Email Gambia News to a friend
Print version
Comment on This Gambia News

Royal Caribbean wins Africa's Leading Cruise Line of 2010

Africa's Leading Cruise Line of 2010 announced as Royal Caribbean Cruises

The world-famous Royal Caribbean Cruises line has won the title of Africa's Leading Cruise Line of 2010 by the prestigious World Travel Awards. This award was announced in London, and executives of Royal Caribbean were present to receive this outstanding award. World Travel Awards is the most prestigious, comprehensive and sought after awards programme in the global travel and tourism industry. Winning a World Travel Award by a process involving 183,000 travel tourism and travel professionals across the globe is the highest accolade a cruise line can receive.

Alexandria, Egypt - the name conjures up images of Caesar and Cleopatra, Marc Antony, and the glories of ancient Egypt. Your luxury cruise docks here and you can see the wonders from deck, exciting you before you go ashore into the hustle and bustle of modern Alexandria.

Sailing on and through the Suez Canal, you see a modern wonder of the world. Surrounded by desert on all sides, your 1,000 foot-long luxury liner sails the canal like a fabulous mirage from the Thousand-and-One-Tales of Scheherazade. The canal was built over ten years, much of it by slave labour, and was opened in 1869. (It should be noted that the British government of the time repeatedly protested the use of slaves in it's construction, and opposed the construction of the canal throughout.) Today the views are incredible, with desert interspersed with lush farmland and locals at work in the fields, much as it would have been along any river in Egypt 5,000 years ago!

Sailing on to Safaga on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, you find a bustling port with clean air and black sand dunes - quite astounding! The main industry here is, of course, tourism, but with a strong emphasis on scuba diving. You can dive with many operators here, most offering trips which last from one day up to two or more weeks. And you can believe what you have heard: the Red Sea is one of the most spectacular places on earth to scuba dive. With no local rivers to bring silt into the sea, the water is crystal clear, and bright sunlight brings the fabulous fish and coral colours to vibrant life. Day lessons for scuba diving are widely available, and you may find that you can spend a half-hour of your first dive, staring in awe at a single small area of a reef. So many fish and creatures and plant-like corals abound, and the sounds they make are magical and other-worldly.

When you consider all this, and cruising to Africa in the luxury of Royal Caribbean, it's no wonder they have won this prestigious award.