How much do you spend during your cruise ship port stops?

[OlsSalt]

Local Santa Barbara Visitors bureau reported the cruise ship passenger spent on average about $65 each, mainly on shore excursions and restaurants.

The visitor profile ....had data from visitors on cruise ships, showing that the 47,400 visitor volume spent a total of about $3.2 million.

 

HAL still makes a few stops in Santa Barbara,  but other HAL cruises last year that included Santa Barbara got canceled with no explanation.   Almost exclusively a  HAL shoulder season cruise ship stop, going to the Alaska season in the spring and coming back from the Alaska in the fall. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

More than that if I'm taking a tour because there aren't many tours for $65, especially on HAL these days. Less if I'm just wandering and taking pictures. Then all I might spend is the price of ice cream and/or a coffee and/or a bakery goodie or maybe a local beer. I do like to browse markets and I might buy a piece of jewelry if I see something unusual. But I don't bother with the chain stores in the port malls.

 

I guess if I averaged the tour days and the independent wander days, I might come out around $60-70. But it feels like less than that because I pay for tours in advance.

[TRLD]

That is pretty close to some publish data about Key West with cruise ship passengers spending about $72 per passenger.

 

Problem is that cruise ship passengers make up about 50% of tourist visits to Key West, but only contribute about 10% of tourist spend.  The other 50% (land day trippers and over night tourists) make up 90% of the tourist spend.

[cruisemom42]

1 hour ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

More than that if I'm taking a tour because there aren't many tours for $65, especially on HAL these days.

 

Keep in mind that if you're spending $120 on an excursion, the local agency/guide is probably only getting about half of that.

[Bill B]

I've never thought about it (until now). Personally, it varies dramatically from zero to many hundreds of dollars for a helicopter tour. They always get my port charges.

[OlsSalt]

$65 was the "average" per passenger.

 

Some more, some less.  Some on shore excursions, will average out those who stay on board.  Or those who just wander about and purchase nothing.  Interesting to learn this was similar to Key West -thanks for that info.

 

But it is helpful number for local authorities to use when there strong  public reaction against cruise ships,  - what are they bringing into the community, when so many of the locals in anti-cruise ship communities see only negatives. 

[Mary229]

Besides my tours or taxis (transportation) I will buy admissions and perhaps a few artisan items.  $65 is probably about right, per person. 

[MISTER 67]

Hardly anything now as we are in our late 70s and very seldom leave the ship, as the saying goes, “been there, done that” but back in the day we spent quite a bit especially in St. Thomas and Grand Cayman for things like jewelry, watches and Lladro not to mention tours. On European cruises we have spent around a thousand dollars on each cruise for tours and souvenirs.

Edited January 19 by MISTER 67

[albingirl]

Not much in the Caribbean,  but when abroad, we spend alot, since we eat and drink in every port. I like the local flavor, so to speak.

[Mosaic]

Not much at the port area per say, but we do rent cars or guides that are hundreds of dollars each time. Not every port, of course.

[cbr663]

Those spending estimates are high compared to spending estimates in Europe.  For many European ports, the negatives far outweigh the positive with cruise ships and is why there is so much strong opposition to cruise ships.

 

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/10/31/cruise-ships-erosion-air-pollution-and-overtourism-are-driving-cities-towards-bans

 

Our spend tends to be highest flying to an embarkation port and at the embarkation port itself as we fly in a few days prior to the port.  We've also had higher spend after a cruise by adding a few days on at the end like visiting Whistler after our Alaska cruise.  We spend more on getting to and from a cruise than the entire cruise itself.

 

We travel very differently since the pandemic.  With air travel and baggage issues, for instance, we travel with carry on only.  This essentially means we aren't buying much at all to take back home with us.  We also refuse to travel on crowded enclosed buses so we find ourselves doing more walking tours than paid excursions.  

