Bodrum Cruise Port welcomes Emerald Azzurra as the first ship of 2023

Bodrum Cruise Port, operated by Global Ports Holding, the world’s largest cruise port operator in the world, hosted its first ship of the season. Emerald Azzurra, operated by Emerald Cruises, visited Bodrum Cruise Port on March 21.

Bodrum Cruise Port, a part of Global Ports Holding network of ports, welcomed Bahamas-flagged Emerald Azzurra. The first cruise ship of the season arrived at Bodrum Cruise Port from Rhodes on Tuesday, March 21, and will depart for Ege Port Kusadasi at around 23:00 in the evening. There are 75 passengers and 74 personnel on board, mainly from Australia, America and Canada.

As Bodrum Cruise Port celebrates its 15th year of service, the passengers who got off the ship were greeted with gifts and flowers.

This year Bodrum expects to have a record high passengers and ships. With a successful year ahead, Bodrum Cruise Port will host many cruise lines this year. Mainly: Norwegian Cruise Line, TUI Cruises, Emerald Cruises, Seabourn Cruises and the Ritz Carlton Yacht Club. Virgin Voyages’ ship Resilient Lady has selected Bodrum Cruise Port as its first and only Turkish Port within its itinerary to debut in 2023 with 16 calls.

46 Calls with 60,000 passengers

On the other hand, Turkish cruise ship Blue Sapphire has chosen Bodrum Cruise Port for its homeporting operations once again, following the successful operations in 2022. Blue Sapphire plans to have 46 calls in Bodrum with an average of 60 thousand passengers.

Aziz Güngör, Global Ports Holding, Director of East Med, said, “As Bodrum Cruise Port, our goal is to host the world’s largest cruise ships during the new season, as we did last season. There is a great interest to Türkiye and specifically to Bodrum. We host cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers from all over the world in our port. We expect this number to increase even more in the new season. It is a great source of excitement for us to host the first passengers of the season in Bodrum.”