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Key port backpedals on cruise ban, Royal Caribbean still blocked
A popular summer cruise port is loosening its planned cruise ship restrictions, but not enough to help Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises passengers.
Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises passengers who booked summer cruises to visit one sought-after destination may not get the chance, even as a planned cruise ship ban is lifted.
The popular tourist destination recently joined a growing list of port cities that have proposed new cruise ship restrictions in an effort to combat over-tourism and protect the environment.
Related: Key Royal Caribbean destination hurt by massive budget cuts
Although banning cruise ships may help ease those worries, it can also create economic ones. After listening to concerns raised by the cruise industry and local business owners, the port city’s mayor is proposing a less restrictive plan that will still allow many cruise ships to visit the destination — but not all.
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The new plan is being called a compromise that supports the local economy while promoting public health and environmental protection interests.
Although the compromise will make it possible for ships carrying up to 2,500 passengers to visit the popular Mediterranean port city, larger ships like the Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises ships with planned calls to the destination this summer will still be blocked from the port.
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Nice, France backtracks on cruise ship ban
On March 7, the port council for Nice, France will vote on a revised plan for the French Riviera port city’s cruise ship restrictions. Although the new plan will still keep large ships out of the port of Nice, it will allow ships carrying up to 2,500 passengers to visit the nearby port of Villefranche-sur-Mer, according to French media reports.
Only one cruise ship per day will be allowed to visit Villefranche-sur-Mer with a maximum of 65 cruise stopovers permitted per year. The port of Nice will enforce tighter limits, only welcoming small ships carrying less than 450 passengers.
The new plan is significantly less restrictive than Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi’s original plan, which would prohibit cruise ships carrying more than 900 passengers or larger than 190 meters (623 feet) from calling on either of the French Riviera ports.
Related: Royal Caribbean has bad port news for passengers
Even with the compromise, the new restrictions will still block a number of large ships with planned 2025 calls to Villefranche-sur-Mer from visiting the port. Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas and Explorer of the Seas, and multiple Celebrity Cruises ships are scheduled to visit the port during the summer season. All of these ships exceed the 2,500-passenger cap.
“Cruises: for the giants of the seas, it's still no,” Estrosi posted on X on March 1.
Estrosi said the new plan will still mean “no more 5000 passenger monsters in the middle of the harbor.”
Nice’s mayor says large cruise ships bring pollution, low-cost tourists
Estrosi also noted in his X post that ships will need to connect to electricity to prevent emissions from idle engines running in port.
“This is the whole point of this compromise, to protect our coastline and our populations,” Estrosi wrote.
According to Estrosi, larger ships bring both pollution and passengers who don’t spend enough money in Nice.
“I don’t want these floating hotels putting down their anchors in Nice,” Estrosi said in a January speech. “These cruises that pollute [and] that pour out their low-cost customers who do not consume anything and who leave their rubbish behind them, well I say these cruises don’t have a place here.”
Related: Cruise industry asks crucial port to rethink cruise ban
The cruise industry and local business owners did not agree with the French mayor, however.
The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and maritime-focused organizations from the Nice area pushed back, imploring the mayor to rethink the cruise ban. The groups estimated that the ban could result in a loss of more than $10 million locally and over $600 million regionally, according to a Travel Weekly report.
"We are urging reconsideration of any actions that would ban cruise tourism in favor of a holistic tourism management approach, which proves time and again to be a best practice and the best way to manage tourism in ways that help communities thrive," said Samuel Maubanc, director general for CLIA in Europe told Travel Weekly.
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