Four Calling Ports Trivia Quiz

Answer: Santa Clara, Cuba

Cozumel is famous for its scuba diving. Found on the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, it's a resort destination south of Cancun and one of the easternmost points in Mexico.
Montego Bay, one of Jamaica's largest port cities, is found on the northern coast of the small island nation and is primarily used for tourism and (go figure) cruise lines.
San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, is another major tourist destination on top of being home to a significant population (more than the capitals of many U.S. states). Its cruise ships are docked near the Old Town district. While a Caribbean island, San Juan is on the Atlantic side.

Santa Clara, Cuba, the fifth-largest city in the country, is nowhere near the coast; it's actually one of the most centrally-located cities in Cuba, fifty miles away from the Atlantic to the north. Your cruise liner isn't going to stop there.

Answer: Bergen

Bergen, found on Norway's western coast, is a northerly spot to go on your vacation, but to each their own. Norway-- and Scandinavia as a whole-- is a beautiful place to adventure. Bergen is five hundred kilometers west from Oslo and, on the North Atlantic, is far from your expected tropical setting for a cruise liner.

Malmo and Gothenburg are both port cities in Sweden and would not be suitable for this Norwegian stop on the cruise. Neither would Rotterdam though-- it's in the Netherlands, and not really anywhere near Scandinavia (which many would insist includes Norway and Sweden, though possibly also Finland and Denmark).

Answer: Can Tho, Vietnam

The Mekong River, one of Asia's longest waterways, emerges in the South China Sea flowing out of Vietnam, passing through Cambodia, Laos, and China. Making up the Thai/Laotian border for a large stretch, the river inevitably makes its way into Yunnan Province, China, becoming the Lancang River. If you're in the Mekong Delta, you're likely in Southern Vietnam, and while you wouldn't be able to reach it in Ho Chi Minh City, you could find it as close as Cai Be on the outskirts of the metropolitan area.

Hanoi would be way too far north in Vietnam to be a stop, Shanghai is right out, and Siem Reap, while close to your target, never hits the Mekong. You would, however, be able to visit Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Vientiane, Laos if you headed far enough upriver.

Answer: Algiers, Algeria

While not as tropical as one would expect, it being on the Mediterranean, Algiers is the only real option that makes sense of the ports of call for this cruise since Odessa, Istanbul, and Yalta are all situated around the Black Sea (another unique cruise destination in its own right. Istanbul would likely be the closest of the three, but it sits on the Bosporus Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara-- not the Mediterranean or its embayments (though the latter actually connects to the Aegean Sea).

Algiers is the capital city of Algeria, and like many other Northern African capitals, situates itself on the water for the sake of trade. Other Northern African capitals on the Mediterranean include Tunis and Tripoli.

Answer: Port Louis, Mauritius

Tahiti and the island chain of Bora Bora are both part of French Polynesia while Samoa is an independent nation situated in the western portion of this large collective. The Polynesian region actually stretches thousands of miles from Hawaii to New Zealand, taking in numerous destinations.

Mauritius is not one of them, though it's an interesting location in its own right. Found east off the coast of Madagascar, it's a small island nation in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Home to a rich history involving both the French and the British, its tropical archipelago would be ideal for some sunbathing.

Answer: Fremantle, Australia

Fremantle, Australia is indeed the only option to sit on the Indian Ocean which stretches from Africa to Australia and encompasses most of Southern Asia and the coast of the Middle East. While you'd be likely to find numerous ports of call in the area from Dar Es Salaam to Kuwait City to Mumbai to Phuket, you would also be able to find interesting ports on the islands if Madagascar, Comoros, and Reunion (amongst others).

While Cape Town in South Africa is the closest port of those provided otherwise, the Indian Ocean becomes the Atlantic when crossing Cape Agulhas on the southern tip of Africa, and Cape Town is west of that. Santiago, Chile is right out, while Manila is in the South China Sea.

Answer: Willemstad, Curacao

Found just north of the northern coast of South America, Curacao is a very interesting, small island and the former home of the Netherland Antilles' capital, Willemstad, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Influenced highly by the Dutch, the city contains structures which would likely be more at home in Amsterdam than the rest of the Caribbean and is known for its casinos and beaches.

While the other cities given in this question are in Latin America, none of them are part of the Netherland Antilles chain with Paramaribo being part of South America and Santo Domingo and Port-Au-Prince being on Hispaniola, further northwest.

Answer: Dunedin, New Zealand

All three other cities/towns in the list are completely landlocked, and reaching them by cruise ship would likely be impossible as a result. Only Dunedin, found on the southeastern coast of New Zealand's South Island, would be a suitable port of call from which to embark. Most major Australian and New Zealand cities are port cities simply due to their natures-- Australia's population situates itself around the edges of its large island nation (partly because of the Outback) and both countries require ports for trade and commerce.

Alice Springs and Broken Hill are both Outback towns, the former being near the center of the country and the latter being a mining hub. Rotorua is in the center of New Zealand's North Island and links tourists to the geothermal springs found nearby.

Answer: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The World seemed to be a flagrant excuse to spend money from the get-go, but it's one of the most interesting additions to the Dubai waterfront. It, along with the Palm Jumeirah, was created to be a series of three hundred artificial islands formed to create an image of a world map (much like the Palm's appearance of a palm tree). While construction began in 2003, it took ten years before any islands in the group were occupied, and only one-- Lebanon.

The image taken is from the higher floors of the Burj Dubai. While Abu Dhabi and Muscat are on the same sea, neither are close to 'The World'. Haifa is much further away on the Bay of Haifa (on the Mediterranean).

Answer: Luxor

The Nile starts far south of Egypt, in South Sudan, and continues to flow northward into the South Mediterranean, past Cairo and out at Rasheed. Nonetheless, a cruise along it will take you past some of Egypt's most famous tourist destinations including Cairo, Luxor, Abu Simbel, and Aswan. Most of these were built thousands of years ago along the banks of the Nile due to the river's importance in sustaining the locals' lives and economies.

Sharm-El-Sheikh is close to the Israeli border, Alexandria, while on the Mediterranean coast, is west of the Nile, and Mecca is in Saudi Arabia-- nowhere near the Nile.