The success of easyCruise’s inaugural summer season in Greece has prompted the unorthodox and innovative cruise operator to more than triple its capacity for summer 2008. The line’s new flagship, to be named easyCruise Life, will…
The success of easyCruise’s inaugural summer season in Greece has prompted the unorthodox and innovative cruise operator to more than triple its capacity for summer 2008. The line’s new flagship, to be named easyCruise Life, will accommodate 540 passengers and will enter service in April 2008.
The hallmark of easyCruise is that itineraries include overnight stays in port so guests can enjoy nighttime fun ashore. The new vessel will offer a seven-night itinerary that visits Turkey for the first time, calling at
Bodrum, one of the country’s most popular resorts. Bodrum is awash in white, stucco hillside houses, charming waterfront cafes and ancient treasures, and enjoys a nightlife known throughout the Aegean.
The new itineraries will also showcase six different Greek Islands from laidback Syros and Samos to lively Kalymnos, Kos, Paros and Mykonos, the legendary jet-set mecca. Guests can uniquely choose to join the cruise in Piraeus (Athens) on Saturdays or in Bodrum on Mondays.
“Since easyCruise launched two years ago we have offered an affordable way to see intriguing places that are difficult to reach, except by sea,” said Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, chairman of easyCruise. “It is clear that staying in port until the early morning hours has broad appeal because many travelers also want to experience the local nightlife.”
The 12,711-ton easyCruise Life is three times the size of her yacht-like, sister ship easyCruise One (4,011 tons). The vessel – named Lev Tolstoy by her original Soviet owners – was built at Poland’s Szczecin shipyard in 1981
and extensively refurbished in 1989. It will undergo a further, multi-million-dollar update before emerging in her new easyCruise livery.
This fall and next spring, the line’s easyCruise One will be deployed on a new seven-night itinerary that showcases some of the most amazing archaeological sites in Classical Greece, including Mycenae, Nemea, Olympia and Delphi. In summer 2008, the ship will again offer her long-weekend cruises to Poros, Mykonos, Paros and Sifnos. A new 10-night itinerary will transit the Corinth Canal to the islands of the Ionian Sea, including Ithaki, Paxos, Corfu, Kefallonia, Zakynthos, Itea (for Delphi), Corinth, Preveza and Agioi Saranta, Albania, which serves as a gateway to Butrint, a UNEXCO World Heritage Site.
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