The return of the cruise ships – but records from 2019 are not expected
Eighty-two large foreign cruise ships sailed to Croatia in 2022, making 632 round trips, which is 224 trips more than in 2021. Still, this is 13% less than in 2019. These are the data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (DZS) which show last year’s significant increase in the number of passengers on cruise ships.
Namely, almost 634,000 passengers came to Croatia on all cruises on foreign ships in 2022, as opposed to 194,000 in 2021.
They arrived every month of 2022 from January to the end of December, with the most trips per month being in June (105) and August (113).
However, even with the days of stay of these foreign ships, the 2019 records have not been broken. However, these numbers are lower by 9.7% and the number of vessels (82) that sailed on cruises in 2022 to Croatia is 13% less than those in 2019.
Traditionally, the most significant number of cruises was in the sea of Dubrovnik-Neretva County or 44%, followed by 32.4% in Split-Dalmatia County, and the rest in other Adriatic counties – Zadar 12.5%, Istria 4.7%, Primorje-Gorski Kotar 3.5 % and Šibenik-Knin 3%.
Accordingly, Gruž port was the most visited port, followed by Split port, Zadar port and the port in Hvar town.
The records will not be broken this year, but they will be in 2024
The Zadar Port Authority has announced a new cruise season with 158 sailings of small and large passenger ships on cruises.
The small cruisers Athena and Arethusa, which came weekly in the off-season, will from now on be tied up in the City Port during the season. There will be a total of 20 sailings and they will be in Zadar for two days each.
The first large cruise ship Viking Sky will open the season on March 31 by docking next to the Sea Organ. Finally, the last large cruise ship is announced on November 6, when Silver Moon sails into Gaženica.
Capital among the announced ships, some of which will come to Zadar for the first time, is certainly the Norwegian Getawa. This cruise ship should sail through the Zadar channel towards Gaženica on July 5. With a length of 326 meters, it will not exceed the record holder Gaženica port which MSC Fantasia sailed into last year. This imposing ship has a total length of 333.33 meters with 18 decks 67 meters high.
It is not excluded that some more cruisers will come and some will drop out. In all cases, the Port Authority is already looking forward to the year 2024 when, according to the announcement of director Željko Knežević, Zadar would be a destination with 217 sailings of small, medium and mega cruise ships, which would be a real record.
