Princess Cruises is offering a 116-day World Cruise in 2025, traversing over 33,500 nautical miles, visiting 51 destinations in 26 countries and six continents.
Sailing on Island Princess, the itinerary offers two roundtrip options with departures from both Fort Lauderdale, embarking January 5, 2025, and Los Angeles on January 20, 2025.
This world adventure includes visits to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, the Mediterranean, Central America, Africa, Asia and beyond.
It will be the cruise line’s first-ever visit to historic Bar in Montenegro and Taranto, Italy, along with inaugural port calls to the idyllic Greek Island of Patmos and to Volos – for the Monasteries of Meteora.
The 2025 World Cruise will provide access to 27 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the cruise line’s return to Alexandria for Cairo, the pyramids and ancient treasures of Giza, and more.
There will also be an overnight in Dubai, late-night calls to the old town of Cartagena, Casablanca, and Sydney, as well as shore excursion options comprising the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, Malta’s oldest underground temple and necropolis, the District of the Roman Forum in Cartagena, Spain and marvelling at Leonardo da Vinci’s magnificent The Last Supper in Milan, Italy.
For more information, visit Princess Cruises.
His new responsibilities will include the continuation of day-to-day responsibility for planning, implementing, managing, and controlling all financial-related activities of the company, in conjunction with directing and overseeing all aspects of Finance, Group Accounting, Purchasing, Legal and Compliance functions of the organisation.
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Location
Iriomote island in Okinawa, Japan is imposing a cap on visitors in a bid to prevent overtourism as travel returns.
Starting from this month, only 1,200 visitors are permitted to enter the island daily, equating to 33,000 annually. The local government is concerned that a rebound of tourism to pre-pandemic levels would endanger the habit of its rare and indigenous Iriomote cat.
The subtropical destination is Okinawa’s second-largest island but its population of 2,400 is concentrated around its northern and eastern shores as much of the island is covered in subtropical forest.
Its popularity was on the rise pre-pandemic, with 290,000 visitors in 2019. However, the past decade of tourism growth brought a rise in traffic accidents involving Iriomote cats.
In 2020, when the island closed to tourists, no Iriomote cats were killed on the road.
As tourists returned to the island over 2021 to 2022, eight cats were killed and several more injured, according to local government data.
Since Iriomote became part of Japan’s newest UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site (covering Amami-Oshima, Tokunoshima, northern mainland Okinawa and Iriomote) in July 2021, support has been growing to protect the habit of the islands’ rare endemic species, including the Amami rabbit and Iriomote cat.
The cat is classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and is designated a natural monument by the Okinawa government. An estimated 100 adult cats inhabited the island as of 2007, predominantly in its subtropical forests, making Iriomote the smallest habitat of any wild cat species in the world.
The visitor cap is designed to “minimise the effects caused by tourists on nature and the local community,” according to the Okinawan department of environment affairs, which noted that the number of island sites open to guided tours will also be limited.
Although the restrictions are not compulsory, the Okinawan government is urging travel agents to comply with them.