The Caribbean is the most well-liked cruise vacation spot on the planet with extra guests arriving by cruise ship than wherever else on the planet.
AAA is projecting that just about 19 million People will take a cruise in 2025, with lots of them headed to the Caribbean.
The preferred vacation spot for cruisers is The Bahamas, with over eight million folks arriving there final yr by way of a cruise ship. This shouldn’t come at a shock since most cruise traces have personal islands there and are pouring a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into upgrading them.
The Bahamas ought to proceed to develop since Carnival Cruise Line is opening a brand new port (Celebration Key) there this summer time and it’ll finally be capable to accommodate 4 ships every single day.
Mexico got here in second final yr with simply over 4.1 million cruise visits. The Dominican Republic, U.S. Virgin Islands and Turks & Caicos spherical out the highest 5.
Whereas some ports/nations within the Caribbean/Bahamas are seeing extra cruise guests that ever earlier than, just a few ports are seeing a decline in visits.
The Caribbean port that’s been hit the toughest by a decline in visits is Grand Cayman. In 2019, 1,831,011 folks arrived to the Cayman Islands by way of a cruise ship. In 2024, that quantity had dropped to simply 1,076,875, a 41.2% decline.
Two of the three largest drops in visits over the previous 5 years are each tender ports, Belize and Grand Cayman.
A debate has gone on for years in Grand Cayman concerning the ports have to construct a pier or berthing services to get rid of the necessity for tenders.
Cruise traces are constructing extra mega ships than ever earlier than and cruise ships over 160,000 gross tons in dimension hardly ever tender because of the quantity of passengers on the ship. The ships want a pier to deal with the move of visitors getting off and getting again on the vessel.
Tourismanalytics.com created the next infographic exhibiting which locations within the Caribbean have had the most important will increase and reduces in visits from 2019 till 2024.
On April 30, 2025, a referendum and normal election shall be held within the Cayman Islands.
The Affiliation for Cruise Tourism within the Cayman Islands (ACT) is pushing again in opposition to what it calls false and deceptive claims by CPR Cayman and different anti-cruise tourism teams.
Will Grand Cayman ever construct a pier? Solely time will inform on that one. One factor is for positive, most cruise passengers favor a pier over tendering because it’s way more handy.
Additionally, ports that require tendering usually tend to get canceled as a result of climate and unsafe circumstances.
