Wanted: More cruise ships for summit

//Wanted: More cruise ships for summit

The Italian government has already booked MSC’s cruise ship Fantasia to put up the world leaders attending the G8 summit in July, and now they are looking for more ships to accommodate some of the 25,000 mandarins, aides and media attending the event.
Anxious to avoid the demonstrations and civil unrest which broke out in London today ahead of the G20 meeting, they had arranged to hold their summit on the sparsely populated islands of La Maddalena, off the coast of Sardinia.
Organisers have set a deadline of April 7 for ship operators to come forward, but a similar request last year went unanswered.
They have another problem as well – ferrying Obama, Brown, Putin and the other leaders from the Fantasia to the island where the three days of summit meetings will take place from July 8 to 10.
The ship is only providing accommodation. It is not – as some of those following up my story from 10 days ago mistakenly reported – the venue for the summit itself.
The Maddalena archipelago is made up of seven islands off the northern tip of Sardinia. It is a nature reserve and tourist destination, but has nowhere near enough hotel rooms to accommodate the visitors. The main island has a population of just 13,000, but it does not have a harbour deep enough for a cruise ship.
Most of the 4,500 journalists covering the event will be based at a press centre 30 miles away on Sardinia so they are unlikely to be let loose on a cruise ship.

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:45+00:00 1 April 2009|Cruise News|1 Comment

About the Author:

John Honeywell is a travel writer specialising in cruise ships and cruise travel. Winner of CLIA UK's Contribution to Cruise award 2017.

One Comment

  1. Emily 2 April 2009 at 4:05 pm - Reply

    they should of had the g20 summit on a ship, or anywhere espect london then we wouldnt have to put up with all thes demos and see our police been abused and attacked on tv news

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