A Blue Port, seven cruise ships, a spectacular parade, and an incredible land-based program marked the highlights of this year's Hamburg Cruise Days, which concludes today. The organizer expects 570,000 visitors throughout the weekend. Hamburg has once again transformed its port into a stage for the cruise industry.
Along the event's boulevard, stretching over four kilometers between the Altona Cruise Center and HafenCity, locals and visitors to Hamburg enthusiastically celebrated the first two days of Hamburg Cruise Day. Under clear blue skies and pleasant late-summer temperatures, the 15 themed islands invited visitors to explore, marvel at, and enjoy the wonderful world of cruising.
On Friday, the Costa neoRomantica and the Amadea – the new dream ship of German television – visited the port of Hamburg; on Saturday, the Mein Schiff 4, the MS EUROPA and the AIDA bella docked in the port.
At 9:20 pm on Saturday night, the long-awaited moment finally arrived: hundreds of thousands of visitors gathered on the banks of the Elbe for a close-up view of Hamburg's spectacular Cruise Day Festival. Escorted by countless barges, sailboats, and passenger ships, the cruise ships AIDA Bella, Mein Schiff 4, and MS Europa made their way onto the Elbe River – a striking contrast to the beauty of the port, which was bathed in blue light, perfectly complementing Hamburg's Blue Port Project. Each ship was greeted with its own fireworks display and waved goodbye on its journey with a personalized laser message.
“Tonight, Hamburg once again demonstrated why it ranks at the top of the list of European cruise destinations,” adds Thorsten Kausch, Managing Director of the Hamburg Convention Bureau. “The people of Hamburg have an unparalleled passion and enthusiasm for cruising, and the city will once again broadcast stunning images of the event to the world.”
On Sunday, the Queen Mary 2 and the MSC Splendida, two iconic ships, will be the stars in the port of Hamburg. They will both leave the port together in the evening, thus ending the event on a majestically high note.
