Hapag-Lloyd Cruises 2028 itineraries include Cape Town call and Dubai Christmas cruise

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises has unveiled its 2028 programme, featuring 127 itineraries across all seven continents, with notable returns to South Africa and the Arabian Gulf among the year’s standout routes.

The new programme underscores the German cruise line’s global ambitions, blending its reputation for refined luxury with a spirit of adventure across both its luxury and expedition fleets.

The new collection is open for preview and non-binding pre-bookings via the company’s website and travel partners, ahead of formal sales opening in December 2025 when detailed itineraries and fares will be released.

Guests can expect new combinations of destinations, seasonal highlights, and several firsts across the five-ship fleet, which includes EUROPA, EUROPA 2, HANSEATIC nature, HANSEATIC inspiration and HANSEATIC spirit.

The luxury ship EUROPA will embark on a far-reaching 2028 season beginning in Asia, featuring two in-depth cruises around the Philippines and Japan timed with the cherry blossom season.

After a series of Southeast Asian voyages, the ship will turn westward, calling at Cape Town and exploring the Indian Ocean before returning to European waters. Its Mediterranean season will include short escapes to the Côte d’Azur, island-hopping through Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearics, and extended voyages along the Italian coast.

Later in the year, EUROPA will sail north to the Baltic and Western Europe, cross the Atlantic to Canada and the US, and finish with festive-season cruises in the Caribbean and Central America.

Sister ship EUROPA 2 will spend early 2028 in the Americas, calling at Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Mexico, with stops in Miami, New Orleans and Galveston before crossing the Atlantic via Cape Verde and the Canary Islands.

From Hamburg, the ship will spend the European summer cruising Norway, Svalbard and the Baltic before shifting to the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf, where a nine-day December voyage will take guests through the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. A follow-on Christmas cruise from Dubai to Singapore will include calls in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia.

For expedition enthusiasts, HANSEATIC nature will debut a new Indian Ocean season focused on Madagascar and the Seychelles, including landings at rarely visited sites such as the Aldabra Atoll, one of the world’s most remote ecosystems.

Meanwhile, HANSEATIC inspiration and HANSEATIC spirit will continue their Antarctic operations, offering shorter South Georgia itineraries alongside classic semi-circumnavigation routes to New Zealand.

Both ships will later pivot to warmer regions, with HANSEATIC spirit exploring Indonesia and Western Australia’s Kimberley coast, and HANSEATIC inspiration venturing through the Amazon and the Great Lakes.