Hamburg cruise ship leaves Dubai as first cruise ship bound for Red Sea

The German cruise operator Plantours Cruises will be the first cruise line to brave the Red Sea since the security crisis in the region began, with its cruise ship Hamburg planning a transit without passengers.

Hamburg departed Dubai on Monday bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she will make a technical stop before continuing on to Aqaba, Jordan, to begin a March 24th cruise to the Mediterranean.

Hamburg disembarked passengers in Dubai following her voyage from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and will now make the transit of the Red Sea without any guests onboard and only a skeleton crew.

Cruise lines have been avoiding the Red Sea region since November last year when Houthi militants in Yemen began attacking international shipping in the Bab Al Mandeb Strait.

Using drones and anti-ship missiles, the militants have attacked more than 150 ships and sunk several, prompting many shipping companies, and all major cruise lines, to reroute ships around southern Africa. 

Plantours Cruises is only the second company to send a cruise ship without guests through the affected sea area since the security issues began, but Hamburg is the first operational cruise ship to transit the area. 

Previously, the Chinese cruise line Blue Dream Cruises sailed the future Blue Dream Melody through the Red Sea on her way from Europe to China following her refit, but the ship was not in operational service at the time. 

The security situation in the Red Sea has forced a number of cruise lines to either cancel or significantly amend cruise itineraries departing Dubai.

At the end of the 2023/24 cruise season in the Arabian Gulf, MSC Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Costa Cruises will all sail without passengers around Africa bound for the Mediterranean, where they will sail their summer cruise seasons.

All three cruise lines have been homeporting in Dubai since November last year. Several cruise lines due to sail from Dubai or call in the city during repositioning voyages and grand cruises have also cancelled calls, or amended their itineraries.

Royal Caribbean International, sailing its first ever World Cruise, recently gave passengers the opportunity to vote on whether to skip Dubai and the Middle East altogether in favour of a more leisurely circumnavigation of Africa.

The passengers voted to retain the call in Dubai, but sail a more express itinerary around Africa bound for Europe.