Sixty Thousand Tourists Arrive in Rio on new Cruise Ships

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Two ships (the MSC Fantasia and the Sovereign) docked on Sunday, January 5th at Pier Mauá, for the New Year’s Eve and pre-Carnival season, representing, on average, 8.500 tourists to visit the city of Rio de Janeiro.

By January 21st, there will be eight ships docking at the Port of Rio carrying approximately 60,000 passengers and crew.

According to ‘Agência Brasil’, the Operations Manager of Mauá Pier, Alexandre Gomes says, these 60,000 tourists should inject some R$7 (US$1.75) million into Rio’s economy.

Of the eight ships, three are international (the Amadea, the Amsterdam and the Silver Whisper). The remainder are ships that operate trips along the Brazilian coast. Some come to Rio, sail off and return to the city more than once. This is the case of the Costa Pacífica, which docks on January 7th, stays for ten hours in Rio and departs for another trip, before returning again on January 15th.

The schedule foresees the arrival, on January 9th, of the Sovereign and the Amadea; on January 13th, the MSC Fantasia and the Sovereign will arrive; on January 15th, the Costa Pacifica; on January 18th, the MSC Fantasia and the Musica; on January 19th, the Amsterdam. On January 21st there will be three ships at the Pier: the Sovereign, the MSC the Magnifica, and the Silver Whisper.

Cruises

The MSC Fantasia operates cruises with boarding at Pier Mauá. With varied duration, the trips provide itineraries through South America. Most of the itineraries of the Sovereign are cruises to Búzios, Santos or Balneário Camboriú. It returns to the pier on January 9th, 13th, 17th and 21st.

The international ship the Amadea has the Bahamas flag, accommodates 624 passengers excluding the crew. The Amadea’s current cruise time is 21 days, one way from Villefranche-sur-Mer (France) to Rio de Janeiro, with the New Year theme. The trip began on December 20th, 2019 and ends on January 11th this year.

The Costa Pacifica arrives on January 15th around at 10 AM. Launched in 2009, this is the third cruise ship of the Concordia class. Leaving Rio de Janeiro at 8 PM, the ship will set sail for Búzios, Ilhabela, Montevideo (Uruguay), Buenos Aires (Argentina), returning to Rio de Janeiro on January 23rd.

On January 19th, it is the turn of the Amsterdam. With the Easter theme cruise, it takes a 129-day round trip. The ship left on Saturday, January 4th from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States, cruising through several countries.

In Brazil, it docks in the cities of Belém, Recife and Rio de Janeiro. The trip continues on January 20th to Buenos Aires and it docks back in Florida on May 4th. The ship carries an average of 2,260 passengers.

On January 21st, three simultaneous vessels will dock the port: the Sovereign, the MSC the Magnifica, and the international the Silver Whisper. The current MSC Magnifica cruise is a 41-day one-way trip from Barcelona (Spain) to Ushuaia (Argentina) with a New Year’s Eve theme. The itinerary began on December 23rd, 2019 and ends on February 2nd, 2020. The Silver Whisper carries approximately 500 tourists on a 21-day one-way cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Buenos Aires.

About the season

According to Alexandre Gomes, Mauá Pier is hosting the largest number of international transatlantic ships in the last 20 years. In the current season, which began in October 2019 and runs until April 2020, there will be 112 moorings, 37 ships, 27 international and ten national. Eight of these ships are coming to Rio de Janeiro for the first time.

Gomes recalled that, in the past season (2018/2019), Pier Mauá hosted 100 moorings, with an average of 380 thousand tourists, among passengers and crew.

For the 2019/2020 season, there was an increase of 12 moorings, the number of ships increased from 27 to 37 and the forecast of tourists at boarding, disembarking and transit increased from 380 thousand to 425 thousand, which represents an increase of 12 percent compared to the previous season. The number of international ships also increased from 19 to 27.