Small ship cruising has many benefits, but increasingly, mere access – even to bigger ports – is available only to guests on smaller ships. The latest domino to fall is the popular French Mediterranean port of Nice.
According to local Riviera news reports on January 21, 2025, the mayor of Nice is banning the docking of ships over 900 guests.
Some reports indicated all cruise ships would be banned but Riviera Radio is reporting the ban applies to large ships only. The move is said to be an effort to address overtourism and sustainability.
According to Riviera Radio, “The mayor of Nice no longer wants "low-cost" cruises where "customers consume nothing and leave their waste behind". The goal is to have no more cruise ships from July 1st this year. In order to achieve this, he said he is working to "cancel all cruises that can still be cancelled ahead of drafting a banning order.”
The report also says that another Cote d’Azur cruise destination, Cannes, is considering a similar ban.
And the apparent move comes in the wake of Venice’s ban on all but the smallest ships from its Grand Canal. That has pushed most ships to dock in the nearby industrial ports like Fusina and Marghera, and coach guests into the city of Venice, where a new tourist day tax on guests not staying in city hotels took effect last year.
The move highlights continued tensions between popular cruise ports worldwide and the cruise industry.
Even as each generation of cruise ship brings considerable advances in sustainability, sheer numbers of guests threaten to overwhelm local ports and their lifestyles.
That said, industry organization CLIA, the Cruise Lines International Association, points out that cruising is managed tourism, with dockings negotiated and controlled, unlike air arrivals that bring far greater numbers of tourists into cities.
However, for cruise lovers intent on the romance of sailing into favorite ports, the trend towards large ship bans adds one more reason to enjoy small ship cruising!
