Festival Cruises to bring 33,000 passengers in five months

More than 33,000 cruise liner passengers will stop off in Malta for a six-hour excursion between June and November under a deal struck between Hamilton Travel and the Greek company Festival Cruises.

Hamilton Travel managing director Norman Hamilton said that in the 21-week period between June 19 and November 13, the mv Mistral luxury liner will bring 1,600 passengers a week.

The Mistral hosted the leaders of the industrialised world at the G8 Summit in Genoa last year.

Speaking at a reception on board the 49,000-ton luxury liner, which made Grand Harbour yesterday, Mr Hamilton said his company was also the authorised agent of Festival Cruises for passengers taking a cruise from Malta on this ship.

"Under the agreement with Festival Cruises, we have 25 cabins available each week for Maltese passengers."

Mr Hamilton explained that these cabins, which were practically already fully booked, were only available in the weeks between June 26 and October 2.

"However, we are also offering some of the cabins to our preferred partners, who include Mondial, Britannia Tours and Euro Tours," he said.

The cruise for Maltese passengers will leave the island on Wednesdays and sail to Palermo, Rome, Genoa, Marseilles, Aix-En-Provence and Valencia.

Tourism Minister Michael Refalo, who attended the reception, said that by the end of the year cruise liners will have made a total of 300 calls to Malta.

Festival Cruises, which operates from Italy, has a fleet of liners that includes the brand new European Stars, launched last month.

The Mistral`s captain, Francois Scheider, said all the officers were French while the crew came from 50 countries.

The luxury liner was built in 1999 and can reach a maximum speed of 19.5 knots. It has a length of 216 metres and a width of 28.8 metres.

Prices for the eight-day cruise on the Mistral start from Lm249. Children and young people aged between two and 17 travel free of charge.

Mr Hamilton said these prices were 50 per cent cheaper than they would have been had the Maltese passenger opted to take the cruise from Italy rather than Malta.