On the Peloponnese shores stands the little seaside town of Katakolon, Greece, an MSC Mediterranean cruises destination. Situated on a headland overlooking the blue Ionian Sea, this charming location boasts a lighthouse, the Agios Nicolaos Church, and musical instruments museum. A short ride away lies the ancient site of Olympia, the extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage Site. 3000 years ago, it hosted Greece’s first Olympic Games in its Panhellenic religious sanctuary.

Port Said is an Egyptian city at the northern end of the Suez Canal, on the Mediterranean Sea. A concrete lighthouse dates from the canal’s opening in 1869. On the waterfront is the former department store Simon Arzt. Now disused, the art deco building offers a glimpse into the past, to when Port Said was a cosmopolitan trading hub.

Port Safaga (Bur Safaga in Arabic), where your MSC cruise ship awaits your return, is a village on the Red Sea coast. The town, whose economy is driven by the nearby phosphate mines, consists of a single windswept avenue running straight on, past concrete boxes with bold signs proclaiming their function. Silos and cranes identify the port, which runs alongside (but remains out of bounds) for most of this distance. However, inland from Port Safaga, a shore excursion on your MSC Grand Voyages cruise can be the opportunity to discover Luxor and the overwhelming concentration of relics in the area. A tourist mecca ever since Nile steamers began calling in the nineteenth century, visitors come to view the remains of Thebes, Ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom capital, and its associated sites. The town itself boasts Luxor Temple, a graceful ornament to its waterfront and “downtown”, while a mile or so north is Karnak Temple, a stupendous complex built over 1,300 years. Across the river are the amazing tombs and mortuary temples of the Theban Necropolis, an attraction not to be missed on your holiday in Egypt.

When you disembark from your MSC cruise in Aqaba, you can enjoy its idyllic, sunny setting on the shores of the Red Sea, at the country’s southernmost tip. From something of a dowdy backwater, in the last decade or so Aqaba has transformed itself into a pleasant, if still under-resourced, leisure destination. Hotels at all grades are springing up in the town as well as at luxury waterfront developments up and down the coast; investment is coming in to improve the city’s infrastructure and facilities. Some of the best diving and snorkellingin theworld is centred on the unspoiled coral reefs that hug the coast just south of the town – an engaging contrast with the nearby desert attractions of Petra and Wadi Rum. The city centre forms a dense network of streets and alleys clustered just behind the beach road (called the “Corniche”). A shore excursion on your MSC Grand Voyages cruise can also be the opportunity to discover Petra. Tucked away in a remote valley basin in the heart of southern Jordan’s Shara mountains and shielded from the outside world behind an impenetrable barrier of rock, Petra remains wreathed in mystery. Since a Western adventurer stumbled on the site in 1812, it has fired imaginations, its grandeur and dramatic setting pushing it – like the Pyramids or the Taj Mahal – into the realms of legend. Today, it’s almost as if time has literally drawn a veil over the once-great city, which grew wealthy enough on the caravan trade to challenge the might of Rome: two millennia of wind and rain have blurred the sharp edges of its ornate classical facades and rubbed away at its soft sandstone to expose vivid bands of colour beneath, putting the whole scene into soft focus.

Port of Victoria, is located in Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar. Port-Victoria has no fixed handling equipment. Ships are handled through ship‘s gear by the private stevedores.

A holiday in the Mauritius with an MSC cruise means disembarking at Port Louis. It is the capital of this island nation off the cost of Madagascar, which together with its twin Réunion, represents a must-see stop for an MSC cruise to Southern Africa. Port Louis has taken its role as the country’s first city seriously and has expanded over time with new streets, buildings and a beautiful promenade. After our cruise ship has docked, you will be able to take a stroll along the Caudan Waterfront, lined with some old cannons and numerous shops. Traces of Port Luis’s colonial past can be seen on Place D’Armes, where the statue of Bertrand François Mahé, the count of La Bourdonnais and a former governor of the island, observes passers-by surrounded by palm trees. A short distance away, stands the Government House. Dating from 1738, it is shaped like a horseshoe and protected by an iron fence guarded by the statue of a grave-looking Queen Victoria. In the same neighbourhood, there are also the central market and the city park, the Jardins de la Compagnie. However, it is a former property of the Count de La Bourdonnais to house an even more spectacular garden, the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden. An MSC excursion to this garden should not be missed for any reason on earth. This garden is almost three hundred years old. Over the centuries, it has been lovingly tended by expert gardeners, who have slowly enriched it with plant species from three different continents, Asia, Africa and Oceania. If you prefer the sea to vegetation, another highly recommended MSC excursion will allow you to pass a day on the other side of Mauritius, on the splendid beaches of Ile aux Cerfs (so called because of the deer imported here for hunting).

