Cruise lines offering new destinations

Throw a dart at a map of the world and you're likely to hit a country where a cruise ship visits.

Even a cursory review of an atlas of cruise line itineraries indicates no stone unturned in the quest for new ports of call, or in uncovering unique activities ashore once you arrive.

On shore in the Baltic city of Klaipeda, Lithuania's third largest metropolis and cruise ship port, on a Regent Seven Seas cruise, for instance, and you could opt to descend into 88.5-foot-deep corridors, mine shafts and underground tunnels of a former Soviet nuclear missile site.

For the less fainthearted, a Norwegian Cruise Line voyage to the Nordic lands lets you see what the Lonely Planet guidebook calls some of the most spectacular scenery in the world in Geiranger, a small tourist town nestled in the mountains in the western part of Norway.

Even the Mediterranean holds some surprises. Hop aboard NCL's Norwegian Jade for a 13-day Med cruise and you'll visit at least one less traveled port, Ceuta, a former Phoenician colony and now a Spanish enclave, once alternately held by Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines and Arabs. The historic city is located in northern Morocco at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar and on a peninsula whose promontory forms one of the mythic Pillars of Hercules.

Other big names in cruising also are seeking new turf. This year, for example, Holland America Line adds nine new maiden port calls to its list of 57 distinct itineraries that could comprise a geography lesson for the unitiated: Lulea, Hudiksvall and Karlskrona, Sweden; Aalborg, Denmark; Newcastle upon Tyne and Barrow in Furness, England; Santander, Spain; Portimao, Portugal; and Split, Croatia.

Book voyages on either of SeaDream Yacht Clubs' two luxury 55-stateroom vessels and your choices include a baker's dozen of European ports mostly off limits to bigger vessels and mainstream cruise ships. These include Mahdia, Yasmine Marina (Tunisia), Trapani, Porto Empedocles, Volcano Island (Sicily), Ponza (Italy), Porto Banus, La Gomera Island (Spain), Saint Florent (Corsica), Pythagoreion (Greek Isles), Nassabur (Bulgaria) and Setubal and Cascais (Portugal).

Even if you snub your nose at cruises in the Caribbean because you've been there done that, SeaDream unlocks new territory. Among the luxury line's new Caribbean options are a host of unfamiliar names, including Egg Island (Bahamas), Cockburn Town (Turks and Caicos), Samana (Dominican Republic), Peter Island (British Virgin Islands) and Trois Ilets (Martinique).

If you want to bypass the well-trodden Canadian and Alaska wilderness sites visited by most lines, you can still find deviations from the same ol' same ol' in the region. Just plan a trip with relatively little known Maple Leaf Adventures and you'll cruise along snowcapped fjords on a 92-foot schooner as well as trek the Great Bear Rain forest on British Columbia's central coast. That's where bears come to the water's edge to eat sedges, crabs and barnacles.

Perhaps the most surprising news in the name-brand department comes from Costa Cruises, which last year, according to the company, became the first major cruise line to offer Indian Ocean cruises departing from Mauritius. The itinerary swept out by the Costa Marina, features two-day stopovers in Mauritius and Mahe (Seychelles), and one-day calls at Mombasa (Kenya), Mayotte, Nosy Be (Madagascar), Toamasina (Madagascar) and Reunion.

So go ahead and pick up that dart, toss it, and plan your next sailing.

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