Thursday, July 21, 2022 - 12:49 by ce-press
Prior to February 24, the Port of Skagen had received bookings for 43 calls with up to 66,000 passengers for the 2022 season, which was on a par with the 2019 season.
Subsequently calls went up to 66 and then levelled out at 56 as cruiselines rejigged itineraries in the light of St Petersburg being off limits, as well as some cancellations due to bad weather.
“Although the extra calls are due to very sad circumstances, we are most grateful that the cruiselines have chosen Port of Skagen as an alternative port,” said Anne Sofie Roenne Jensen, cruise manager Cruise Skagen.
With the ships not sailing at full capacity, it is difficult to estimate passenger numbers, but the record for passengers per call has been broken twice already with the busiest day totalling almost 5,000, according to Jensen.
“We have also seen a change in guest demographics this year: not so many Americans, but more British and German guests. The latter because we have a lot of calls from especially AIDA Cruises in 2022, which were booked after February 24,“ she added.
No less than 10 calls are first calls, and five cruiselines are newcomers to Skagen: Ambassador Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, MSC Cruises, Disney Cruise Line and AIDA Cruises.
So far this season two ships have called at the new cruise pier, whilst more than 100 technical calls were made during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. This year these calls were for ships getting ready to sail again after having been laid up.
The new, additional cruise pier was completed in March 2021. It allows for one cruise vessel up to 400m and one up to 300m in length to dock at the same time and thereby increase the potential for more calls.
