• 3 min de lectura
• 3 min de lectura
Mike Pawlus, head of itinerary planning at Azamara Cruises, shared views on shifting deployment in the Mediterranean and how he chooses where to visit.
"My first questions when I sit with a new port or go to a destination for the first time is: Will it help sell the itinerary and, as a guest, will I enjoy it?" Pawlus told Barbara Buczek in a one-to-one interview during the Seatrade Cruise Med 2026 conference in Las Palmas.
Azamara has three of its four ships in the Mediterranean now and for the first time in 2026/27 it will place one ship in the winter for a year-round deployment through to 2029. Viking, Windstar, Silversea, Costa and MSC Cruises are among other lines staying year-round in the Med.
The opportunities for cruising in the region have changed in the past 20 years with the Black Sea, Red Sea and Israel out of the mix, on and off, which constrains planning, Pawlus explained. This means finding new ports and new things to do at ports well visited as more than 50% of Azamara cruisers have sailed with the line before so they're looking to do something different.
"The Med provides a lot of choices and even allows us to do country-intensive itineraries such as seven Croatian ports in 10 days, or eastern Italy from Venice right down the Adriatic and visiting the whole of the boot.
"In Greece we call at 30 ports and they offer such a broad brush of experiences. Take Syros, for example, west of Mykonos. We dock right in the centre and as it's relatively unknown, passengers don't know what to expect."
Having been in the industry for 40 years, Pawlus thought he knew of every port in the world but he admitted to meeting two he had never heard of at Seatrade Cruise Med this week. One is Patra in Greece.
For those ports and others he meets, it's all about talking, information sharing and giving him the time to investigate the possibilities so it may take a long while before the first call happens.
"Anyway, even if I decide to go to a new port of call today, the earliest I could place it in an itinerary is beyond May 2029," Pawlus said.
"It's a gradual process, and not an overnight success. I have met and talked to 50 to 60 ports in the last two days and for new and existing destinations the most important question remains: Will our guests like it here, or want to return here?"
