AIDA Cruises sending AIDAstella to Cape Town for 2025/26 SA season

AIDA Cruises will be sailing multiple voyages between Cape Town, Mauritius and the Seychelles during the 2025/26 South African cruise season, marking the cruise line’s return to the country for the first time since the pandemic.

The 14-night voyages from Cape Town and Port Luis will see the ports used as alternating turnaround ports, with AIDA Stella first cruising from Port Luis for Cape Town, and then back again. 

Both voyages will call in Maputo, Mozambique, as well as Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London in South Africa. 

AIDAstella will also cruise between Cape Town and Mahe in the Seychelles. These 22 to 28-night itineraries will call in the same ports as the Cape Town-Port Luis cruises, with the ship then continuing on to La Réunion and Mahe.

The 22-night voyage from Mahe to Cape Town will be the New Year’s Eve trip, while the return Cape Town to Mahe voyage of 28 days will mark the end of AIDAstella’s South African cruise season, with the ship then reportioning to the Mediterranean.

AIDA Cruises used to sail a regular roundtrip Cape Town cruise season during the summer in South Africa between November and March, but during the pandemic it was forced to cancel its Cape Town season twiceand has not returned to the country since.

The cruise line primarily targets the German cruise market, selling fly-cruise packages, rather than selling to the domestic South African market like MSC Cruises and (more recently) Norwegian Cruise Line, making a full season in a far-flung destination like SA riskier.

The cruise line was also forced to sell off its smaller cruise ship AIDAmira during the pandemic as part of its parent company’s major fleet consolidation program. AIDAmira was the ship the cruise line traditionally deployed to the country.

This is a positive sign of the cruise line warming to SA once more, however, especially as several of its World Cruise itineraries during 2022 and 2023 have featured South African ports prominently as destinations.

Cape Town has also seen a resurgence in cruise activity during the previous and current cruise season, proving the destination’s enduring popularity as a global cruise port, which may prompt AIDA to return for a full season in the near future.