 

 

Edited January 19 by cbr663

[rodndonna]

That $55 is pretty close to  what I "budget" for our holidays (I have a holiday excel spreadsheet tracker for our overall travel budget).

 

For cruises, I apply $100/day additional "shore" spending, so for a 7 day cruise,I would budget $700 shore based spending on for the 2 of us and it seems to be a good estimate wherever we go. If it is a more expensive location, it seems we tend to look harder for less expensive options or only splurge on the "better" ports and dial the others back.

[3rdGenCunarder]

10 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

Keep in mind that if you're spending $120 on an excursion, the local agency/guide is probably only getting about half of that.

 

Do you know that for sure? I do a mix of ship tours and independent tours, so I do a lot of research. In the past, I've seen prices for ship tours in the Caribbean and Canada/New England cruises to be very close to tours booked independently. Even Alaska didn't seem to have much of a mark-up. Of course, I don't know how much the vendor discounts to the cruise line, but I doubt it's half.

 

In smaller ports, especially Alaksa, I have to take a ship's tour because the cruise line contracts with the vendors--their websites tell you to book through your cruiselines. Sometimes all the vendors are booked up.  For example, all the jet boats in Wrangell are contracted with Cunard for the day I'm there. So if I want to see the bear sanctuary I have to go through Cunard. 

 

Lately, however, I have noticed that HAL is marking up tours more than is reasonable. For the Iceland/Greenland/Canada cruise this summer, there are a lot of small ports. Nothing available to book independently in the little towns and the tours seem awfully expensive for what they are. In one Iceland port, HAL is selling a whale watch that they warn is "not exclusive" to HAL. Nope, I can by my ticket in advance for half the price and walk 2 blocks to the boat. 

 

 

[cruisemom42]

47 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

Do you know that for sure?

 

It's probably not a hard and fast rule but many times (at least pre-Covid) I heard this figure from private operators. The cruise lines do squeeze them quite a bit on price due to the guaranteed volume they provide. 

[POA1]

About $300 on average.

 

The last we were in Santa Barbara for the day, we spent $1,800 on wine, and approx $600 on dining. Our spend varies by port. It could be zero. It could be thousands.

[lupaglupa]

This low number per person, compared to what on land visitors spend, is part of what is pushing port cities to limit or ban cruise ships. Having several thousand people descend all at once to crowd streets and use local services is not very appealing when they spend only a fraction of what other tourists do. 

 

My cruise port spending, of course, varies but sometimes it's nothing. I may just walk around and see the sites. We are not big shoppers and rarely buy souvenirs. We do get a meal when we are on shore for a longer time. But we don't usually contribute much to the local economy. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 minutes ago, lupaglupa said:

This low number per person, compared to what on land visitors spend, is part of what is pushing port cities to limit or ban cruise ships. Having several thousand people descend all at once to crowd streets and use local services is not very appealing when they spend only a fraction of what other tourists do. 

 

My cruise port spending, of course, varies but sometimes it's nothing. I may just walk around and see the sites. We are not big shoppers and rarely buy souvenirs. We do get a meal when we are on shore for a longer time. But we don't usually contribute much to the local economy. 

 

When you think about someone on a land vacation, there's hotel cost and three meals a day on top of tours, souvenirs and such. Yes, that's a lot more than the average cruise spends. 

 

If I'm going to eat or buy something, I look for a local business, not a port chain store or chain restaurant. Partly for the fun and partly to do my bit to support locals. But I know I'm not putting nearly as much money into the economy as a land visitor is. 

 

[cruisemom42]

I mostly cruise for itinerary and mostly outside the US. My expenditures vary greatly in port, depending on how I'm planning to get around and what I want to see or do.

 

In some ports I will spend as little as a couple of bus rides at $2-3 per ride plus visits to a couple of museums or sites (avg $15 per ticket), churches (usually free) and a local lunch ($15-25).

