Key Aspects:
- Island Princess will no longer be visiting Puerto Chiapas, Mexico, on September 30, 2025.
- The cruise ship will not be able to safely access the port due to a build-up of sediment that has made the channel into the harbor too shallow.
- Instead, guests will spend the day in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.
Island Princess, which is currently in the middle of a Panama Canal cruise, has had a last-minute change of itinerary.
Due to sediment build-up that has made water levels too shallow to traverse the area safely, the Coral-class ship will be unable to call on Puerto Chiapas, Mexico, as planned on Tuesday, September 30, 2025.
“We recently have been notified by Puerto Chiapas Port Authority of some details that I’d like to bring to your attention,” Captain Vincenzo Lubrano Lobianco wrote to the up to 2,210 guests onboard.
“Sediment has built up on the bottom of the channel, creating water depths that are too shallow for us to safely navigate,” his letter continued.
With this in mind, Tuesday’s port call has been replaced with a day in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, which is only about 200 miles south of the original destination.
While Puerto Chiapas is not part of the Panama Canal itself, it sits in Southern Mexico and serves as a point of entry to the region.
To access the port, cruise ships must still navigate a main channel that leads into the harbor from the Pacific Ocean.
“As a result of this silting, we have made some necessary changes to our scheduled itinerary,” the Captain explained.
“We will no longer call to Puerto Chiapas, Mexico, on Tuesday September 30 and will instead call to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM on the same date.”
At just 92,822 gross tons and a length of 964 feet, Island Princess is one of the smallest ships in the Princess fleet.
Her smaller size is what enables her to navigate the narrow sections of the Panama Canal and surrounding destinations, but even smaller vessels need a minimum of 25 to 50 feet of water beneath them to sail and dock safely.
One More Tweak to the Itinerary
Luckily, the majority of the 18-night one-way sailing has gone off without a hitch.
The 2003-launched vessel embarked from New York on September 18, 2025, and has already visited most of the ports on her itinerary – stopping at Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos; Aruba, Costa Rica, and Panama City, Panama, along the way.
She has two more ports of call left before the voyage disembarks in Los Angeles, California, on October 6, 2025 – the first of which has also been tweaked slightly.
The cruise ship will arrive one hour later than expected in Huatulco on the Mexican Riviera on October 1, 2025, as Puerto Quetzal is a bit further away than Puerto Chiapas would have been.
“Additonally, we will amend our call to Huatulco, Mexico from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Wednesday, October 1, rather than 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM,” the Captain’s letter confirmed.
The final port call of the trip on Puerto Vallarta on October 3, 2025, remains unaffected.
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While an hour delay likely won’t impact the experience or shore excursions in Huatulco much, Princess Cruises has confirmed that any tours of excursions that were booked for Puerto Chiapas through the cruise line will be automatically refunded.
New shore excursions for Puerto Quetzal are already available for booking in the Princess Cruises app or by visiting the Shore Excursions Desk onboard.
