Queen Elizabeth cruise ship welcomed at Port Victoria

Seychelles welcomed the grand and luxurious Queen Elizabeth cruise ship at Port Victoria yesterday. With 1,950 guests onboard and over 1,000 crew members, the cruise ship arrived in Seychelles yesterday morning and left at 9 pm the same day.

The ship left Southampton and traveled to a few ports in Australia, Japan, China, Singapore, and Sri Lanka before cruising to Seychelles. Queen Elizabeth is now on its way to visit 2 other Vanilla islands – Reunion island and Mauritius – before heading to Cape Town and the Mediterranean. The 4-month cruise will end back in Southampton which is a port city on England’s south coast.

The Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, visited the cruise ship yesterday shortly after it had docked at Port Victoria. Minister Loustau-Lalanne was accompanied by the Principal Secretary for Tourism, Anne Lafortune; Principal Secretary for Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine, Garry Albert; Seychelles Tourism Board’s Chief Executive, Sherin Francis; and Seychelles Ports Authority Chief Executive, Colonel Andre Ciseau.

Welcoming the delegation onboard were the captain, Aseem Hashmi; hotel general manager, Naomi McFerran; entertainment manager, Amanda Reid; and hotel operations and retail manager, Jonathan Leavor. Gifts were exchanged onboard the ship before Minister Loustau-Lalanne and his delegation were given a tour of the ship by the social host onboard Queen Elizabeth, John Consiglio.

Giving the delegation a brief overview on the ship, Mr. Consiglio said Queen Elizabeth was built in Italy back in 2010, and it took about 6 months to build. The cruise ship’s biggest market is the United Kingdom.

Queen Elizabeth is the second cruise ship from the Cunard line to dock at Port Victoria, with the first being Queen Victoria last year.