Although air arrivals in Grand Cayman remained strong in April, surpassing the previous year’s monthly total for the fifth consecutive month, cruise arrivals plummeted by 26.6% compared to the same month in 2024.
Excluding 2020, 2021 and 2022 – the three years heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic – the total of 83,933 cruise passenger arrivals during the month represented the lowest total for April since the Department of Tourism started keeping the statistics in 2000.
Despite the steep falloff in April from the 114,421 cruise passengers that arrived in 2024, the total number of cruise visitors for the first four months of 2025 is still 4% more than for the same period in 2024.
Elsewhere in the region, Jamaica also experienced a significant decline in cruise arrivals in April, with 13.3% fewer visitors for the month – one-half of the percentage decline experienced in Grand Cayman.
The decrease in April cruise arrivals on Grand Cayman was partially offset by a 15% increase in stayover arrivals compared to the same month last year. For this year, air arrivals are up 7.4% over the first four months of 2024 and on a trajectory to come close to the record-setting 502,739 visitors for the whole of 2019. Stayover arrivals in 2025 are only 2.5% below the total for 2019 through the first four months of the year.
The 42,757 stayover visitors that arrived in the month represented only the second time since 2000 that the figure surpassed 40,000 for April, with 2019 being the only other time.
The decline in cruise passenger arrivals is expected to continue over the next four months. In June, only 13 cruise ships are currently expected to call on Grand Cayman with no more than one cruise ship arriving on any given day.
There are only 12 cruise ship days currently scheduled in July, 10 in August and nine in September, before October sees an increase to 15 cruise ship days and 25 ships expected over the month. Summer cruise schedules can, and often do, change as a result of tropical storms in the Atlantic basin.
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Is there an expectation that cruises increase into the hottest time of the year and hurricane season? I understand plane passengers can get out quick but cruisers, I didn’t know they were expected to boom in the heat of the summer.
Bravo!
Most cruise ships leave the Caribbean in the summer for Europe and Alaska.
There are zero small, top end ships coming to Cayman; only low price ones.
Why is that when our hotels are at the high end price wise?
This is what we want! It is the stayover guests that actually spend money while they’re here!