In-depth guides to the world's best cruise ports: things to do, shore excursions, beaches, restaurants and getting around.
125 ports
The eastern gateway to the Amalfi Coast, and the one where big British ships actually dock. A guide to Salerno's Zaha Hadid cruise terminal in the heart of the city, the in-season ferries that run straight to Amalfi and Positano…
The English-speaking heart of the old British Honduras, and a gateway to jungle and reef: float through river caves, climb…
The north-east gateway to Sardinia's Costa Smeralda: the yacht-set village of Porto Cervo, the emerald calas the Aga Khan made…
A green Honduran island with a British past and an English-speaking heart, ringed by the world's second longest reef: the…
The Sicilian city under the volcano: cruise ships dock a short walk from a baroque centre built in black lava…
A purpose-built cruise port on Mexico's quiet southern coast, with a pool complex at the pier, the beach town of…
A single green volcano ringed by old plantation inns, a Georgian capital where Alexander Hamilton was born, and a long…
Mexico's busiest cruise port sits beside some of the Caribbean's clearest reefs. A guide to the three piers, San Miguel…
Costa Rica's Caribbean gateway, where ships dock in the middle of a workaday port town and the real day is…
Jamaica's busiest cruise town, and the gateway to its most famous sight: the terraced cascade of Dunn's River Falls, climbed…
The walled colonial old city of Cartagena de Indias, on Colombia's Caribbean coast: the ramparts and plazas of the Ciudad…
A British island run on its own strong dollar: the duty-free shops of George Town, the long pale sand of…
The Caribbean gateway to the Panama Canal: watch giant ships climb the Agua Clara locks, ride the trans-isthmian railway, or…
The Yucatan gateway on the Gulf coast: ships dock at the end of a pier that runs 4 miles out…
Tortola is British soil where the money is American and the draw is the water: a quiet capital at Road…
The oldest city under the American flag, and the Caribbean's great gateway port: blue cobbled streets and pastel houses, two…
The Dominican Republic's south-east resort gateway: a working sugar town where ships dock on the Rio Dulce, a short ride…
One of the busiest cruise ports in the Caribbean: the Danish-built harbour town of Charlotte Amalie with its duty-free Main…
One small island shared by two nations, Dutch and French: the duty-free boardwalk of Philipsburg, the famous low-flying jets over…
The oldest European city in the Americas, founded in 1498, opening off the ship on the Ozama River: the first…
A quiet, upmarket British island north of St Maarten, famous above all for its beaches: Shoal Bay East, Meads Bay,…
The chic, French corner of the Caribbean: the red-roofed yacht harbour of Gustavia, its luxury boutiques and waterfront dining, the…
The southernmost Caribbean cruise island, off the Venezuelan coast and mostly below the hurricane belt: a working capital that gave…
The lush volcanic main island of the Grenadines, with a central berth in its working capital: the oldest botanic garden…
St Kitts was Britain's first foothold in the Caribbean, and wears the history openly: the great fortress at Brimstone Hill,…
The end-of-the-road island at the bottom of the Florida Keys: Duval Street's bars and shops, Ernest Hemingway's house full of…
Grenada is the Spice Isle, and one of the prettiest arrivals in the Caribbean: St George's wraps around a horseshoe…
Antigua sells itself on a number: 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. It was Britain's great naval…
Jamaica's resort-and-beach port and lively second city: the pale sand of Doctor's Cave Beach, the bars and shops of the…
No Caribbean island announces itself like St Lucia: the two Pitons rising straight from the sea, a drive-in volcano still…
Barbados is where most British Caribbean cruises begin, and the most British of the islands: Nelson in the square before…
St Peter Port is one of the loveliest arrivals in the British Isles: a tiered granite town rising from the…
One of the quietest arrivals in the fjords: the ship eases up the still inner arm of Nordfjord and a…
A thousand years of Norwegian history begin at the end of the gangway: the Brattøra berth sits a short walk…
No cruise call in Europe reaches further north: the ship rounds Magerøya into a sheltered Arctic bay of painted wooden…
The capital of the European Arctic, wrapped around a sheltered strait between island and mainland. A guide to the Prostneset…
A working quay on the inner harbour rather than a terminal, the white warehouses of Smedasundet reflected across the water.…
One of the most compressed calls in the fjords: a 143-metre pier sets you down 200 metres from a village…
One of the gentler Norwegian arrivals, the town strung along the Romsdalsfjord below the serrated wall of the Romsdal Alps.…
The head of the Sognefjord, the longest in Norway, reached only after a day spent threading cliffs that rise sheer…
At the very head of the Hardangerfjord, where the water narrows to a glass-still arm below mountains climbing to the…
