Tourism and port leaders hailed the launch Monday of San Diego’s cruise season as a key economic engine for the region, but what they didn’t mention is the passenger count for the coming year will be half what it was just two years ago.
While a still robust volume of 265,000 passengers will be sailing to and from San Diego through next May, that’s a sharp decline from a recent peak of 531,000 people during the 2022-23 cruise season, when the cruise industry was recovering from a pandemic-era shutdown.
There are a number of factors accounting for the notable dip in cruise calls — from 144 to 75 — over that time period, key among them Disney Cruise Line’s decision to reposition one of its ships in Australia during the fall and winter months instead of in San Diego as it had in the past. In addition, nine Celebrity cruises out of Los Angeles that stopped in San Diego last cruise season will no longer be happening during the current season, said Adam Deaton, senior trade account representative with the Port of San Diego.
He pointed out that San Diego’s 2022-23 season was something of an aberration because at the time Asia’s cruise industry was still shut down even though other parts of the world had widely reopened.
“A lot of the cruises couldn’t go back to Asia at that time so they stayed on the West Coast, and San Diego benefited from that,” he said. “So Diamond Princess, for example, was here for 11 or 12 calls, and Disney had double the number of calls going from 26 to 51, so it was kind of an artificial situation. But I think eventually we will get back there based on conversations we are having with the cruise lines.”
Port of San Diego officials, as well as tourism leaders, are quick to highlight the financial ripple effect for San Diego when a cruise ship docks in San Diego full of thousands of passengers eager to visit local attractions, dine out and shop.
Holland America’s Zaandam cruise ship will leave on a 51-day sailing to the South Pacific. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“Each time a cruise ship is homeported here, the economic impact is $2 million,” said San Diego Port Commissioner Sid Voorakkara, the Holland America Zaandam docked behind him in San Diego Bay. It is embarking on a 51-day cruise to the South Pacific, the longest sailing of San Diego’s new cruise season. “That goes a long way toward our regional economy and to all of our working families and all of our neighbors.”
The cruise industry for San Diego and many parts of the world can be very cyclical in nature as different destinations fall in and out of favor with both the lines and passengers. But clearly the biggest change for cruising came in 2020 when the pandemic forced a more than yearlong shutdown of San Diego voyages to Mexico, Hawaii, the Panama Canal and elsewhere.
Even as San Diego is seeing a near-term pullback from such lines as Disney, Deaton is confident that a rebound will come as early as the following cruise season, although a bigger spike is more likely the year after that.
Holland America, which has homeported in San Diego for the past 35 years, will have the same number of cruise calls this season as it did the previous year. But for 2025-26, total calls will jump from 30 to 36, translating to a gain of 8,000 passengers, the cruise line reported. A big change for 2026 will be a planned 93-day voyage to Australia and New Zealand, roundtrip from San Diego.
The cruise line noted that in addition to the $378,000 its passengers and crew spend each time one of its ships is docked in San Diego, there’s an additional $800,000 spent on provisions and refueling.
While there are no guarantees Disney Cruise Line will be returning in future years with an expanded schedule of voyages, the line has already announced plans to expand its fleet to 13 ships and that bodes well for San Diego, Deaton said.
“They’re going to move from a small cruise line to a big player by 2031, so my understanding is they see San Diego as a major port for them and they want to give us more calls,” he said. “When they had the 51 calls, they said they did exceptionally well.”
Deaton is also expecting growth from other lines in a couple of years, although he said he cannot disclose any specifics because plans are still in the works. Next month, San Diego Port commissioners, he said, will be asked to approve a nearly $2.3 million project to do some additional dredging in the bay that will allow new ships to come here.
“This one cruise line has a little more of a depth requirement than Holland America or Princess, and to accommodate new growth we’re willing to invest big money,” Deaton said. “The lines are basically saying, build it and they will come. So we should start seeing some cruise line announcements in February, March, April.”
