A leading cruise ship company had its maiden stop at Dublin Port, today carrying almost 2,000 passengers.
The berthing of the MSC Lirica this morning is one of two calls by MSC to Dublin Port this year.
The 250 metre €200 million cruise liner was escorted into Dublin by tugboats Beaufort and Shackleton into the narrow cruise ship berth early this morning.
Passengers were mainly from Germany, Austria, Spain France and Italy and are on an 11 day cruise which includes Amsterdam, Hamburg, Invergordon and Stornoway in Scotland.
Some 800 of the passengers took organised tours around the city today with hundreds more going into the city for shopping and sight seeing.
Some stayed on board the ship which has an on-board shopping mall, a cinema, a theatre, restaurants, swimming pools and a health spa.
The cruise liner left Dublin after an eight hour stop to arrive in Cork tomorrow. It returns to Dublin Port on August 25th. Next May will see the arrival of MSC's even larger MSC Magnifica cruise ship which is 294 metres long and cost €440 million.
Dublin Port estimates that some 90 crusie liners arriving in the city generate €35 and €50 million for the local economy and bring over 100,000 high spend passengers and crew to the locality
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