Two luxury cruise vessels called at the New Mangalore Port (NMP) on Saturday, taking the number of vessels visiting the port during the current financial year to 20.
MV Costa Victoria with 1,771 passengers and 809 crew and MV Insignia with 612 passengers and 407 crew docked at the port and were berthed alongside each other, a release from NMP said.
MV Costa Victoria, an Italian cruise vessel with passengers representing 35 nations of the world, a majority of them from France, the Netherlands and Germany, came from Colombo and sailed out the same evening to Salalah.
MV Insignia, a Norwegian cruise liner with passengers from the United States and Canada came from Male and sailed out the same evening to Kochi.
Around 1,300 passengers from these two vessels opted for ground tour arranged by the local tour operators, Globe Travels and Lia Travels.
They visited various locations in and around the city including Mangaladevi temple, Gokarnanatha temple, St Aloysius Chapel, cashew processing units, monolithic statue of Lord Bahubali at Karkala, thousand pillar Jain Basadi at Moodbidri, Belmont House at Balmatta and went shopping in the city.
New Mangalore Port Trust chairman Suresh P Shirwadkar said in the release that there had steady growth of cruise vessels calling at the port in the current financial year.
As onMarch 3, 20cruise vessels called at the port with 20,400 passengers.
The next vessel is scheduled to call at the port onMarch 6.
The captain and passengers of the vessel were impressed with the facilities available at the cruise lounge, neat and tidy berth area, concrete roads, security arrangements, immigration facility, greenery in and around the port, availability of local ground tour operators and proximity to tourist spots.
The passengers expressed their satisfaction over their short stay in Mangaluru during an interaction, he said.
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