The tourist routes between the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center and the Qingdao Cruise Home Port was recently open to navigation. As Qingdao’s first marine tourism and sightseeing route featuring “multi-destination itinerary”, the route incorporates for the first time the old urban area in west Qingdao into the marine sightseeing network, marking that Qingdao’s west sea route, which starts at the Olympic Sailing Center, has fully opened to traffic.

The route between the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center and the Cruise Home Port is among the 12 key routes that Qingdao plans to build elaborately. Departing every Sunday from the Olympic Sailing Center at 16:30 and from the Cruise Home Port at 17:50, the route takes about one hour in a single journey. In the voyage, tourist ships pass by many landmarks in the city, including Fushan Bay, Eight Great Passes, Little Qingdao, Zhanqiao Pier, Badaxia and Tuandao. The route connects the Undersea World terminal, the Ferry Terminal and the Cruise Home Port and stops at the Undersea World, enabling the sort of marine tourism and sightseeing featuring “multi-destination itinerary”.

Qingdao’s first youth-oriented “Marine Bus” route will focus on candle music, launch the utterly new “enjoying the sunset on the sea” according to sunset hours in different seasons, combine together music, dance, architecture, nature, art and other cultural elements, integrate delicious food, seascape and fabulous sunset, dig out new highlights and attractions of marine tourism in Qingdao and work to offer tourists immersive sightseeing in both auditory and visual senses.

Before the route opened up navigation, it is reported that Qingdao has put into operation as many as eight core routes from the Olympic Sailing Center to the Undersea World, the Cruise Home Port, Cross Fushan Bay, Three Bays, Qingdao, and from Ferry Terminal to Huangdao Ferry Terminal, etc. The four routes, namely Badaxia-Zhanqiao Pier, Olympic Sailing Center-Little Qingdao, Olympic Sailing Center-Lingshan Island and Olympic Sailing Center-Polar West, are under fast planning. In the future, the 12 sea routes will link up coastal scenic spots across the districts or county-level cities including Shinan, Shibei, Laoshan and West Coast New Area to present the cityscape from the sea.  (Ma Xiaoting)

1.The route between the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center and the Cruise Home Port opens up navigation.  By Wang Lei

2. Overlook the May Fourth Square from the sea.  By Wang Lei