Cruise season begins at new Amador terminal

The Viking Orion, of the Viking Cruises company, docked at  Amador on Tuesday, November 24  the second cruise ship of the company to perform docking tests at the new facilities.

The arrival of the vessel at the dock still in its final phase of construction marks the start of the cruise season and the hundreds of passengers on board who will visit Panama and contribute to the economic reactivation of the country said the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP).

The administrator of the Authority  Noriel Araúz said that “for the month of November docking tests at the Cruise Terminal will continue. All operations with passengers are carried out in compliance with biosafety protocols. The Viking Orion arrived from the Port of Cartagena, in Colombia, with 662 passengers on board who disembarked for various excursions and then headed to Puntarenas in Costa Rica.

Its passengers and 438 crew members have a complete vaccination scheme against covid-19 and comply with the established rules for entering the country by sea and air. The first to arrive at the cruise terminal was the Norwegian Star also owned by Viking Cruises, on November 16.  681 passengers disembarked from the Norwegian-flagged vessel and 524 passengers embarked.

The cruise terminal, located in the Amador archipelago, was built with an investment of approximately $165 million, with the aim of boosting the country’s tourism sector.

“This terminal is an attraction that will help boost the cruise industry and the tourism sector at a national and international level since it will become the first cruise port built in the Pacific sector, which positions us strategically,” said the Tourism administrator , Ivan Eskildsen. The new facilities also allow the simultaneous docking of two cruise ships with a capacity of up to 5,000 passengers The terminal can receive vessels of up to 360 meters in length.

The Port construction is 83% complete and is in charge of a consortium made up of China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) and Jan De Nul Panamá (JDN), for which more than 5,000 workers were hired directly and indirectly. Only the maritime area is 100% complete and it is estimated that the work will be completely finished by September 2022.