Barcelona’s Bustling Port – Major Cruise Hubs in Europe

Photo Credit: CruiseMapper

Barcelona’s cruise port is one of the most important and major cruise hubs in Europe.  It has good infrastructure and facilities to accommodate thousands of cruise ship passengers. 

The Port of Barcelona  is expected to welcome 3.2 million cruise guests and 830 cruise calls in a strong 2019 cruise season. The numbers are up over 2018, including more homeport calls, which is a key objective for the Spanish port.  

The port’s goal is to attract more turnaround calls while also hoping to attract the most efficient and greenest cruise ships. Not only taking more ships and larger ships but simplifying and streamlining passenger and vehicle flow in the port area on busy days.

The port is also working on the construction of two new cruise terminals in the Adossat Quay. The new terminals will include the most modern facilities and will be ready to serve the newest cruise ships in the industry. 

They are also working to minimize air and water pollution, improve waste management and are working together with the city to avoid congestion in key tourist areas. “Studying the orderbook, we believe in the near future we will have more berth requests and bigger ships,” said Mar Perez, Cruise Manager for the port. 

To support the Port of Barcelona’s capacity growth, MSC has already begun the planning and permissions process for Terminal F. MSC’s future cruise terminal will be the sixth at the Adossat dock.

This year, the Port of Barcelona celebrated the first call of the AIDAnova, the first cruise ship to run on LNG. This summer she is in the Western Mediterranean departing Fridays from Barcelona on week-long itineraries until November 2019. Another LNG-fueled ship, Costa Smeralda will launch service in the Mediterranean in October with Barcelona as a port of call. 

Access Cruise is a Miami based cruise marketing and sales consulting group, specializing in product and business development within the cruise industry.