Luxury Cruising to be back in Kochi from October

KOCHI: Cruise tourism is back in Kochi with Chennai-based Amet Cruises launching its operations from next month. Amet’s cruise vessel mv Amet Majesty reached the Cochin Port on Wednesday for conducting services out of Kochi.The vessel is set for its first sail on October 7. The ship will conduct services from Kochi for three months starting from October. Every week, the mv Amet Majesty will sail from Kochi to the Maldives (four nights), to Lakshadweep (two nights) and also operate one high-sea trip during weekends. The high seas service starts at 8 pm every Saturday and come back by Sunday noon.Amet Majesty has a dance floor, disco casinos, show-lounge bars, swimming pool, barbeque, conference room and kids zone. The cruise also has an event floor for business meets, seminars, trade shows, anniversaries and social gatherings. Though the vessel has a carrying capacity of 1000, we have restricted it to 600 now. Apart from the cabin, the ship has 252 staterooms,  said P Suresh, Amet Cruise’s Port liaison officer in Kochi. “Though the company has not announced the launching offer yet, we expect the offers within the next three days. The normal charge is Rs 4,500 per night, plus taxes,” said Masood, director of the Great India Tour Company, which is the passenger sales associate of Amet Cruises in South India. Though Cyprus-based Louise Cruises had started services from the Cochin Port in 2009, they stopped operations citing high port charges. Louis Cruise’s MV Aquamarine was conducting three services - Kochi-Colombo-Kochi, Kochi-Maldives-Kochi and the one-night Kochi High Sea - in a week. The vessel started service on December 1, 2009  and wound up by the end of January 2010.