A tale of two states: how WA won over cruise and Victoria lost half its cruise visits

• The Western Australian city of Fremantle is 3,500 km from Melbourne – but it could be a world away.
• Fremantle is celebrating winning over Princess to homeport a ship there after a years-long drought.
• In Melbourne, the 2023/24 season saw 128 ship visits. For the 2026/27 season, it will see just 62.

While Western Australia is celebrating the upcoming arrival of Sapphire Princess, hosting a cruise conference and working closely with the cruise industry and other stakeholders, Melbourne is seeing what could potentially be the end of its identity as a cruise city.

While there’s still plenty of work to be done for Western Australia, they are moving in the right direction, while Melbourne’s cruise collapse is accelerating, with the Victorian government seemingly having little concern and no plan to reverse the trend.

Western Australia has reported coordination between ports, governments and the cruise industry to improve cruise offerings and infrastructure, such as the new port works at Broome and the new cruise lounge at Broome airport.

This coordination between government and industry is crucial for a thriving cruise industry in any state or country, and it appears that the Western Australia state government is ready to do the work to help support Western Australian cruise, even as Australia sees an overall decline in cruise traffic.

However, on the other side of the coin, there doesn’t appear to be a working plan in place to try and reverse Melbourne’s cruise fortunes.

While Cruise Passenger previously revealed a 30% drop in capacity that Melbourne was set to feel in between the 2044/25 and 2025/26 seasons, things have only worsened since then.

The situation started in Melbourne when Station Pier announced it would be increasing port fees. While the increase was a modest 15%, it caught cruise lines off guard and clearly soured with relations, with many cruise lines making it no secret how they felt about the decision.

Cruise lines have to plan years ahead, both logistically and financially, meaning that when they’re given last-minute taxes that they hadn’t previously accounted for, they generally don’t take too kindly to it. This has also been evident in New Zealand.

This raising of port fees appeared to be a pivotal turning moment for Melbourne’s cruise situation, and now the departure of Disney Wonder is only adding to its woes.

Disney Wonder, which was a key player for Melbourne, sailing turnaround cruises out of the port each season, is now out of the picture with Disney having confirmed it won’t be returning to Australia for the 2026/27 season. This only compounds the impact of Cunard and Virgin Voyages, also stopping Melbourne sailings.

Looking at the bigger picture and measuring the difference in Melbourne’s cruise visitorship between the 2023/24 season and the 2026/27 season reveals how the local industry has been largely dismantled in the span of just two years.

During the 2023/24 season, Melbourne’s station pier saw an impressive 128 total cruise ship visits and 64 cruise visits. For the 2026/27 season, Melbourne is scheduled to see 62 ship visits in total, and just seven of those will be full turnaround cruises. 

This represents a 52% drop in ship visits and an 89% drop in turnaround cruises, over just two cruise seasons. 

While numbers should stabilise in around 60 visits once again for the 2027/28 season, there remain a few key threats that could make Melbourne’s future cruise numbers fall even further. 

The first is that Celebrity Cruises has confirmed it will be visiting Royal Caribbean’s private destination at Lelepa. This makes it likely that Celebrity will redirect a large majority of its ships towards the South Pacific. 

This would take another two to three ship visits away from Melbourne each year, as well as likely rule out any possibility of Royal Caribbean returning to Melbourne to offer sailings.

The other key threat simply lies in the fact that other states are making more moves towards boosting cruise than Victoria is. Western Australia has been vocal in its pursuit of attracting more cruise ships to the region, and recently announced the good news that Sapphire Princess would homeport some cruises out of Brisbane. South Australia and New South Wales are also looking to grow their cruise industries and could even up leaving Victoria even further behind.

The decline in Melbourne’s cruise industry has not gone unnoticed, with a previous Cruise Passenger report being quoted on mainstream news stations, and the Victorian state opposition released a report on the financial damage that Melbourne’s cruise collapse could do.

However, previous Cruise Passenger analysis revealed a potential reason for Victoria’s seemingly ambivalent attitude towards the decline in cruise visits. This being that due to Victoria’s strong tourism economy, expenditure from cruise only equates to about 1.8% in total of their local tourism GDP. This means that the state may simply not see cruise as a priority and won’t make the necessary infrastructure adjustments or form the industry collaborations that are necessary to revive the industry. 

However, it’s not all bad news for Melbourne cruises.

The good news

While the situation may seem dire for Melbourne and Victoria’s cruise industry, there is some good news to celebrate.

Spirits were high amongst Melbourne-based cruisers when Carnival announced that it would homeport four cruises out of Melbourne in 2027. However, due to the fact that these sailings are scheduled after Carnival Adventure’s drydock, many assumed the sailings would just be a one-off.

Melbourne’s forward booking schedule appears to reveal that they won’t be a one-off, and that Adventure will be returning once again.

Melbourne’s cruise schedule shows that Carnival Adventure will homeport eight cruises out of Melbourne in February 2028. These are all shown as shorter cruises of three to four days, but will at least provide a chance for Melbourne cruisers to cruise from their doorstep with Carnival once again. 

Given that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity will likely divert the majority of their cruise traffic towards Lelepa, a large part of Melbourne’s cruise future will be determined by its relationship with Carnival and its brands, namely Carnival Cruises and Princess Cruises.

If Melbourne can attract more visits like those from not just Carnival, but also Princess, it can work towards reviving its cruise industry.

However, currently, for the 2026/27 and 2027/28 cruise seasons, Carnival doesn’t have any turnaround cruises scheduled for Princess.