San Diego cruise business expected to boom again as Disney returns in a big way

San Diego’s rebound from a once booming cruise industry has come in fits and starts over the past decade, but ocean-going traffic is now expected to boom yet again, thanks to a decision by Disney Cruise Line to substantially expand its presence here next year with two cruise ships.

Between the more than 280,000 passengers that Disney alone is expected to bring here during the 2026-27 cruise season and plans by Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise lines to also establish home ports here, San Diego will soon reach a milestone moment in its struggle to return to its glory days of two decades ago.

Port of San Diego officials say they expect that by the end of the 2026-27 season, close to 800,000 passengers will have sailed in and out of the downtown cruise port. That’s comparable to two of the peak years between 2008 and 2010, when more than 800,000 cruise passengers were coming through San Diego.

The only period that surpassed that number was between 2007 and 2008 when there were nearly 992,000 passengers.

“It’s long overdue,” said Adam Deaton, senior trade account executive with the Port of San Diego. “Just before COVID we were projecting to be on this track earlier, but COVID was a big stumbling block. It’s just been a long, drawn-out recovery. Now we have four home-ported lines to choose from, so there will be a lot of changes for people in the area to choose from.

“This is awesome, it’s what we’ve wanted for a long time.”

Disney Cruise Line announced this week that for the first time, it would be bringing two of its ships here for the 2026-27 season, which in San Diego typically runs from September through May.

The Disney Wonder, which is the ship that has typically served San Diego the past several years, will be offering three- to seven-night itineraries between October 2026 and April 2027 focusing mostly on Mexico, although occasionally there will be stops at Catalina Island, Disney Cruise Line said.

New to San Diego will be the Disney Magic, which will be here in October and November of next year. Those cruises will range from three- to seven-night voyages to primarily Baja California and the Mexican Riviera before transitioning to Texas on a 14-night sailing from San Diego to Galveston featuring stops in Puerto Vallarta, Cartagena and Grand Cayman.

For the 2026-27 season, the two ships are expected to make 60 calls in San Diego, accounting for 285,000 passengers. Disney’s peak volumes in San Diego occurred between 2022 and 2023 when the cruise line made 55 calls and carried more than 267,000 passengers, according to port officials.

In recent years, though, the number of Disney cruises here began to shrink as the company made a decision to pivot to the booming Australian market where it enjoyed great success. Disney, which has had a fairly small fleet compared to other lines, has been on a growth spurt and is expected to have 13 ships by 2031, said Deaton. It currently has six vessels.

“Now with more ships they can increase their calls in San Diego,” he said. “They’ve always communicated with me that San Diego is where they want to be. They said we’d like to be there again but can’t tell you when that will happen. So I knew they were coming (with more cruises) but I just couldn’t say when.”

Disney Cruise Line representatives did not respond to inquiries about the company’s reasons for expanding in San Diego.

It’s notable that Disney alone is not responsible for the monumental resurgence in San Diego’s cruise business.

Royal Caribbean, which over the years has been an occasional visitor to San Diego, announced earlier this year that it would be making 44 cruise calls that are expected to attract 211,000 passengers during the 2026-27 cruising season. That easily surpasses San Diego’s longest and what had been its largest cruise line client — Holland America — which is forecast to come calling 31 times with more than 136,000 passengers during that same time frame, a cruise line spokesperson said. Its selection of itineraries tends to be more diverse, including a 93-day voyage next year to Australia and New Zealand that starts and ends in San Diego.

Another newcomer, Norwegian Cruise Line, is planning to make 21 cruise calls during this year’s upcoming season. Deaton said he anticipates the line will make 18 to 21 calls the following year, which would translate to just under 100,000 passengers.

As San Diego prepares for the expanded cruise business, the port is making some improvements to its aging terminal at B Street, including replacing one of the elevators and refurbishing passenger boarding bridges, Deaton said.

“We’re also looking at renovating the interior of the B Street terminal,” he added. “We’re trying to figure out what needs to be done to the terminal to serve the new fleet of vessels, like is this the right layout for the business at this point.”

With the big surge in cruises out of San Diego, the port plans to rely more heavily on its little-used terminal at Broadway. Deaton said he expects it will be put into service about 20 times when multiple ships are here at the same time.

Cruises are regarded as a big economic engine for the city at large. With each new cruise call, the economic ripple effect is substantial. The San Diego Unified Port District estimates that each ship that begins and ends a cruise in San Diego contributes $2 million to the local economy. Roughly one-third of that is money spent by the cruise lines on such things as labor, ship repairs, shore excursions, florists and provisions.