Cruise ships keep getting bigger and bigger, but the delicate historic sights of Europe and the Caribbean remain the same size.
When locals complain about overtourism, cruise ships are a huge part of that. But there’s a way to know in advance how many cruise ships will be in port at the same time.
When fully loaded, Royal Caribbean’s newest vessels are packed with more than 7,000 passengers, and most of those folks storm the gangplanks at once, so the ships disgorge a stadium’s worth of people upon quaint and narrow cobbled lanes. On many days, popular ports can host five or six more ships simultaneously, each one carrying an additional 3,000 or 4,000 souls each, all descending en masse in search of charming cafés and attraction tickets.
Heavy crowds are not merely a matter of annoyance, either. When too many ships come calling at once, lines at museums that are normally deserted can instantly stretch down the street, restaurants can fill up, and shopkeepers can be too overwhelmed to bother to haggle. Even at the cruise lines’ private islands, you may find yourself waiting in interminable queues for that zip line or water slide you paid extra for, wasting precious vacation time.
The website CruiseTimetables.com catalogs the upcoming schedules of all the major cruise itineraries. Head to the site’s Ports page and choose your destination. Then, on the resulting calendar page, choose the day that you’re thinking about visiting that port. You’ll be shown a list of all the ships with itineraries slated to include that port on that day.
From there, it’s just a matter of math; the site includes the maximum passenger count for each ship.
Would you rather be in the exquisite but intensely cramped Old Town of Dubrovnik on April 21, 2025, when just 1,200 people will be calling? Or the next day, when more than 6,200 bodies will be shuffling, elbow-to-elbow, on the Stradun?
Cruise Timetables is also sometimes able to supply approximate call times, so you’ll know when the floating behemoths plan to skedaddle, leaving the town in peace—and restaurant tables available again.
Whether you’re trying to find the optimal timing for a cruise you’re considering, or you’re planning a land-based coastal exploration on your own, you’ll be able to tell in advance whether a cruise port will be inundated with lookie-loos and you might be better off choosing another cruise or another day to visit.