Malta's Valletta Cruise Port is expected to welcome Viking Cruises on a number of Mediterranean sailings with Viking Venus and Viking Sea regularly homeporting in the Maltese UNESCO port city during the summer months of 2021.
Both cruise ships are sailing 3 new itineraries roundtrip from the port of Valletta, offered as part of the line’s ‘Welcome Back’ collection for vaccinated passengers.
The new cruises include the 21-day Malta, the Adriatic & Greece, the 11-day Malta & the Adriatic Jewels, and the 11-day Malta & Greek Isles Discovery itineraries.
Despite the pause in cruise operations until August last year, Maltese stakeholders worked on a number of initiatives, with authorities and partners on ‘COVID-19 Cruise Operations Guidelines for a Safe Continuation of Cruising in Valletta’ in order to facilitate operations in the transitional phase. It is due to the collaboration and effort by the Malta International Airport the Health Authorities, the Ministry of Tourism, Malta Tourism Authority, and local agents that the operation can materialize.
Viking Cruises has also partnered with Lufthansa in order to offer charter flights to Malta from Newark Liberty International Airport for turnarounds. The first direct flight started on July 31 aboard Airbus A350.
In June the government eased rules for the arrival of international travellers and currently allows fully vaccinated Americans with CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Cards to arrive in Malta.
Additionally, the U.S. CDC announced it had eased travel recommendations for a total of 110 countries and territories. As part of the recommendations, the Centers ranked Malta as ‘Level 1’ (the lowest for risk of COVID-19).