Durban’s new waterfront promenade to be ready for 2019/2020 cruise season

Durban’s new beachfront promenade will open to the public on November 16^th, just one day before the start of the 2019/2020 cruise season in KZN.

The new 8-kilometre promenade will link uShaka Marine World with the beachfront area’s most popular beaches and will include an amphitheatre, pedestrian ramps and new lifeguard towers, as well as changing rooms, ablutions for bathers and plenty of public parking.

The promenade will officially open to the public a day before the arrival of MSC Orchestra in Durban to begin her inaugural South African cruise season.

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At 30-metre wide and stretching from uShaka Marine World to Vetch’s Pier, the promenade will be the longest of its kind in Africa and, despite concerns about security from some hospitality officials, is intended to help attract tourists and investors to the area.

The R380-million promenade is part of a much larger R35-billion redevelopment of the entire Point area. The Point Waterfront Development aims to make the beachfront area more tourist-friendly, with new hotels, retail spaces and the all-new Durban Cruise Terminal.

The final mixed-use waterfront area will include hotels, residential apartments, office parks and retail developments, all within walking distance of the cruise terminal.

There will even be a canal with waterfront cafes, bars and restaurants beneath 55-storey apartment buildings and hotels snaking its way through the area, in a similar style to the Dubai Canal and Dubai Marina developments.

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The project is being undertaken in three phases, with the first phase, the cruise terminal and other developments, due to be completed in 2020, the entire project wont be completed for another ten years or so, according to local media reports.

The launch of the new Durban Cruise Terminal is intended to coincide with MSC Cruises’ biggest-ever South African cruise season, with two cruise ships of different classes to homeport in Durban and Cape Town during the 2020/21 cruise season.

MSC Cruises will be sending MSC Musica as well as MSC Opera (a sister ship to MSC Lirica) to South Africa to cruise roundtrip from Durban and Cape Town between November, 2020 and March, 2021.

The Lirica-class MSC Opera will homeport in Cape Town from December, while the larger Musica-class MSC Musica will homeport in Durban, according to the cruise line.

The two ships will offer 60 different cruise itineraries on the west and east coasts of Southern Africa.

Once the Point Waterfront Development is complete, it is anticipated that more global cruise lines will homeport in the city, expanding the choices for the local source market beyond MSC.