Europe’s cruise congestion sparks Sun Princess ports changes with more to come 

  • The Sun Princess has cancelled a range of port calls due to ‘port congestion’.
  • Other ships have seen similar itinerary changes and cancellations.
  • There are worries these could become more frequent as the cruise market grows.

Guests set to sail on the Sun Princess, the biggest ship in Princess’s fleet, have had European ports scratched from itineraries or changed due to ‘ship congestion’ in the first significant signs that over-tourism is likely to cause major headaches with scheduling.

Princess Cruises is not alone in having to make changes, with Norwegian abandoning port calls in Greece.

An email sent to guests was obtained by the US website Cruise Hive it reads: “Please be advised that due to cruise ship congestion in Genoa, Italy, Sun Princess will no longer call to Genoa on Sunday, August 3 and will instead call to Malaga, Spain on Tuesday, August 5. As a result, we will now call to Marseille, France on Sunday, August 3 rather than Monday, August 4, and call times have been amended for our visit to Gibraltar on Wednesday, August 6.”

The affected sailings happen right around the heart of Europe’s busiest time for tourism and cruise, with June through to August being the peak months. 

The Port of Civitavecchia, Rome 
The Port of Civitavecchia, Rome 

Due to cruise ports being so heavily booked, the initial congestion in Genoa had to lead to a complete shift in the itinerary, as outlined in the email above.

This particular sailing is an 11-night voyage between Rome and Barcelona. The ports around the Mediterranean being heavily booked, it means that when one port becomes overbooked and unavailable, itineraries have to be comprehensively redesigned. 

In this example, the Genoa cancellation meant that two other ports had to be shifted to different days, Malaga and Marseille, and another adjusted to a different time on the same day, Gibraltar. 

While in this instance, only one more sea day will be added to the cruise, the changes highlight the fragile nature of the cruise ecosystem in Europe, with ports so heavily booked and large ships all being focused around similar areas. 

Cruise Hive also highlights changes in the Sun Princess itinerary in Greece. Several of the ship’s itineraries are removing previously scheduled port stops at Santorini and Kotor and using stops like Mykonos and Chania as replacements. 

While Princess is doing a very good job to mostly maintaining the quality of itineraries and not adding extra sea days of visit less-desired ports, the larger question marks hang over how sustainable the market growth of cruising can be, as ships grow bigger, and cruise destinations across Europe become more adverse to cruise visitors. 

Furthermore, demand for cruises only appears to be growing across the world, including in Europe, creating question marks over how ports, tourist bodies, and governments will deal with the friction between increasing demand and capacity issues, as well as perverse attitudes towards cruises.

Cruises are scheduled three years in advance, but with different destinations across Europe adding various new taxes to cruise ship visitors and other tourists, implementing cruise caps and adding more barriers to entry for cruise ships, this can create the necessity for itineraries to change. This will likely lead to an array of European cruise itineraries being altered over the coming seasons as congestion and capacity issues continue.

Further factors like staffing issues in ports, changing laws at major tourist attractions and scheduling errors can also exacerbate these changes. 

In this particular instance, at least seven Sun Princess cruises have had their itineraries changed, meanwhile other cruise ships such as Norwegian Epic has abandoned 17 planned port visits to the Greek Island of Corfu.

Port changes are an inevitable part of cruising, but can also be stressful and upsetting for cruisers. As the attitude towards tourists in Europe continues to shift, and the legal framework seems to follow it, cruise itinerary changes like these ones could become much more frequent.

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