Key Aspects:
- Rough weather from two successive storms has kept six cruise ships from calling at Funchal in recent days.
- Two of the ships, Queen Anne and Vasco da Gama, have no further visits to Funchal scheduled in November 2026.
- The port withstood the storms and is ready to resume welcoming cruise ships.
Storms Bruna and Charles have significantly disrupted the popular port of Funchal, Madeira, with rough weather causing six different cruise ships to cancel planned visits in recent days.
Cunard’s Queen Anne was the first to cancel on Sunday, November 8, followed quickly by P&O Cruises’ Azura and TUI Cruises’ Mein Schiff Relax both on Monday, November 9. The rough weather continued to prove too much for Nicko Cruises’ Vasco da Gama on Tuesday, November 10, as well as P&O Cruises’ Iona on Wednesday, November 11.
Portos da Madeira posted about the cancellations on Facebook even as the port welcomed AIDA Cruises’ AIDAblu and Princess Cruises’ Sky Princess for visits on Tuesday, when Iona had already planned its cancellation for the next day.
The sixth ship was Ponant’s much smaller 184-passenger Le Dumont-d’Urville, which was also forced to skip the port. The five larger ships alone could have brought 17,000 cruise guests to the island and represent 10% of the ship calls scheduled for Funchal in November 2026.
While Funchal is a popular port, the cancelled visit was to have been the only visit to the destination this month by Queen Anne, as part of a 12-night voyage roundtrip from Southampton.
Likewise, Vasco da Gama has no further calls planned to Funchal this month. The ship began a 193-night world cruise from Hamburg, Germany, on November 3 and is now heading for the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, the Caribbean and beyond. After a recent itinerary change, guests will fly from Oman to Egypt in April while the ship sails around Yemen without passengers, before returning to Hamburg on May 15, 2027.
Azura visited the port already on Monday, November 2, and has visits also planned for November 16 and November 23.
Mein Schiff Relax also has another visit scheduled for Wednesday, November 18, and Iona should return on Wednesday, November 25.
Port Ready to Resume Full Operations
So severe was Storm Charles in particular that the port’s marina and pontoons near Praça da Autonomia were damaged. Nevertheless, the port came through the storm and is ready to return to full operations.
“The port infrastructure of the Autonomous Region of Madeira performed relatively well in the face of the scale of this storm,” said José Manuel Rodrigues, Regional Secretary for Economy of Madeira.
The Port of Funchal was closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 10, as part of preparations to withstand Storm Charles. Now, cleanup efforts include cable repairs, cleaning, debris removal, and work to restore the marina and fuel station.
Local authorities are already considering plans to change the marina’s entrance to the old city quayside, but funding must be secured for such an expensive project, and it could be years before such a change is implemented.
Over the next few days, cruise ships expected to put in at Funchal include Norwegian Star, Queen Victoria, Volendam, AIDAprima, Ambition, MSC Virtuosa, and more.
