterranean for a winter season. The choice got here in late October 2023, after the Israel-Hamas battle prompted the cancelation of Star Legend’s deliberate Center East cruises in winter 2023/2024. As a substitute, Windstar Cruises deployed the 312-guest, all-suite ship to the Mediterranean, the place she is crusing a collection of voyages between Barcelona and Rome.
Windstar Cruises’ launch of its first-ever Center East itineraries had been set for November 2023 and was to proceed into the spring of 2025. Greater than a dozen itineraries had been deliberate, together with a set of cruise excursions supplied in Dubai, UAE, and Muscat, Oman.
After the redeployment, constructive suggestions from visitors and journey advisors spurred the road’s resolution to increase its winter program within the Mediterranean.
“On our inaugural crusing in December, each single journey advisor and visitor on board instructed me ‘that is genius’ as we loved the sunny climate of Europe’s most walkable cities when few cruise traces sail Europe’s oceans,” stated Janet Bava, chief business officer of Windstar Cruises.
“Our greatest studying from this winter’s season was we had been restricted by the chances and experiences we might supply with simply the one itinerary — from Rome to Barcelona and the reverse and we now have responded to that with quite a lot of new itineraries for our visitors to benefit from the Mediterranean’s most storied locations within the winter,” added Bava.
Star Legend will supply 5 itineraries within the Mediterranean for the 2024/2025 season, and two vacation cruises — for Christmas and New Yr’s — plus one particular occasion crusing to the south of France, the place the ship will likely be showcased on the Worldwide Luxurious Journey Market Cannes expo.
New Itineraries Embrace Two Vacation Cruises
The brand new slate of itineraries will allow visitors to e book back-to-back sailings and luxuriate in longer holidays at sea with out repeating ports.
One itinerary, “Winter in Italy and the Adriatic,” is an 8-day cruise departing on November 6, 2024 from Athens and transiting the Corinth Canal to Delphi, Greece, earlier than an in a single day keep in Corfu, Greece. The ship will then sail to Crotone, Italy, and Taormina, Sicily, the place she is going to in a single day previous to arriving in Naples. The cruise concludes in Rome.
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One other thrilling cruise will tempt vacation season visitors. The ship’s Christmas cruise will sail from Rome to Barcelona, December 23 to 30, 2024, and have an in a single day in Livorno, the place visitors can attend the Christmas Eve mass on the Duomo, the well-known cathedral in Florence. The crusing continues to Genoa, Italy, and Good, France, earlier than ending in Barcelona with an in a single day within the port.
Deployment Permits Yr-Spherical Presence within the Med
The addition of Star Legend’s winter sailings by spring 2025 implies that Windstar Cruises will, for the primary time, have a year-round presence within the Mediterranean, since three ships, Wind Surf, Wind Star, and Wind Spirit will function summer season voyages within the area.
Star Legend is not going to stay within the Mediterranean for summer season; relatively, she will likely be deployed for Scandinavian voyages. The 342-guest Wind Surf, Wind Star, and Wind Spirit, every with a capability for 148 visitors, launched in 1989, 1986, and 1988, respectively.
Windstar Cruises in December 2023 introduced a multi-million-dollar funding to improve all three vessels, with intensive renovations and modernizations. Wind Star’s upgrades had been accomplished in late 2023, whereas Wind Surf and Wind Spirit will bear their refits in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
The ultimate two ships operated by Windstar Cruises are Star Breeze and Star Delight, each accommodating 312 visitors.