 

In other ports I have been known to arrange a private guide or driver to get me where I want to go when public transportation isn't available or reliable, which can be $350-500 for a half to full-day tour. It's steep for a solo but the best way to insure that I get to see what I want to see. That doesn't include admissions to sites/museums and food per above, etc.

 

I rarely shop when I travel, whether I am on a land-based trip or a cruise. Most likely purchases are a guide-book or history book in a museum/site shop.

 

[3rdGenCunarder]

13 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

I mostly cruise for itinerary and mostly outside the US. My expenditures vary greatly in port, depending on how I'm planning to get around and what I want to see or do.

 

In some ports I will spend as little as a couple of bus rides at $2-3 per ride plus visits to a couple of museums or sites (avg $15 per ticket), churches (usually free) and a local lunch ($15-25).

 

In other ports I have been known to arrange a private guide or driver to get me where I want to go when public transportation isn't available or reliable, which can be $350-500 for a half to full-day tour. It's steep for a solo but the best way to insure that I get to see what I want to see. That doesn't include admissions to sites/museums and food per above, etc.

 

I rarely shop when I travel, whether I am on a land-based trip or a cruise. Most likely purchases are a guide-book or history book in a museum/site shop.

 

 

I love museum shops! They often have things that I won't see anywhere else. I would probably buy more books if they weren't heavy and my shelves weren't already full.

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Do you know that for sure? I do a mix of ship tours and independent tours, so I do a lot of research. In the past, I've seen prices for ship tours in the Caribbean and Canada/New England cruises to be very close to tours booked independently. Even Alaska didn't seem to have much of a mark-up. Of course, I don't know how much the vendor discounts to the cruise line, but I doubt it's half.

 

In smaller ports, especially Alaksa, I have to take a ship's tour because the cruise line contracts with the vendors--their websites tell you to book through your cruiselines. Sometimes all the vendors are booked up.  For example, all the jet boats in Wrangell are contracted with Cunard for the day I'm there. So if I want to see the bear sanctuary I have to go through Cunard. 

 

Lately, however, I have noticed that HAL is marking up tours more than is reasonable. For the Iceland/Greenland/Canada cruise this summer, there are a lot of small ports. Nothing available to book independently in the little towns and the tours seem awfully expensive for what they are. In one Iceland port, HAL is selling a whale watch that they warn is "not exclusive" to HAL. Nope, I can by my ticket in advance for half the price and walk 2 blocks to the boat. 

 

 

 

Having worked on the ships, the markup on shore-ex varied, but on average it was about 100%. Alaska was even higher, as 1 ship I was aboard, when our son was working, the shore-ex gross revenue was 500K and net was about 300K, per week. That was directly from the Shore-ex Manager.

[OlsSalt]

2 hours ago, POA1 said:

About $300 on average.

 

The last we were in Santa Barbara for the day, we spent $1,800 on wine, and approx $600 on dining. Our spend varies by port. It could be zero. It could be thousands.

 

The Santa Barbara wine and tourism industry thanks you. Which wine(s) did you chose and how did you go about making these purchases? Had not thought about extravagant wine purchases driving tourist spending. What restaurant did you choose? Love hearing how cruise passengers view our city.

 

People laughed back in the 1970's when Brooks Firestone, from the Firestone tire family,  started putting the local area on the wine production map and stealing thunder from the far better known Napa Valley.

 

Now vineyards dot the entire county, competing only with cannabis unfortunately, which has taken over the previous flower growing green houses. Yet strawberries remain the top ag crop, after giving broccoli a run for the money.

[RedIguana]

15 hours ago, TRLD said:

That is pretty close to some publish data about Key West with cruise ship passengers spending about $72 per passenger.

 

Problem is that cruise ship passengers make up about 50% of tourist visits to Key West, but only contribute about 10% of tourist spend.  The other 50% (land day trippers and over night tourists) make up 90% of the tourist spend.

