: The maiden visit of a cruise liner from Celebrity Cruises to India might well be its last under its present flag, since the vessel is all set to be taken over by Chinese shipping firms from April.
Celebrity Century, a 20-year-old vessel which can carry up to 2,000 guests called at Kochi port in the morning and set sail for New Mangalore by dusk. The 12-deck vessel that began journeying from Singapore has so far completed 808 global trips and would also call at Goa and Mumbai, before arriving at Dubai. It can cruise at up to 40 km per hour speed.
Reflecting on the Kochi visit, Raffaele Bernardini, hotel director, who oversees shipboard hotel operations consisting of food and beverages, guest relations, finance, entertainment and IT, said that guests, most of them senior citizens, were eager about the visit to the port city.
“They fell in as a queue an hour before scheduled, so that they could alight early enough and get the best out of sightseeing tours. But many of them were upset at the delay in immigration clearance, since they had to brave the sun while standing in the queue. They fear that such ‘time wastage’ and ‘restrictions on leaving the ship’ may repeat at other Indian ports too.” The ship’s cruise director John said that most ports in the developed world have a cruise terminal, with all amenities for passengers.