A holiday in the Mauritius with an MSC cruise means disembarking at Port Louis. It is the capital of this island nation off the cost of Madagascar, which together with its twin Réunion, represents a must-see stop for an MSC cruise to Southern Africa. Port Louis has taken its role as the country’s first city seriously and has expanded over time with new streets, buildings and a beautiful promenade. After our cruise ship has docked, you will be able to take a stroll along the Caudan Waterfront, lined with some old cannons and numerous shops. Traces of Port Luis’s colonial past can be seen on Place D’Armes, where the statue of Bertrand François Mahé, the count of La Bourdonnais and a former governor of the island, observes passers-by surrounded by palm trees. A short distance away, stands the Government House. Dating from 1738, it is shaped like a horseshoe and protected by an iron fence guarded by the statue of a grave-looking Queen Victoria. In the same neighbourhood, there are also the central market and the city park, the Jardins de la Compagnie. However, it is a former property of the Count de La Bourdonnais to house an even more spectacular garden, the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden. An MSC excursion to this garden should not be missed for any reason on earth. This garden is almost three hundred years old. Over the centuries, it has been lovingly tended by expert gardeners, who have slowly enriched it with plant species from three different continents, Asia, Africa and Oceania. If you prefer the sea to vegetation, another highly recommended MSC excursion will allow you to pass a day on the other side of Mauritius, on the splendid beaches of Ile aux Cerfs (so called because of the deer imported here for hunting).

Cruise ships rarely visit the port of La Possession, on the splendid Punta des Galets. This makes it one of the most unique stops of an MSC cruise to Southern Africa. As soon as you disembark, you can head off on an excursion to the so-called Circus of Salazie, the remains of an enormous volcanic caldera located a few kilometres from La Possession. Instead of geysers of lava, extinguished centuries ago, you will find an explosion of life, where marvels of nature live side by side with small towns scattered throughout a lush forest. The view you will enjoy as you ascend along the windy road is indescribable. However, not all of the fire has gone out. In the Piton de la Fournaise, you can still admire two active volcano craters, the Dolomieu and the Bory, which filled with lava in 2007. During your holiday with MSC Cruises, another excursion offered by MSC will introduce you to Saint-Denis and its impressive examples of Creole architecture. Its houses, a product of the woodworking skills of the local boat builders going back to the 1800s, stand side by side with the bold architectural works of the 20th century. In Saint-Denis, the Central Post Office, which is reminiscent of some Algerian cities, and the unique building housing the Department of Agriculture and Forestry are worth a visit; both were designed by Jean Bossu, a student of Le Corbusier. Don’t miss out on the markets of Saint-Denis, where you will be able to find spices, vegetables, fruit, flowers, the famous smoked meat boucané and a wide variety of local craftworks, such as vases, baskets and pestles for preparing the rougail, a condiment served with cari, a dish typical of the island.

When you alight from your MSC cruise in Durban – South Africa’s third-largest city and the continent’s largest port – you will be captured by its tropical colours and holidaying people. A shore excursion on your MSC South Africa cruise can be the opportunity to discover Durban’s second-largest ethnic group, its Indian population, whose mosques, bazaars and temples are juxtaposed with the Victorian buildings of the colonial centre. The pulsing warren of bazaars, alleyways and mosques that makes up the Indian area around Dr Yusuf Dadoo Street is ripe for exploration, and there are some excellent restaurants around Durban’s photogenic harbour area. Durban’s city centre grew around the arrival point of the first white settlers, and the remains of the historical heart are concentrated around Francis Farewell Square. Durban’s expansive beachfront on the eastern edge of the centre has one of the city’s busiest concentrations of restaurants, a surfeit of tacky family entertainment. Durban’s beachfront, a high-energy holiday strip just east of the centre, is South Africa’s most developed seaside. MSC South Africa cruises also offer excursions to the 6km-stretch of the beach from the Umgeni River in the north to the Point in the south, traditionally called the Golden Mile. The big draw of Addington Beach – and the only really worthwhile attraction along the beachfront – is instead uShaka Marine World. This impressive water adventure wonderland is a tropical African theme park, complete with palm trees, fake rock formations and thatched bomas. The most appealing section is uShaka Sea World, designed in and around a superb mock-up of a wrecked 1920s cargo ship. The complex also includes a dolphin stadium and a seal pool, where daily shows (three a day) feature these creatures, as well as uShaka Wet ’n Wild, a series of pools and water slides, including The Drop Zone, the highest water slide in Africa.