These 17 Ports Are About To Ruin Your Cruise Plans

It feels to me like the world is getting smaller for cruise passengers. I keep seeing reports of yet another port banning, reducing how many ships or the size of ships that can call there. And even in ports without cruise restrictions, more locals seem to be protesting about cruise passengers being there once we get off the ship. As the news of these developments tends to be sporadic and not many are aware of the total picture, I decided to pull together what's happening so you can consider these when planning your upcoming and future cruises.

For bonus & exclusive content (including videos, articles, eBooks and more) become a channel member or patron:
---------------------------------------------------

Check out my cruise-themed T-shirts and products:
---------------------------------------------------

My social media:
---------------------------------------------------

ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS: If you want to get cruising right, Tips For Travellers makes it easy to plan and have the incredible cruise experiences you dream of every time. All my Tips For Travellers advice, tips and tricks tips draw on everything that I have learnt on the 101 cruises I have done to date.

#cruisetips #CruisingTips #CruiseTipsAndTricks

00:00 Start
00:44 Mediterranean Ports
05:26 Norway Ports
06:37 Northern Europe Ports
07:46 Iceland Ports
08:18 Alaska Ports
09:56 USA Ports
10:27 Caribbean Ports
11:15 French Polynesian Ports

[davis]

As someone who lives in a tourist area, I think Airbnb is a bigger issue than day tourists. Many of the homes and apartments in my area are now just Airbnbs. That makes it much harder for locals to buy or rent a place to live, and ruins the character of our neighborhoods. Day tourists spend money and go home - a good thing for our local economy.

[ronswinford]

Cruise companies went all in on the mega ship idea to cram more people on, now they are finding out not everyplace wants 4, 000 from one ship invading the town for a day.

[cristelvideo]

The backlash is not surprising. I remember visiting Santorini with five ships in port, - somewhere in the region of 20, 000+ visitors. It was total gridlock, Nobody moving quickly anywhere.
The megaships have killed the cruising golden goose.

[robertbonanno]

I do not blame them one bit. The cruise ships are getting too big. Two mega-ships in a port can really swamp the locals. The solution is to Bring back smaller ships.

[wendydee]

I agree with Venice banning ships. Having stayed in Venice many times over 40 years, seeing the enormous ships being towed down the Giudecca was frightening. And Venice is absolutely tiny, as a city.

[pengwinz]

Its good to limit it honestly. It has been ridiculous trying to visit somewhere overrun by cruise ships, and the people are no longer friendly.

[bobbiechristensen]

How ironic that the cruise lines keep building bigger ships with more passengers when the ports have started limiting the size of ships and the number of passengers/tourists per day.

[martinmcc.]

The cruise industry needs this wake up call. Stop concentrating on increasing ship size, and start thinking about a quality experience for paying customers. Yes, this includes Ports of Call that aren't uncomfortably crowded and unreceptive to cruise travellers.

[dmthRanger]

The cruise lines caused this problem by building thesemega ships.

[mmeolenska]

As an example, Old Dubrovnik & Kotor are each a mile or so square. They can’t handle 6-8K people dropping in for 5 hrs. Dubrovnik has 3 rubber ducky stores but no hardware store & only a couple of small groceries. It is in danger of losing its World Heritage status because of the daily influx of tourists, primarily cruisers. AirBnB is a different issue. They don’t pay hotel taxes, and more importantly, have reduced available housing all around the world making it more expensive for locals not only to rent but to buy a home.

[juliagrant]

As someone that lives near one of the small cruise ports, I welcome the restrictions. The mega ships bring in way too many people, while most are polite, we are seeing more and more entitled jerks. We live here for a reason, and while we welcome tourists and visitors, we cannot handle 3-5 cruise ships at a time. We don't have the infrastructure or space.

[KarenKaiser]

This was an essential summary of the current and near-term restrictions in various ports. Thanks for posting this.

[amelitadolorico]

A month ago I was in beautiful Flam in Norway . I had been there before the pandemic and it was gorgeous. Imagine my dismay to arrive in Flam by train and to see a gigantic cruise ship dwarfing this beautiful town. You could hardly see Flam because the ship just dwarfed it. I can understand why ports are banning these behemoths.

[karenenea]

Mega ships are ruining it for all of us. Those huge ships should just ‘cruise’ around and let their passengers partake of all the amusements and activities onboard.

[farab]

Cruise-lines only have themselves to blame. In 2023 I went on a cruise in the Mediterranean. One port was Santorini. On the same morning 3 other ships also arrived there. So, 4 large cruise ship, dumping thousands of people on the small area of Santorini. We didn’t even bother getting off, just enjoying the view from the ship.

[patricec.]

the big problem with cruises is that everything is done so that cruisers spend only on board the ship and not in the port of call, so it's normal that no one is interested in tourists who leave only a few bucks a day in a city that's suffocating with tourists.

[pilotg]

As a Pilot working in a cruise port, I can tell you that the cruise companies have only themselves to blame for some of the local resistance. In my port, to get from the ship to the main city the cruise companies were charging passengers $30 pp on their buses. If the passengers walked to the local bus stop, they could get a local City bus for $2. Of course, word spread via social media. Within a week of the first ships arriving at the restart after Covid, the local buses were completely full of cruise passengers. Locals trying to get to work in the city watched the buses pass their stops full. This persisted for months. A sure way to breed distrust of this industry and once trust is lost, it's very very hard to get it back.

[BoninBrighton]

A huge 6, 000 ship emptied out into Portland Maine it was horrendous for this small town in New England. We were staying there for a week and witnessed the day before and the day after what a difference!

[apfelstrudel]

It’s those mega ships, which have gotten enormous, ruining these ports for everyone else. I sail only on the small ships.

[Mike__B]

While I fully support locals protesting cruise ships, they should get to say what their city does, what I do not support at all is the harassment and assault of those who do go and yes squirting someone with water is assault as minor as it sounds. The locals should protest their governments, they should protest the elected officials, not those who are just doing what the local government has said is OK to do.