The call Norwegian fjord itineraries are built around: a deep-water pier at the head of Nordfjord, mountains sheer on both…
A Venetian-Istrian old town on what was once an island: small ships tender into the Old Harbour below the bell…
An Old Town on a slender limestone peninsula, ringed by Venetian walls and tipped with the Sea Organ that the…
The approach alone is worth the call: a slow glide through the two-kilometre St Anthony's Channel past a UNESCO-listed fortress.…
The town begins at the end of the pier: tenders set you onto a wide stone Riva with the cathedral…
A Habsburg seaport that looks transplanted from Vienna: your ship berths at the Stazione Marittima, a few minutes' walk from…
The workaday gateway at the head of the Gulf of Poets: a shuttle drops you at Molo Garibaldi, minutes from…
Galataport opened in 2021 and put cruise ships back inside Istanbul, tying up at Karakoy with the Golden Horn on…
Ísafjörður is the capital of the Westfjords, a peninsula so far off the beaten track that Iceland's ring road never…
Akureyri lies at the head of Eyjafjordur, sixty miles short of the Arctic Circle, and the ship ties up within…
Reykjavik berths ships at Skarfabakki, three kilometres from the centre, which makes the walk into town a genuine decision rather…
Hamburg has three cruise terminals strung along the Elbe, and which one you berth at changes the day entirely: HafenCity…
The Passenger Terminal Amsterdam sits ten minutes' walk from Centraal Station and twenty from Dam Square, giving ship passengers an…
Zeebrugge is a container port with nothing to detain you, and everyone aboard is going to Bruges, 15 kilometres inland,…
Le Havre was flattened in 1944 and rebuilt in reinforced concrete by Auguste Perret, and the result is now UNESCO-listed,…
Portland Port sits at the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast, England's only natural World Heritage Site, where 185 million…
Falmouth sits on the third deepest natural harbour in the world, which is why it has been a working port…
Holyhead is on Anglesey, and the island is a gateway rather than a destination: Caernarfon and Beaumaris, two of Edward…
Lerwick is closer to Bergen than to Edinburgh, and Shetland's Norse inheritance is plain in the street names and the…
Skara Brae was lived in five thousand years ago and is older than both Stonehenge and the pyramids at Giza,…
Invergordon is a working deepwater port on the Cromarty Firth with very little to detain you in the town itself,…
The gateway to Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde: most passengers take the train into the city for the free…
Cobh was Titanic's last port of call, and the 123 passengers who boarded on 11 April 1912 left from the…
A city remade in a generation, from the Harland & Wolff slipways to the bars of the Cathedral Quarter, with…
One of the most rewarding capitals to spend a single day in: a compact Georgian centre, the Book of Kells,…
Liverpool ties up at Princes Parade directly in front of the Three Graces, which makes it one of the very…
One of the most walkable capitals in Europe, the castle on its crag above the Old Town and the Georgian…
One of the most intact medieval towns in northern Europe, on the Swedish island of Gotland. A short walk from…
The most rewarding cruise call in Poland, once you clear the logistics: the quay sits out at Westerplatte, a short…
A capital spread across islands where the distances feel far shorter on foot and by ferry than they look on…
One of the most walkable cruise terminals in northern Europe: the Ostseekai sits at the head of the fjord, minutes…
The most concentrated Old Town on the Baltic run: the harbour sits a short walk, or one quick tram, from…
The most walkable of the eastern-Baltic capitals: the Passenger Terminal sits right on the Daugava embankment with the Old Town…
The smallest and most easily walked of the Baltic calls: the quay sits inside the city, a short walk from…
The one Baltic call you can finish with sand on your shoes: the cruise centre opens onto a resort village…
The calmest of the main Baltic capitals to read from a ship: a clear grid and fast, English-signed transport make…
The most-called cruise port in Northern Europe, equally a day stop and a fjord or Baltic turnaround. The thing to…
Ajaccio is Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace, and his childhood home, the street names, and the outstanding Musée Fesch — which holds…
Villefranche-sur-Mer is a tender port with a 13th-century covered street, a Baroque church, and harbour cafes — and it sits…
Cartagena's Roman Theatre, discovered by accident in 1987 beneath a decayed medieval quarter, is a 1st-century BC venue for 6,000…
Alicante's Castillo de Santa Bárbara sits 166 metres above the port and is visible from the ship on approach —…
Vigo's greatest asset lies just offshore: the Cíes Islands, a UNESCO-protected natural park of pale granite and intensely turquoise water,…
Porto's Ribeira district, a UNESCO-listed terrace of painted houses above the Douro, faces the port wine lodges of Vila Nova…
