Celestyal Extends its 2018 Sailing Season

Celestyal Cruises will extend its 2018 season through early November as part of a continued effort to eventually become a year-round cruise operator.

The company just announced that it will be adding two additional Iconic Aegean three-day cruises departing in November, as well as two more Iconic Aegean four-day cruises, one departing in October and another in November.

The cruise company also announced last month that it would extend its season to 10 months in 2018, according to Cruise Critic, and also add overnight stays on Mykonos and Santorini, which is a first for the company.

In order to create the 10 month sailing season, Celestyal will begin sailing as early as February.

“We’re going to start by extending the season by a couple of weeks on either side, so by 2019/20 we will be sailing year-round,” Kyriakos Anastassiadis, CEO of Celestyal Cruises said, according to Cruise Critic.

The line’s expansion will also likely including adding ports in the southern Mediterranean, such as Cyprus or the Holy Land, Anastassiadis said.

The overnight experiences in Mykonos and Santorini will be offered as part of new seven-night “Idyllic Aegean” itineraries aboard the line’s Celestyal Crystal ship.

READ MORE: Must-have Cuba Experiences Aboard Celestyal Cruises

“Mykonos and Santorini really come alive at night so it makes perfect sense to spend the night in those places,” Anastassiadis told CruiseCritic. “Passengers were asking for this, and if you think about it, it’s amazing value – even if you can find somewhere to stay in either of those places in high season, you’re looking at hundreds of euros a night.”

Additional news from Celestyal includes that the line will continue to visit Turkey in the coming year. However, it will no longer visit Cesme. It will limit its Turkey stops to Kusadasi so that travelers can visit the famed, historic site of Ephesus.

Finally, for those who are fans of the UK show “Cruising with Jane McDonald,” which filmed aboard the Celestyal Crystal this year while it visited Cuba, the good news is the show will be back aboard next year. There are tentative plans for McDonald to film aboard a seven-night Aegean cruise aboard Crystal in May.

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