One of the French Rivieraโs most popular destinations may become harder to reach via cruise ship this summer if the cityโs mayor has his way.
On January 21, 2025, Mayor Christian Estrosi announced plans to ban large-capacity cruise ships from Nice, France, beginning in July 2025. This would apply to any ship with more than 900 passengers.
According to Riviera Radio, the decision is based on environmental concerns, with Estrosi wanting to stop ships that โconsume nothing and leave their waste behindโ in the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Estrosi’s ban would go into effect on July 1, 2025, with the mayor attempting to โcancel all cruises that can still be cancelled ahead of drafting a banning order.โ
Currently, Marella Cruises, Cunard, and Celebrity Cruises have sailings scheduled in July, including two arrivals from Marella via the 2,076-passenger Marella Discovery and the 1,886-guest Marella Voyager.
Cunardโs 2,061-guest Queen Victoria is slated to arrive on July 11, while Celebrity Equinox, carrying up to 2,850 passengers, will arrive on Franceโs Bastille Day, July 14.
The same ships are scheduled to call in August and beyond, along with Oceania Cruisesโ Vista, with up to 1,200 passengers, and the largest ship scheduled to visit during the peak of summer, Celebrity Cruisesโ 3,260-guest Celebrity Ascent.
Royal Caribbeanโs Voyager of the Seas and Explorer of the Seas, with 3,602 and 4,290 passengers, respectively, are scheduled to arrive in September.
P&O Cruises, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, and Viking Oceans are also some of the larger cruise lines regularly operating in the port in 2025.
Outside of its cruise tourism, the city receives more than 5 million visitors annually and is the second most-visited city in the country, following Paris.
Its port, situated in a natural harbor, features two terminals with berths that can manage up to 6,318 passengers a day.
Nearby, Cannes, which saw 318,000 passenger arrivals in 2024 to the town of roughly 75,000 people, is considering a similar ban to restrict large cruise ships.
Navigating Sustainability and Cruise Traffic
The French Riviera, situated on Franceโs southern coast along the Mediterranean Sea, manages a large influx of cruise traffic through several ports.
Its largest port, Marseille, stands as Franceโs largest cruise port, handling over 33 million passengers annually.
Niceโs port, in contrast, recorded 452,000 passengers at its pre-Covid peak in 2019.
The move by Niceโs mayor parallels initiatives in other prominent European destinations, which are also wrestling with the environmental impacts of mass tourism.
For example, Venice, another UNESCO World Heritage site, implemented a similar ban on large cruise ships in 2021.
Its restriction stops ships heavier than 25,000 gross tons from entering its Grand Canal, forcing them instead to dock at less central ports like Fusina and Marghera, located 20 to 45 minutes by bus from the historic city center.
With that not stopping the influx โ some 540,000 cruise passengers arrived in the city in 2024 โ Venice implemented a โฌ5.00 tourist fee during peak 2024 travel. It will double the fee in 2025.
In 2023, Barcelona also began a partial ban by forcing cruise ships away from its northern docks, Muelle Barcelona Norte and the World Trade Center.
Last summer, its mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced plans to limit the number of cruise ship passengers allowed to disembark to further curb traffic, which had reached 3.6 million in 2023.