Saudi-backed newcomer Aroya Cruises has just closed its second summer season in the Mediterranean with a stat worth noting: more than 100 different nationalities sailed on its flagship, the Aroya, between June and September.
The line says demand came from an unusually broad mix — travellers from CIS countries, Turkey, Egypt, the Gulf and the wider Middle East sailed alongside Germans and Brits. For a young brand that launched largely to serve the Saudi domestic cruise market, that kind of international pull is a genuine milestone.
The season itself was a run of seven-night round trips from early June, hitting some of the eastern Med's most photogenic stops: Bodrum, Marmaris and Kas on the Turkish coast, Piraeus, Mykonos, Rhodes and Souda Bay in Greece, plus Alexandria in Egypt. It's an itinerary that packs three countries into a single week — handy if you like variety without long flight connections between destinations.
Before leaving the region, the 150,000-ton ship took a detour into unusual territory: it moored at the Taranto Naval Base in Italy as a floating hotel for the 20th Mediterranean Games, held from late August to 3 September 2026. Alongside the cruise-ferry Romantika, it housed around 3,500 athletes from 26 nations as an Athletes' Village. Aroya is clearly keen to make more of this side of the business, positioning the ship for large group and charter operations.
The Med season ended earlier this month, and the ship is now working its way to a fall programme in the Red Sea. The repositioning cruise from Jeddah to Istanbul doubled as a proper itinerary in its own right, calling at Bodrum, Marmaris and Sharm El Sheikh. From here, the Aroya sails from its Jeddah homeport, then heads back to the Mediterranean in October for the company's first-ever winter season in the region, running between Istanbul and Alexandria.
Looking further ahead, Aroya has announced new itineraries from Istanbul beginning in May 2027 — including 14-night sailings through the Western Mediterranean and the Adriatic. That's a step up in ambition from the current week-long format and puts the line in direct competition with the established European cruise majors.
So who should care? If you're based in the Gulf or the Middle East and want a cruise product with familiar touches, Aroya is one of the few options sailing both your home region and Europe. And if you're a Med-bound cruise traveller, the Istanbul and Alexandria rotations offer a slightly different flavour of itinerary than the usual Barcelona-Rome circuit — with winter sailings now on the table for the first time. The 2017-built ship is big (about 150,000 tons), so expect plenty of onboard facilities rather than a boutique experience. Worth watching as the brand expands; more choice in the eastern Med is never bad news for travellers.
