Once a fortnight ?, you obviously have never been to Malaga port.

My post was specifically addressed to the input that RCCL ships using the port would have on the local economy. I'm aware that Malaga is a busy port, so as I stated in my original post, RCCL using the port is not likely to alter the local financial situation greatly..........

Their ships use the port every week apart from Nov and Dec which are fortnight trips.
I really can`t believe they ship their goods from the US every few days to stock up the ships, must be cheaper in Spain.

AFAIK Royal Caribbean has one ship malaga based throughout the summer. It does a weekly turnaround Málaga to málaga. Therefore I would think that a major part of it's provisions to feed 3000+ pax. would have to be sourced locally. Surely better than if it were to be based in Italy wherever. I know it is not going to turn around the economy on it's own but it is better than the year before when it didn't do this route. As someone pointed out, many will overnight in hotels too. Come on someone....help me out. Being bleeding positive is hard work

You're doing quite nicely on your own Jacky.

Sorry I can't help you out, it's quite a while since I was down in that there deep south redneck country, though I do hear there are now some signs of civilisation in one or two of the coastal regions.

It's bound to put money into the economy....think of all those tourist souvenirs that the passengers are going to buy, maybe a fan and a Spanish doll (do they still do those) and they are bound to take home some Malaga wine, olives and olive oil too!

That's the best I can do Jacky, not much but it's positive.

Do you just make this stuff up, or do you have a source for your misinformation ?

According to the RCCL website, the only ship using Malaga as a base will be "Adventure of the Seas", she will arrive on the 28 April and seems to leave the Med on the 20th Oct. My apologies for not being inclined to research the ships entire itinerary. She has to leave in October you see, otherwise the crew would be almost fully employed in stacking and un-stacking almost 3,000 deck loungers every night and morning

"I really can`t believe they ship their goods from the US every few days to stock up the ships, must be cheaper in Spain"

That's because they don't send every few days and for RCCL it's much more expensive in Spain

U.S. goods are exported on U.S. container ships to holding areas in Europe. They are then held there until required by the ships working the European sector and delivered to the ships on a container by container basis and almost always at the ships 'home port'. Now provisioning wasn't my Division, but I've had to sit-in in enough meeting to have a fairly good grasp of what is involved.

When the containers leave the U.S. they are treated as "Export" and so escape many U.S. taxes. When they arrive in Europe the customs seal on the container remains intact until it's broken at the quayside. As these goods are only in transit, they also escape tax in Europe.

As a bonus, RCCL gets to pay it's American suppliers in 'good'old' U.S green-backs. The currency of America and the currency of RCCL ships. This ensures that the company escapes the dreaded $U.S./ Euro conversion on the goods.

Hope this helps

Spain doesn't seem to get it, it's producing all manner of vanity projects, and whilst we have people here that will defend it, reading the posts in this article today, the Spanish themselves are clearly fed up with it. Lots of talks of bribes, bankhanders etc.
http://www.20minutos.tv/video/jkmost...-fracasados/0/

Why the easy anti-US shot?
What's in for them, to deliberately annoy the large Hispanic US population?
Do you really think a multi-dollar, multi-national company thinks "let's downgrade Spain for a wheeze"?

Have you got me on ignore. It`s gotta be local supplies, they would need a bloody big fast ship to bring it from the US, whatever is the guy thinking.

So why don`t they downgrade the uk, per person they owe three times as much as Spain ?

Cos they know what decent,honest,trustworthy citizens we all are.

Its all down to probability of being able to service the debt,not the size of the debt.
If I owe 3 times as much as you on a credit card,but I got a job and you lose yours. Who do you think the credit card people are going to worry most about?

You may be right, but I think it`s more likely the yanks need to have a better grip on the pound to help their dollar than they do the euro.

We could both be right. International finance is all smoke and mirrors.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...ing-trick.html