Cruise Ship ‘AIDAbella’ with 2050 Passengers makes Final Voyage to NMP this Season
Herzlich Willkommen (Welcome) to Kudla! Cruise Ship ‘AIDAbella’ with 2050 Passengers makes Final Voyage to NMP this Season, and William D’Souza- MD of Globe Travels and his staff welcomed the passengers when they arrived at the New Mangalore Port-Panambur, Mangaluru. Out of the 2050 passengers, nearly 1220 opted to take a tour of DK and Mangaluru, either by bus, auto-rickshaw, Cars/Vans and Bicycles.
Mangaluru: Globe Travels which takes pride, having introduced New Mangalore Port to the world of cruise in 1970, and ever since then, the movement of cruises at New Mangalore Port, has increased by 500%. Today New Mangalore Port is having more than 50 cruise ships coming there, and for that matter Globe Travels is one of the Premier and a leading tour operator of Mangaluru city, having handled quite a number of cruise ships during all these years. And for this season, the last cruise ship named “AIDAbella” docked at New MangalorePort, with approximately 1220, mostly German nationals alighting to take a trip around Mangaluru City.
The Vessel AIDAbella a passenger (cruise) ship built in 2008 at Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany at a whopping cost of $390 million, and currently sailing under the flag of Italy,with 230 m length overall and beam of 32 m, and gross tonnage is 69203 tons arrived at NMP. AIDAbella is a cruise ship operated by AIDA Cruises, she is a sister ship to AIDAdiva and AIDAluna. The ship has a passenger capacity of 2,500 and crew 800. The name AIDAbella was chosen after a competition to name the new ship. The name was meant to signify how beautiful the ship is. The ship features 1,025 passenger cabins, many with balconies. The ship features 1,025 passenger cabins, many with balconies. There is a nude sunbathing area towards the rear of the ship. Amidships is a circular, glass-walled, and roofed Theatrium in the center of the ship which can be used as a nightclub.
Globe Travels took proud in being the ground handling agents, with nearly 60 team members, including 12 staff from the Globe Travel office. Globe Travels being the well known and pioneer travel and tour agents has a credit of introducing Mangalore to the Cruise World way back in 1970. While most of the passengers opted to take bus trip to Famous and historically important places like St Aloysius Chapel, Kadri Manjunatha Temple, Gokarnanatheshwar Temple, Artisan Village, Cashew Factory, Bengre vicinity, local market- a few others took bus trips to Udupi Sri Krishna Temple, Thousand Pillar Temple, Dr. Soans Farm, Bahubali Temple, Karkala etc.
Apart from most of these cruise passengers taking the bus tour on 33 air-conditioned buses, few others went local sight seeing on 66 auto-rickshaws (named as Tuk-Tuk Tour); some took cycling tour on 19 bicycles; while few others toured the area on 15 cars/vans. Ten passengers decided to go golfing at Pilikula Golf Course. And the tour guides did one heckuva of a job providing good hospitality and friendly service with smile. Kudos to Globe Travels for having such kind of tour guides in their team- Globe Travels does the job right with right crew! After a hectic morning tour, it was time for lunch- while the local sight seeing foreigners on the ‘Tuk-Tuk’ tour had their lunch at Hotel Taj Gateway-Mangaluru- the other long distance tour passengers at lunch at SoansFarm Garden-Moodabidri. At Hotel Taj Gateway- the hotel management crew, Peter Nirmal- General Manager, F & B Manager Noor Mohammed and Reservation in-charge Doreen Patrao provided good hospitality along with other hotel staff.
For lunch at Soans Farms- the group had a choice to quench their taste- either a soft drink or a pint bottle of KFbeer- imagine Germans being the world’s largest consumers of beer, are given a choice of one beer when they are in a different country. Many sacrificed by sticking to one beer, while a few others managed to get a couple extra cold ones-cheers! And for the lunch menu, they had to take a break from sausages, Bratwurst, Ham, and German delicacies like Sauerbraten, Spätzle, Leberkäse, Maultaschen, Currywurst, Königsberger Klopse etc- instead these Germans along with other Nationalities enjoyed the Kudla delicacies like- Sanna, Apam, Sevio, Banana Sukha, Chicken Sukha, Anjal (Sear) fish fry, Lamb Curry, Sweet Pulav, Gherkins Cashew, etc- and they all enjoyed without any complaints- and for desserts they were all treated with Payasam and GulabJamun. Compliments to Loy D’souza of M D’souza Caterers for providing the delicious Mangalorean food, which made these Germans happy.
Speaking to Team Mangalorean, AIDAbella Shore Operation Manager Claudia Diechmane, and Tour Manager Tobais Kamf said, ” The cruise trip which started from Hong Kong on 28 February 2018 had made stops at UAE, Oman-Muscat and reaching Mangaluru today-from where we will be heading towards Cochin etc and culminate in Dubai on 18 th March 2018. While few of the passengers will return to their respective hometowns, but bunch of them will spend time in the Maldives and other Asian regions. Everyone had a good time in India so far at the places where we had toured.”
Speaking to Team Mangalorean, William D’Souza, the Managing Director of Globe Travels said, ” We feel proud to say that we introduced arrival of cruise ships to Mangaluru Port. This season we handled quite a few cruises, with thousands of passengers on these cruise ships taking local tours. We proud of our achievements and our staff and guides have done a great job in taking care of all these visitors to their sheer satisfaction. We are looking forward for a better season and will do our best to give the visitors to Mangaluru the best hospitality and courteousness”.
Yours Truly was also lucky to meet the captain of the Ship, Manfred Mayer, who was very friendly and courteous, who took us ( William D’Souza , his son Darryl and myself) for a tour of the ship- and this precious moment brought back memories of my three cruise trips that I took between 2010-2015 from Florida-USA to Bahamas, Bermuda and Mexico. We were shown the Casino, pool, entertainment area, photo booth, nearly 12 restaurants offering various International cuisine, library etc inside the ship. The Captain also offered us a Starbucks Cappuccino and Cheese Cakes- and presented all three of us each with ‘Moët et Chandon’Champagne and Versace cologne. That was very kind of him- Vielen Dank, (Thanks) a million, Manfred!
In conclusion, all I have to say is that a job well done to William D’Souza, his staff members and the tour guides for an extraordinary service and hospitality provided to these foreigners during their visit to Mangaluru-keep up the good work that you all are entrusted- and you all will be rewarded with high praises and compliments. Great Job, keep it up! Three cheers!
Welcome such a Beautiful cruise ship to Mangalore. Really found interesting looking forwardand to join in AIDAbell near future.