Norwegian Star dazzles on arrival at Invergordon as cruise line season enters final week
The Norwegian Star berthed at Invergordon yesterday, having set out on Sunday from Southampton and paid a visit to Leith en route.
The visit comes towards the tail end of a busy season for Invergordon. It’s expected that a total of 118 cruise ships will have called at the port in the 2024 season.
While that is down from the 129 which visited in 2023, the Highland tourist economy is not expected to feel any ill effects as the vessels had a higher average number of passengers aboard.
Monster liner towers over Invergordon - pictures
The 23-year-old vessel was built in Papenburg, Germany at a cost of around £300 million.
The 294-metre long, 14-decker is a sister ship of Norwegian Dawn and weighs in at 91,000 tons with space for around 2298 guests and more than 1000 crew. One of the Norwegian Cruise Line’s mid-size ships, she was refurbished in 2021.
Norwegian Star is currently on an 11-day cruise taking in the British Isles, Holland Belgium and France.
She departed from Southampton on Sunday and will be paying visits to Belfast, Liverpool, Zeebruge and Le Havre before returning to Southampton on October 10.
The cruise line season which started at the beginning of April is now drawing to a close in Invergordon with the last visit expected to be the AIDAsol on October 9.
While there are fewer vessels visiting Invergordon this season, the larger ship size means that the 221,000 passengers who were reported to have visited in 2023 are likely to be surpassed this year – with Port of Cromarty Firth earlier predicting a total of roughly 230,000 tourists this time round.
