LetsTravelRome

Disney Mediterranean Cruise to include Rome.

The Disney Magic will sail out of Barcelona with stops in several ports in summer 2007.

Forget the faux Venetian palace with imported wine and chocolate at Walt Disney World's Epcot.

The entertainment giant is moving on to the real thing with Mickey set to take up residence on the Mediterranean next summer for the company's first European cruises.

Disney Cruise Line announced Tuesday its 2007 summer itineraries based in Barcelona, Spain -- a move needed to keep repeat customers sailing the Disney brand and reap higher profits in the summer when the cruise industry is forced to offer competitive bargains to the Caribbean.

The last of the big Florida-based cruise lines to station a ship in the Mediterranean, Disney will send the 2,700-passenger Disney Magic on a 14-day voyage from Port Canaveral to Europe, where it will cruise from May of next year until mid-August.

Disney is banking on its reputation as a provider of safe, hassle-free travel to cash in on families who might not otherwise brave a European adventure on their own.

"People trust the Disney brand," said Cruise Line President Tom McAlpin, who expects most passengers to be from the United States. "They know we're going to provide a safe and secure environment."

The idea is that families can be ferried from Spain to the French Riviera to the heart of Italy with the comfort of sleeping each night on the Disney Magic and without the hassle of worrying about travel or finding kid-friendly food and entertainment.

"This is really among the last companies to do this," said Oivind Mathisen, editor of New York-based Cruise Industry News. "It's a product to offer repeat customers . . . or these people will go to somebody else's ship so it's a way of holding on to your market."

Last year Carnival Cruise Lines launched its first European cruises and announced this week that it would expand those offerings this year as well as station its larger Carnival Freedom ship in the Mediterranean next year.

Next year Carnival will offer 12-day Mediterranean and Greek Isle cruises and 12-day "Grand Mediterranean" cruises that operate out of Rome.

Albert Poggio, senior vice president of the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports in Barcelona, said Disney will bring a special flavor that will attract more young children who, he hopes, develop a taste for Europe and continue to return as adults.

"What they're going to add is, of course, Disney," Poggio said, explaining that the new offering can "break them [young passengers] in to cruising and then when they get older they want to take their own cruise."

The company's venture into the Mediterranean positions it for potential expansion as well, though it would likely remain a small player compared with Carnival, which sails an 80-ship fleet and plans to add 16 new vessels.

Disney Cruise Line Vice President Tom Wolber said the company is considering building a third ship.

"When the time is right, when the Euro conversion rates are right, we certainly are going to grow the business," Wolber said.

Disney carries now about 262,000 cruise passengers a year. It started the Port Canaveral-based cruise line in 1998 with a focus on the Caribbean, where it owns a private island called Castaway Cay.

Though hurricanes have pushed ships into last-minute itinerary changes in the past few years, the industry is continuing to see an increase in bookings with 11.7 million people expected to cruise this year.

An A.G. Edwards report on the industry released Tuesday said bookings for this year are steady, but not robust. Prices are strongest in seasonal markets of Alaska and Europe, flat or even down in the Caribbean.

McAlpin said he is "happy with our pace of bookings right now" headed into this year's hurricane season. The unpredictable storms did not factor into Disney's plans to remove one of its ships from hurricane-plagued Caribbean waters in 2007, he said.

But the company's growing international strategy does play into the cruise line's future.

Packages for European cruises coupled with a side trip to Disneyland Paris are on the way, he said.

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The Disney Magic will depart from Barcelona, Spain in the summer of 2007 and will stop at the following ports:

Palermo, Sicily

Naples, Italy, with access to Pompeii

Olbia, Sardinia

Civitavecchia, Italy, with access to Rome

La Spezia, Italy, with access to Florence and Pisa

Marseille, France

Villefranche, France

Disney cruises can be booked in advance by subscribers to Lets-Travel-Rome.com through the following link, and by choosing the "Cruises" tab at the top of the page:
Holidays in Rome

posted by Les Sheppard @ 6:05 AM