AIDA Cruises sending AIDAprima back to Dubai for roundtrip cruises in 2019/2020 season

AIDA Cruises’ second-largest ship AIDAprima, will be cruising roundtrip from Dubai for the second time during next year’s Arabian Gulf cruise season.

AIDAprima will cruise from Dubai 20 times between November, 2019 and March, 2020. She’ll visit the most popular cruise ports in the region, following a very similar set of itineraries to her 2018/19 deployment.

Unlike other cruise ships homeporting in Dubai during the same period, most notably MSC Bellissima of MSC Cruises, AIDAprima’s 7-night roundtrip cruises from Dubai will all be identical, without any butterfly itineraries between the eastern and western parts of the Arabian Gulf.

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However, she will interport between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, meaning cruise passengers can board in either city.

So the cruises from Dubai, will visit Muscat, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and return back to Dubai, while the Abu Dhabi roundtrip cruises will visit Dubai, Muscat, Bahrain and then return to Abu Dhabi.

On all of these cruises AIDAprima will stay overnight at Dubai Cruise Terminal, giving passengers more time (two full days) to see the city.

Like TUI Cruises, which is also homeporting in Dubai for the full cruise season, AIDA Cruises is marketed primarily at the German-speaking cruise market, but with a more affordable and more laid-back approach to cruising than its German rival.

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AIDA Cruises is best known for its active, ultra-casual cruise experience. Its cruise ships are marketed as seagoing “club resorts” and cruise staff are allowed to ‘mingle’ socially with passengers when off duty and all main restaurants on-board are open seating, self-service affairs.

It should be noted that AIDA Cruises is known for its very high calibre of buffet foods – among the best of the mass market cruise lines.

AIDAprima is one of its newest cruise ships, launched in 2016, she uses LNG fuel for power when it port, and has taken the sea-going resort concept to a new level with a massive Beach Club that is a relaxation haven during the day and a nightclub by night.

This huge area can be covered over for ‘guaranteed sunshine’ with a UV-permeable membrane dome that is almost invisible to the eye.

The ethos behind the design of this area is for there to be ‘something for everyone’, from the parents to the children, which is of course the great advantage a cruise ship has over traditional land-based resorts.

For more information about AIDAprima and what she offers in the Middle East cruise market, see our full review here.