A friend who works somewhere in the port area sent us two photos of the cruise ships that had come into Motril Port this morning; Norwegian Sky and Norwegian Dawn.
These luxury cruise liners brought just under 6,000 passengers and crew into port and around 4,000 of them used the port, shuttle bus to the centre of Motril… not all at once, of course – this is 2024, not 1974 when cramming a numerous family, complete with gran, a dog, a cat and the canary cage into a Seat 600, whilst not forgetting the beach brollie, chairs & collapseable table, was common-place on the roads to the Costa Tropical.
Yes, there were in fact 16 buses put on for the deluge of tourists streaming off the cruise ships, and… no charge for passengers, because they would get relieved of their cash once they go to Motril, in exchange for drinks, tapas and souvenirs made somewhere across the other side of the planet, bless their cotton socks.
So, enough about the passengers and crews; let’s talk about these floating, luxury hotels! Docked next to each other, they took up just over half a kilometre of dockside – bear in mind that this dock-cum-breakwater is only 800 metres long.
The Chairman of the Port Authority, José García Fuentes, broke off his frenzied activity with an abacus to say that this season has been a record one where cruise-ship arrivals is concerned, as scheduled visits throughout the season unleashed 60,000 passengers on the town. It’s worth considering that the population of Motril is around that number, so there was one cruise-ship passenger for every resident of the town.
He had words of praise for the Mayor and Town Hall, which is not surprising as his party runs the town, too, so when he’s not wearing an eyepatch with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder (in the seclusion of his officer, it is rumoured), he’s also a town councillor.
The first of the two ships to dock was Norwegian Dawn, arriving at five this morning, having sailed from Alicante. From Motril, it will call at Tangiers and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, before making its way down the West Coast of Africa, calling in at Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Luanda (Angola), Namibia and Cape Town on its 22-day cruise.
As for Norwegian Sky, this is her second visit to Motril this season; she was in the port on the 1st of this month.
November, however, is the end of the season, as the Med can be quite unreasonable at this time of year.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)
Keywords: Cruise Ships, Norwegian Sky, Norwegian Dawn, Passengers, Shuttle Buss, Crew