Over 2.2 million passengers are expected in the Port of Kiel this year, forecasting record numbers like 600,000 cruise passengers and 1.6 million ferry travellers. In 2018, Kiel was visited on 169 separate occasions, by 34 different cruise ships with a total gross tonnage of more than 11.5 million. This is an increase of 15.3% over the previous year.
In 2018, 598,000 cruise passengers boarded or left a cruise ship at the different terminals, marking an increase of 16.5 %, while they generated a turnover of about 68 million Euros in Kiel.
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Until now, 179 visits to Kiel by 33 different cruise ships have been registered. The overall gross tonnage will also increase to more than 15 million and the number of passengers could reach 620,000. The most frequent guests this season will be the ships of AIDA/Costa, TUI Cruises and MSC, with AIDA and TUI Cruises calling at the port with 4 different vessels each. The biggest cruise ship this year will be the ‘MSC Meraviglia’ with 171,600 GT and offering 5,700 passenger beds. New visitors will also be the ‘Nieuw Statendam’ of Holland America Line as well as ‘AIDAprima’ which will be the first cruise ship to be supplied with LNG during its stay in port.
The regular season will begin on 31st March with a visit by the ‘Viking Sky’ and will end in mid-October. In January, however, the latest newbuild of the Meyer Turku shipyard, the ‘Mein Schiff 2’, could already be seen in Kiel.
The numerical peak of Kiel’s cruise season will be on 17th August as there will be four ocean cruise vessels in port at the same time:
- AIDAprima
- AIDAluna
- Vasco da Gama
- MSC Meraviglia
About 30,000 passengers will check in or out within a few hours that day.
With its cruise and ferry terminals ‘Ostseekai’, ‘Norwegenkai’ and ‘Schwedenkai’, Kiel has three modern terminals that are located directly in the city centre. Moreover, ships can dock at the Cruise Berth No. 1 in Ostuferhafen.
In addition, the Port of Kiel is expanding its port facilities, as at the Ostseekai, a second terminal building will start operations during 2019. With this, each berth at the Ostseekai will have its own modern terminal building.