Top Cruise Stories of 2024

The past 12 months may not have been as tumultuous for the cruise industry as previous years, but there was no shortage of cruise news. From happy tidings of brand-new vessels to the sad ending of a beloved brand, dozens upon dozens of cruise stories captured your attention this past year.

This year’s biggest stories can be rounded up into nine categories, with one surprise article also making it into our list of most read cruise stories of 2024.

Cruise Departure & Port Cancellations/Delays

From natural disasters to human intervention, there was no shortage of changes to cruise ship itineraries in 2024, and news about these changes were some of our top-read articles.

Natural Disasters

Keeping on top of the last-minute changes that natural disasters often cause was one of our readers’ top priorities this year. From the deadly landslide in Ketchikan to Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Helene, and Hurricane Milton shutting down multiple ports, there was lots to keep up with.

Human Intervention

As if bad weather wasn’t enough, 2024 saw multiple incidents of political turmoil and anti-tourism efforts wreak havoc on cruise line operations. The year started off with canceled Galapagos sailings thanks to violence in Ecuador, while protesters in The Netherlands stopped ships from reaching Amsterdam throughout August. Amidst all the changes, including Norwegian Cruise Line choosing to cancel and reroute entire sailings, advisors were pleased to read that the at-the-time-anticipated longshoreman strike was not expected to impact cruise operations.

Haiti

Related to the above, but in a category all its own, was any news related to Haiti and Labadee. It all began in March when the country went into a state of emergency after gang violence surged. At the time, Royal Caribbean had no plans to change course on Labadee, then excursions were canceled, and finally the line made the decision to remove Labadee from its itineraries. Royal Caribbean returned to visiting Labadee in October.

River Cruise Disruptions

Similarly, news stories detailing changes to river cruise itineraries were also much read in 2024, particularly when a German river cruise ship had to be evacuated.

The End of American Queen Voyages

In some of the sadder news of last year – if not necessarily surprising – our story on the demise of American Queen Voyages was one of our top-read new items of the entire year. You also flocked to our report of American Queen being moved to a recycling facility.

Fare Inclusion Changes

While 2023 saw several cruise lines take big steps to cut costs by reducing fare inclusions, 2024 wasn’t so dramatic. Of particular interest to our readers, Royal Caribbean eliminated its Ship-to-Perfect-Day tram for all except those with mobility issues, while Princess Cruises removed access to its Sanctuary pool deck for anyone not in its new Sanctuary Collection fare class. Norwegian switched from “Free at Sea” to “More at Sea,” which led to mixed reactions, as some cruisers felt it was a downgrade to less at sea.

New Cruise Ships

New ships are always exciting. Interestingly, out of all the new ships in 2024, our readers were most interested in the all-new Margaritaville at Sea Islander, as well as the four spots onboard Sun Princess that we weren’t in love with. (The spots we loved were much less interesting to you.)

Virgin Voyages Says No to Predatory Behavior

One cruise news story that caught us by surprise this year – and was one of our most read – was Virgin Voyages’ crackdown on predatory travel advisor behavior. Call us naïve, but we thought the industry had moved past this, which I discussed in my May Testing the Waters column.

Cruise Line Policies

If keeping up with cruise itinerary changes was top-of-mind for our readers this year, so, too, was staying on top of all the cruise industry’s policies, from when each cruise line pays advisors their commission and cruise line rebating policies to what each line charges in gratuities and what’s included in each river cruise line’s fares.

The “Stranded Passenger Fiasco”

The mainstream media loves negative cruise coverage and when NCL “stranded” a handful of passengers in Africa when their private shore excursion returned late, it made for sensational headlines. In our look at the incident, we examined how the coverage could potentially affect travel advisors.

Randomly HAL

We’re not saying Holland America Line doesn’t offer a great product, but it came as a bit of a surprise when our piece on what to know about HAL’s Nieuw Statendam rounded out the list of top cruise stories of 2024.