Dubai’s cruise season has come to a close after an extremely successful 2016/2017 season.

The final ship to depart from Dubai was the C.S. Sea Princess , an 857 feet-long ship from Princess Cruises which made her way to Dubai all the way from Colombo, bringing almost 3,000 cruise tourists to the city.

It’s enjoyed a 15% increase in visitors since last year

Over 650,000 tourists were welcomed to Dubai during the cruise season which saw an impressive increase from last years numbers.

An increase in the number of cruise ships was also seen with 157 ships docking in Dubai this year, an 18% increase on last season.

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Director of Dubai Cruise Tourism, Jamal Humaid Al Falasi said ““We are very pleased with the success of our 2016/2017 cruising season, and with the city’s sustained popularity as a winter cruise destination.”

He added, “Bolstered by our recent success and our upcoming partnerships over the coming seasons, we are confident we will achieve our strategic goal of welcoming 1 million cruise tourists to Dubai by 2020/ 21 cruise season.”

The next cruise season is set to commence October 25

Starting the 2017/2018 season will see the arrival of the Seabourn Encore to Dubai. 

Dubai Cruises also announced that P&O Cruises would be home porting in Dubai for the first time during the 2018/2019 season.

This follows the addition of the first UK-based cruise line, Thomson Cruises, to Dubai ports this year. As well as inaugural visits from TUI’s Mein Schiff 1 Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Star and MSC’s MSC Fantasia among the eight other maiden ship calls.