The Port of Funchal will be full for a few hours today. It already happens at this time, in fact, since in addition to the ‘AIDAmar’ that stayed overnight, the cruise port has just seen the arrival and docking of the ‘Eurodam’ and the ‘Artania’.
The truth is that this Friday, these three ships have the capacity to transport, together, more than 6,000 passengers, served by crews that amount to more than 2,000 elements. In other words, potentially we would be talking in a context of normality, in more than 8,000 people visiting the city and the island for a few hours (although not everyone chooses or can leave the ship).
However, we are still living in pandemic times and the example of this is the ‘AIDAmar’ which, despite being able to receive up to 2,686 passengers and served by 620 crew, came to Madeira with less than half of the tourists (1,125) although with almost all of the crew members (616). Leaves today at 4 pm for Tenerife.
Both the ‘Eurodam’ and the ‘Artania’, which arrived at 7:00 am and occupied the remaining spaces on Pontinha, have less ‘cargo’ capacity, but they are still outstanding ships. One leaves at 8 pm for Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, and the other leaves a little earlier, at 4 pm, towards Ljmuiden, a Dutch coastal town.