MV ORION II Recorded Its Last Arrival Of The Year

Traditional welcoming dance by Sarawak Tourism Board for MV ORION II passengers
held at Pending port. 

KUCHING, Thursday – The last arrival of MV ORION II sailed into Kuching and docked at Sim Kheng Hong Port near Pending this morning, closing its 2013 series of cruises.

The cruise ship arrived at 6:30am this morning on its 10 nights “Faces in the Forest” cruising from Singapore, Anambas, Natuna, Badas Island, Camp Leakey and Benoa (Bali), Kuching and Bako National Park is part of the destination within Borneo Island. In Kuching, the passengers were greeted with a traditional welcoming dance and bead garlanding hosted by Sarawak Tourism Board.

MV ORION II is an expedition cruise ship with a capacity of 100 passengers and 74 crew. Due to its size, it can berth close to shore without requiring a proper terminal or jetty as they transport their guests and expedition leaders with their zodiac boats.

Around 100 tourists onboard the cruise will explore Kuching for various excursion trips such as the Orang Utan in Semenggoh and exploring Kuching city centre. While at dock, the cruise will also organize the Headhunter Theme Party onboard for the passengers that consist tourists from US, Australia, UK, Canada, Indonesia, Germany and New Zealand.

Sarawak hosted a total of 15-cruise ships arrival this year. Sarawak Tourism Board is pushing to get visitor numbers up and according to Maurice Balang, Marketing Manager (Europe & International Market), the Board continues to encourage more and perhaps bigger cruise ships to come next year, which will definitely be a boost to tourist arrivals to Sarawak. According to Maurice, Sarawak received 13,000 tourist arrivals via cruise ships this year, 8,500 more than last year. Indeed, this increase is also a result of the weekly arrival of Superstar Aquarius to Bintulu with a capacity of 1500 passengers at each arrival since November 12.

“Absolutely we want to sustain the cruise ships arrival to Sarawak, but at the same time we need to ensure our creativity on product offering as well as upgrading of our port facilities. Furthermore, we need to take advantage of Hong Kong and Singapore, which has upgraded their international cruise terminal and has resulted in the increase number of cruise operators making Asia as their main hubs. This at the same time has created more routes to Asian regions”, says Maurice while attending the cruise welcoming ceremony this morning.  

After Kuching, the ship will then proceed to Natuna Archipelago before docking at Singapore.

-Sarawak Tourism Board.