The cruise ship M/V Gemini, which stayed in İskenderun for more than a month after the February 6 earthquakes and provided a home to more than 1000 disaster victims, is back to tour programs between Kuşadası and the Aegean Islands.
The 164-meter-long Bahamian-flagged ship, purchased by the domestically-owned cruise tourism company Miray Cruises, continues its main mission, cruise tourism, based in Kuşadası Port.
The cruise line, which organizes tours twice a week to the ports of Patmos, Piraeus, Mykonos and Santorini, is trying to develop the cruise market in the Aegean destination.
Fuat Guven, the company’s head of hotel operations, told said the ship had accommodatds the workers working in the natural gas business in Zonguldak Filyos before the earthquake, and that they quickly arrived in the region after the news of the earthquake.
Stating that they reached Hatay’s Iskenderun district in 2.5 days, Güven stated that they invited earthquake victims to the ship, but they did not receive many requests because the issue of accommodation on the ship was not understood in the first place.
Mr Güven stated that people became aware that the ship was actually a hotel through the news and social media, and that this time they encountered an excessive demand.
He said: “Everyone was affected psychologically and physically, but we were fortunate enough to provide this service. Now we are back to work. Miray is a company that takes guests to the islands and provides a floating hotel experience.”
He noted that cruise holidays are still not fully known in Turkiye. “It is a very big industry in the USA and Greece. The domestic market has not started in Turkey yet. The fact that it has so many seas and has not started shows that we are late.” he said.
Güven stated that Turkish companies should increase their share in the rapidly growing cruise market in the world, and that the company’s main goal is to create foreign exchange income and employment in this field.
The current cruises:
Sun-Thurs: Kusadasi,-Patmos-Piraeus-Mykonos-Santorini-Rhodes-Kusadasi
Thurs-Sun: Kusadasi-Patmos-Piraeus- Mykonos-Santorini-Kusadasi
More details about their cruises: https://cdn.miraycruises.com/vendor/pdfs/ENG-ITINERARY-2024.pdf
Company website: https://miraycruises.com/