Cagliari's Castello quarter — a medieval hilltop neighbourhood of narrow lanes, Pisan towers, and ochre palaces — looks out over…
Palermo is one of the most layered cities in the Mediterranean: Arab, Norman, Byzantine, and Baroque in the same city…
Messina is the nearest cruise port to two of Sicily's greatest attractions. Taormina, built on a cliff with a 3rd-century…
Genoa is the most underrated city on the western Mediterranean cruise circuit: a medieval labyrinth of lanes running directly to…
Ephesus, 18 kilometres from the port, is one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the world. Its marble-paved streets, the…
Valletta was built by the Knights of St John in the 16th century and is one of the smallest, most…
Katakolon is a small harbour village with a pleasant beach — and 18 kilometres inland, Ancient Olympia, where the Olympic…
The Palace of Knossos, 5 kilometres south of Heraklion, is the most important Bronze Age site in Europe — the…
Toulon is the most honest port on the French Riviera circuit — less glossy than its neighbours, but with a…
Marseille is France's oldest city, founded by Greek traders around 600 BC, and its Vieux-Port has been the heart of…
Gibraltar is a 6.8 square kilometre piece of Britain at the entrance to the Mediterranean, home to the only wild…
Funchal rises steeply from its curved harbour in layers of white buildings and dense green hillside — one of the…
Fuerteventura's greatest draw is simple: the dune landscape at Corralejo in the north, protected as a natural park, has the…
Lanzarote's centre is covered by 51 square kilometres of black and red lava fields formed in eruptions between 1730 and…
One of the fastest-growing calls in the Mediterranean and the gateway to a country only recently on the cruise map.…
Tenerife is the most varied of the Canary Islands as a port day, and the first choice shapes everything. Teide,…
Slovenia's only deep-water cruise port and one of the calmer Adriatic calls: ships tie up a five-minute walk from Tito…
Las Palmas gives you a proper city: Playa de las Canteras, a three-kilometre reef-protected beach in the north, and Vegueta,…
Everything you need for a Cadiz port day: walking the old town from the dock, the cathedral and Torre Tavira,…
Venice no longer allows large cruise ships into the historic lagoon. Ships now dock at Porto Marghera on the mainland,…
Lisbon spreads across seven hills above the Tagus, and moving between the Alfama, Belém, and the historic centre takes longer…
Kotor's medieval old town sits two minutes from the gangway, enclosed in walls that climb the cliff face behind the…
Split's Diocletian's Palace is a living neighbourhood, with restaurants and apartments inside walls built around 305 AD. The walk from…
Dubrovnik's Old Town sits behind limestone walls built in the 14th century, and walking the 1.9 km circuit along the…
Stavanger's port day depends almost entirely on where your ship berths. Ships at Strandkaien dock steps from the wooden houses…
Geiranger is one of the most dramatic fjord anchorages in Norway: the ship moors directly below waterfalls that drop hundreds…
Flåm sits at the end of the Aurlandsfjord, surrounded by waterfalls and near-vertical mountain walls. The Flåmsbana railway — climbing…
Bergen's waterfront puts the city's defining image within minutes of the gangway: the coloured wooden Hanseatic warehouses of Bryggen, a…
Ålesund was rebuilt almost entirely in Art Nouveau after a fire in 1904, and its cruise berths are a short…
Most cruise passengers come to Livorno for Florence and Pisa, both reachable by train from Livorno Centrale. Pisa is 15…
Naples is the most chaotic and arguably the most rewarding city on the western Mediterranean cruise circuit, and the gateway…
Rome lies 80 kilometres from Civitavecchia, and the train from the port's own station makes it straightforward: hourly services to…
Malaga is one of the most walkable cruise ports in the Mediterranean. From the terminal at Muelle Uno, the Alcazaba…
Rhodes Old Town is one of the finest intact medieval cities in Europe, enclosed in walls built by the Knights…
Palma's Gothic cathedral sits directly on the waterfront and is visible from the ship on approach — one of the…
The Acropolis sits above a city continuously inhabited for 3,000 years, and the Parthenon — even in its partially ruined…
Whitewashed lanes, the windmills on the ridge above Little Venice, and a harbour front that fills the moment the ships…
Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, Sagrada Família, and the Barceloneta seafront are all within reach of the cruise terminal, but the city…
Santorini is a tender port, and on a busy summer day the queue for the cable car from the tender…
Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences — a futuristic complex of museums and an opera house in a park built…
Corfu's old town is a UNESCO-listed Venetian quarter with a French arcade, two Venetian fortresses, and narrow lanes little changed…
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