11.11.2021
This year´s cruise season in Hamburg extends throughout the winter offering various routes and attractive destinations from/to Hamburg. Passengers can choose from several cruise lines as well as from a broad range of ships (expedition to all-weather-ship) departing from Hamburg on cruises to the Baltic Sea, the Norwegian Fjords, the Arctic Circle, the British Isles, destinations in Western Europe as well as the Canary Islands and the Azores.
"We are pleased that the season continues beyond the turn of the year and that guests can choose from a wide portfolio of special winter cruising programmes from Hamburg“, says Simone Maraschi, Managing Director of Cruise Gate Hamburg (CGH). „36 more calls – including calls over Christmas and New Year´s Eve - are scheduled until the end of this year. In 2022, ship calls will be at a solid level again, which makes us look ahead to the coming year in a spirit of optimism. We can see that the cruise lines are returning to their original schedules.“ According to current planning, CGH expects around 300 ship calls to Hamburg for the 2022 season.
A top priority still is the safety and health of cruise guests, crew members and employees. Well-developed and strict hygiene and prevention concepts in the terminal and onboard the ships are the basis for healthy cruise vacations. While the 2G-rule applies to all cruises from Hamburg*, cruise lines continue to go to great lengths to always provide the best possible protection of all onboard. In addition to a negative COVID-19 test required to be presented prior to arrival, testing in the terminal is part of the embarkation process and mandatory for all guests. „The cruise lines´ additional and vigorous effort to support the health and wellbeing of all onboard goes beyond the actual local regulations and ensures that cruise trips are one of the safest ways to travel“, accounts Maraschi.
Hamburg´s Winter Cruising Programme 2021/2022
AIDA Cruises´ "all-weather ship" AIDAprima departs weekly on European metropolis-itineraries. A total of 26 of these 7-day cruises are scheduled between the end of October 2021 until April 2022. Highlight calls will be two 8-day festive cruises over Christmas and New Year's Eve.
Two longer winter sunshine sailings to the Carribean will be carried out from/to Hamburg with AIDAsol: the first transatlantic voyage will last a full 43 days - starting 25 November, 2021, over Christmas and New Year's Eve -, followed by the second voyage of 43 days beginning directly upon return of the AIDAsol on 7 January, 2022 and ending in Hamburg on 19 February, 2022.
The 2021 winter programme by AIDACruises also includes the premiere voyages of AIDAnova from Hamburg. Following her maiden call to the Port of Hamburg on 13 December, 2021, AIDAnova will debark on two short voyages to Kristiansand and Oslo in Norway. Upon return on 22 December, 2021, the LNG ship, which was launched by AIDACruises in 2018 as the world's first cruise ship to run entirely on low-emission liquefied natural gas, will head to its Christmas and New Year´s voyage to the Canary Islands.
For the first time, MSC Cruises will have based a ship in a German port during the winter months: MSC Magnifica - which was christened in Hamburg 2010 – returns to the Elbe. Starting this Sunday,
14 November, 2021, the ship will set sail on 7-night cruises from/to Hamburg to ports in Western Europe that are gateways to popular metropolises - IJmuiden for Amsterdam, Zeebrugge for Bruges and Brussels, Le Havre for Paris and Southampton for London.
With the Hanseatic Spirit, the latest addition to the Hapag-Lloyd Cruises expedition fleet, guests can set off from Hamburg on Scandinavian winter adventures. The coast of Norway up to the Arctic Circle, Lapland or St. Petersburg will feature on 12- to 15-day voyages between November 2021 and April 2022.
Hurtigruten Expeditions has made Hamburg its home port and will be offering year-round cruises from the Hanseatic city to Norway with the hybrid expedition ship MS Otto Sverdrup - formerly MS Finnmarken. A total of 25 calls are scheduled for next season. From January 2022, MS Fridtjof Nansen will expand the range of voyages from Hamburg to the north with 15-day expeditions to Norway.
Phoenix also serves different destinations with its ships from Hamburg: MS Amadea sets course for the German north in November and to Nice in December. Aboard MS Artania, guests can spend Christmas and New Years in the sunny south - including Funchal, San Sebastian, Las Palmas - or travel to the Canary Islands and Madeira in January. Cruises from Hamburg to Gothenburg, Oslo, Bergen and the North Cape will be added by MS Amera.
As far as winter cruising is concerned, Cunard has scheduled 4 calls at Hamburg by Queen Mary 2 in the first three months of the 2022 season.
Hamburg strengthens its pioneering role as sustainable cruise destination by 2025
Beyond successfully mastering challenges posed by the pandemic such as consistently adapting operations at the cruise terminals according to COVID-19 regulations, the Port of Hamburg does not lose sight of another important goal: enhancing its pioneering role in being a sustainable cruise destination by offering environmentally friendly energy supply to the ships while at berth. From 2025, all Hamburg Cruise Terminals (Altona, Steinwerder, HafenCity) will be equipped with shore-based power supply. An additional 3 OPS will be installed for container vessels so that Hamburg will be one of the first ports in Europe to offer shore-side power supply for both cruise and container ships.
* (only fully vaccinated or recovered guests, children are exempt from the regulation, but need to present a negative test.)
(Fotocredits: Hamburg Mediaserver/ Wiwiphoto Ulrich Wirrwa, Jörg Modrow, Christian Ohde)