Barcelona, cruise ship capital of Spain
Once again Barcelona was the first-ranked port in number of cruise passengers in Spain in 2017, many cruise tourists selected the Catalan capital as their favorite destination in Spain. In total 2.59 million cruise passengers and 778 cruise ships arrived in the port of Barcelona from January to November last year. The Port of Barcelona has consolidated its position as Europe’s top cruise port, and ranks fourth worldwide. It is a benchmark for the cruiser industry.
The top three groups of passengers on cruises that include Barcelona within their travel schedule are Americans, Spanish and British people. The Americans are number 1 with 17%, followed by the Spanish (16,5 %) and the British (13,5%).
A large amount of money is put into the cruiser sector each year, over the past decade more than 100 million euros have been invested in building, enlarging and modernizing the cruiser infrastructures.
In 2017, there was a total of 778 stopovers. As for 2018 the port expects to receive a total of 800 stopovers and a slight increase in the passenger numbers.
The biggest cruise ship ever arrived in Barcelona was the Symphony of the seas, which is the 25th ship of the Miami-based cruise line Royal Caribbean. It is largest cruise ship in the world and had a capacity of 6750 passengers.
The ship is 361m long, has 18 decks and 2,759 staterooms. But apart from that, this luxurious floating hotel has more than 40 restaurants and bars, 23 pools, jacuzzis and water slides, two theatres, an ice skating-rink, a surf simulator, two rock climbing walls, a mini-golf course, a ten-storey fun slide, and of course, a spa, a gym, a casino and dozens of shops.
The most know Mediterranean Cruise Lines are definitely Costa Cruceros, Viking Ocean Cruises, Seabourn Cruise Line and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.B