Dubai rains on Costa Venezia’s maiden port call in the city

Costa Cruises’ brand new cruise ship Costa Venezia arrived in Dubai on Wednesday morning after a 19-night grand voyage from Trieste in Italy that took her through the Mediterranean and into the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal.

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She will stay overnight in port at the Dubai Cruise Terminal and will depart Thursday for Singapore, a 17-night cruise for which many passengers flew to Dubai to board the ship. While anticipation of Costa Venezia’s port call in the city has been growing for weeks, Dubai had other plans today.

Costa Venezia alongside in Dubai under a glowering sky

Strong winds and heavy rain showers whipped various parts of the city as passengers disembarked to explore. But on social media it appears that most are still making the best of it, relaxing in the hot tubs on-board and enjoying the ship’s outer decks during a break in the weather.

It has been an eventful cruise for Venezia on her maiden voyage from Italy to the UAE.

She’s made port calls in nine cities along the way, including Aqaba, Jordan and its legendary City of Petra.

Other stops included Salalah, and Muscat in Oman and Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE.

The Suez Canal crossing is always a highlight of any cruise from the Mediterranean to Dubai, which often used as a turnaround port for cruise ships transiting between Europe and Asia.

Costa Venezia will depart tomorrow morning bound for Singapore. On this 17-night voyage she’ll stop again in Abu Dhabi, in Khor Fakkan, and the India cities of Goa and Cochin, and Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, as well as Langkawi and Klang (Kuala Lumpur) in Malaysia.

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At 135,500-gross tons and carrying 4,332 passengers, Costa Venezia is a similar size to Costa Diadema, which will be homeporting in Dubai this coming cruise season (November, 2019 to March, 2020), replacing Costa’s current Dubai ship Costa Mediterranea.

Costa Venezia isn’t a sister ship to Diadema though, she is built on an entirely new platform based on the Vista-class first introduced by Carnival Cruise Lines, which is also owned by Carnival Corporation.