After jointly conducting cruise ship tours to Taiwan’s outlying islands since late July, Dream Cruises and Lion Travel are cooperating to launch a round-Taiwan cruise next month, the companies said yesterday.
The tours — covering four to six days — are to depart from Keelung and feature stops in Tainan, Penghu County, Kaohsiung and Hualien, with the first trip embarking on Oct. 22.
At a news conference to announce the tours, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the cruises would allow travelers to visit some of the nation’s most spectacular sights without the trouble of arranging transportation and accommodation.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
People could also enjoy views of the nation’s coast from a rare perspective, Lin said.
In July, Taiwan became the first country in the world to restart cruises since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the companies’ first island-hopping tour embarked on July 26.
So far, 12 tours have been completed, taking 18,000 passengers to the nation’s outlying islands of Penghu, Matsu and Kinmen, Lin said.
COVID-19 prevention measures, including regular disinfection of all the ships’ facilities and social distancing, would also be implemented on the cruises, said Liu Hsiao-ning (劉曉寧), vice president of Genting Cruise Lines, Dream Cruises’ holding company.
In related news, budget airline Scoot yesterday announced that it would resume services between Kaohsiung and Singapore, as well as Kaohsiung and Osaka, Japan, with one weekly flight on each route starting on Sept. 19.
The announcement came as the Singaporean carrier gradually resumes its scheduled services after disruption caused by the pandemic, including flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Singapore in July, and flights between Taoyuan and Seoul last month.
Scoot said that the flights from the two Taiwanese cities would also connect passengers to flights to further destinations via Singapore.
To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the company would measure the temperature of all passengers before boarding and require them to wear masks throughout the flights, the company said.
Members of the flight crew would every 20 minutes disinfect onboard lavatories, Scoot said, adding that it would perform extra hygiene measures after each flight.
To comply with international aviation health safety protocols, passengers must submit health reports to the airline prior to boarding, the carrier said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS