The cruise terminal at Alicante Port is getting ready to welcome tourists for the 2025 season, hoping to set a new record. Although they are theoretically larger and more capacious, the 100 tourist ships that are scheduled to arrive are essentially the same number as those that were reached in 2024, when over 230,000 people were reached. According to this newspaper, the Seabourn Sojourn, a ship operated by the Seabourn Cruise Line shipping firm, is expected to land this Sunday, March 2nd, with about 435 passengers on board. This stopover will serve as the campaign’s launchpad. We will have to wait until March 31st for the second visit, when Marella Cruises’ Marella Explorer 2, which will be carrying 1,723 guests, arrives.
With the oddity that 16 double stops (two ships docking at the terminal simultaneously) and even a triple one, scheduled for August 1, when the simultaneous arrival of the MSC Virtuosa, the MSC Música, and the Silver Whisper (in this third case, a smaller passenger ship) is expected to bring in approximately 10,000 cruise passengers in a single day, this milestone will actually be the one that kicks off the bulk of a program with visits from two to three ships each week after two blank months (January and February).
In actuality, MSC bears a great deal of the blame for these preliminary numbers—the schedule is always subject to potential changes owing to cancellations or new confirmations—and its reaffirmed dedication to using Alicante as a base port for embarkations and disembarkations on one of its Mediterranean itineraries (20 out of 32 stops) for the fourth season in a row since it first introduced this experience in the summer of 2022. However, it won’t be the sole protagonist. Throughout the year, Carnival UK offers up to eleven stops, while Regent Seven Seas Cruises has scheduled an additional seven. The addition of the Queen Anne ship, which can accommodate 2,846 passengers, and the Cunard shipping company, which will make two stops in August and October, as well as the debut of ships from companies like Saga Cruises, Scenic Cruises, Emerald Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Ambassador Cruise Line, or Royal Caribbean that have not yet made a stop in Alicante, are also considered new elements.
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According to these preliminary projections, 2025 is expected to end with a record of at least 234,659 passengers, 19.7% higher than the 196,058 recorded in 2023, according to Puertos del Estado’s provisional annual statistics at the end of 2024. According to current projections, 2025 may see a minimum of 232,000 passengers, though this could rise based on each ship’s occupancy rate. After the improvement and modernisation projects completed by its concessionaire company, Global Ports Holding (GPH), in collaboration with Servicios Portuarios Canarios (GPH), there will be the incentive of a refurbished maritime terminal with new amenities like baggage control scanners and additional passenger check-in counters.
After having to be postponed last November due to the Dana tragedy that devastated nearly a hundred towns in the province of Valencia, this intervention, which has involved renovating the facilities and aesthetics of the maritime station with an investment of more than two million, will be launched at an official opening ceremony set for May 23rd.
But in addition to continuing to grow in numbers, GPH and the Port Authority are also attempting to invest in a different cruise market in an effort to attract high-end tourists who will bring in more money while visiting the capital or any other province municipality to which they can go after planning an excursion, or who are looking for unusual experiences that are not available elsewhere. This would entail making a qualitative change to ensure a larger economic impact—current estimates show that cruise activity brings in 60 million dollars for the province—without running the risk of a hypothetical flow saturation scenario, where too many passengers arrive in the province concentrated on the same routes. Based on the advice and information service provided by the Alicante Costa Blanca Tourism and Cruises Association (ALCTC) at the ship’s door, this option also permits advancement in other business domains, such as the area of company investments or house acquisitions.
Other tourist areas, like Cartagena, have actually already started to follow this road, despite the fact that they also continue to have double-digit annual growth, albeit with fewer visitors overall than Alicante. In this instance, 2024 ended with 219,432 visits, a 16.9% increase over 2023’s total of 187,768 at the time. As of right now, the Port Authority anticipates that about one-third of the 100 stopovers scheduled for 2025 will fall into the luxury cruise market. Examples of these include the Seabourn Sojourn, a luxury cruise ship with 435 passengers on board, which is scheduled to call at the Port this Sunday, and the Scenic Eclipse, a modern ship built in 2018 with 228 passengers that is designed to navigate through polar regions and offers expedition trips around the world.
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