When they ran the numbers on a per hour basis though the cruise passengers spent more. The bars, shops, and attractions love cruise passengers. The hotels and non tourism dependent residents hate them. Plus those figures would have to be from 2019 or before, as since the shutdown and restart there are more daily arrivals from the airport than ships. Cruise passengers in 2022 were a third of 2019 (city owned docks only allow sub 700 passenger ships, or somewhere around that, if at all), as the only dock allowing most ships is the privately controlled dock the city tried and failed to shut down. Average room rates in 2019 was in the mid $280's, last year it was almost $430.

[cbr663]

Cruise lines have created this problem and sadly, it seems like they continue to add to it.  Building bigger and more ships means for most people the ship is the destination.  Saving fuel means most cruise lines have reduced their time in port in favour of lower their cruising speed.  Less time in port means less time for passengers to spend money.  And now, we see more and more cruise lines docking at piers far outside of actual ports so that reduces even more passenger time to spend money in port.

 

Let's not forget the pandemic offered an opportunity for all cruise ports to see what would happen when the ships went away.  For many port inhabitants, they enjoyed their communities much more without the cruise ships.

 

Cruise lines don't seem to care much about this.  I guess as long as they are selling their ships they will sail somewhere.  And they aren't having any trouble selling right now.  I just priced a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Icon of the Seas for November and it was $12,000 CDN for a regular balcony cabin.  That's a lot of money for what is essentially a crowded, floating resort.  There are a lot of Caribbean resorts that can offer much more value and a better travel experience than what that ship can offer.

[TRLD]

35 minutes ago, RedIguana said:

When they ran the numbers on a per hour basis though the cruise passengers spent more. The bars, shops, and attractions love cruise passengers. The hotels and non tourism dependent residents hate them. Plus those figures would have to be from 2019 or before, as since the shutdown and restart there are more daily arrivals from the airport than ships. Cruise passengers in 2022 were a third of 2019 (city owned docks only allow sub 700 passenger ships, or somewhere around that, if at all), as the only dock allowing most ships is the privately controlled dock the city tried and failed to shut down. Average room rates in 2019 was in the mid $280's, last year it was almost $430.

Actually they are from the most recent CLIA report. That report was less generous that I stated giving cruise line passengers only 7% of the tourist spend.

 

Pre 2019 according to a very detailed report spend per passenger was slightly less and the ratio was 15% for cruise line and 85% for other visitors.

 

If you have ever spent any time in Key West you would recognize the difference in the experience  between being there with a ship and without a ship in port. Perfectly understandable while many do not like cruise ships.

 

Not only the crowds, but the impact right around the port has converted what used to be a very unique down town that served locals and tourists to the 3 blocks around the port being filled with shops aimed at cruise ship passengers, including many that you find in any other Caribbean port. 

 

Those carbon copy business right around the port like the cruise ships because they are in every port. T shirt shops, jewelry stores, beauty products, tourist trinkets and let's see the 10 or 12 key lime pie shops (really not good or authentic to get that you gave to go away from the port) in the immediate port area.

 

As far as spend per hour much of that goes to a couple of people that own and run the excursions. Not to most of the community.

[OlsSalt]

Having been to Key West FLA  both before and after the big cruise port explosion, I totally agree. Key West is a great example of what not to do.  It was heart-breaking to see small, charming and local become noisy, crowded, generic and way overly-impacted.

 

I was surprised to see equally impacted Avalon on Santa Catalina Island (off Los Angeles) still did retain a lot of its small village feeling, even after decades of day-trippers from both local ferries and cruise ships.  They kept the scale small - no more  than two stories high and perhaps also limited the numbers of non-local businesses.

 

Skagway AK could learn a few things from both examples, as it now teeters badly between previously quaint and local "Made in Alaska" and now the very non-local  Diamonds International and Del Sol invasions. 

 

My own home town now struggles with these very cruise ship impact issues - how many, how large, how often. Activists now expanding  the offshore "Marine Sanctuary" may well bring an end to all shipping, including daily cargo ship transits.