POPULAR CRUISE DESTINATION LIMITS CRUISING |CRUISE NEWS

well as of today we have another couple of cruise ports screaming that they have too many people visiting and these ports are not a surprise to [Music] me hey everybody what's up my name is Jordan and this is JJ Cruz thank you so much for coming into the video today well we are back from Japan if you missed our Japan content definitely go and check that out there'll probably be a few few more pieces of Japan content but we've come from Japan and we are now in New York City getting ready to board our New York City Broadway group Cruise which is a cruise that Jared and I are hosting if you're on that cruise we will see you in a little bit but first we have some important things to talk about here on the channel the destinations that we're going to talk about in the over tourism that is happening there is a place that's very near and dear to mine and Jared's Hearts so we wanted to come on and chat about this get feedback from all of you but before we do that I do just want to invite you to subscribe to the channel we're on the journey to 100,000 subscribers if you want to be a part of the first 100,000 JJ crew please hit that subscribe button and don't forget to hit the thumbs up it is no secret that tourism is at an all-time high after the pandemic people decided that they were ready to travel and they were ready to travel a lot cruising is no exception in the early 90s about 3.7 million people would board cruise ships annually now compare that to now 2024 where they expect over 30 million people to have boarded cruise ships this year alone if you're watching this video right now you're probably somebody that takes cruises cuz this YouTube channel is all about cruising since covid we've seen a number of diff different destinations kind of raise their hand and say we have too many people in Port we're really not built to handle the capacity that are coming in and out on a daily basis this includes places like Alaska Sitka specifically we've seen it on the East coast in Bar Harbor we've seen places in Canada talk about this and now we are seeing Greece raise their hand and saying we have a problem now I'm going to give you the rundown of what's going on over there and then I'm going to let you know towards the end of the video why this does not surprise me at all but the prime minister of Greece came out earlier today and said that they are struggling with over tourism they have a lot of people visiting very popular destinations in Greece both by land and by sea but cruise ships are coming there in numbers that they have never seen before the two places that are specifically being talked about are Santorini and mikinos some of these Greek Islands only have 15,000 people that live there full-time in 2023 most of those islands saw an average of 24 million visitors come on and off the island the tourism industry in Greece contributes to about 20% of the overall economy in that country so it's obviously a very vital piece to making sure that Greece is a stable and sustainable country but the reporting that is currently coming out of Greece is saying that the islands of mikinos and sorini and a few of the other even smaller Islands really were never built to handle the crowds that are coming on and off these islands on a daily basis you also have critics in the creu space that claim that cruise tourists do not spend the amount of money that land tourists spend while there and are really just taking up space they're not helping the economy in a lot of ways they're just kind of there filling up the streets and not really spending any money now Jared and I have cruised to Greece twice in the last couple of years and I don't know about everyone else but everyone that we seemed to encounter on the ship were out there taking tours eating a Greek restaurants buying souvenirs and spending a pretty good amount of money at these destinations so I don't think that I personally agree that cruise tourists are not spending money in these places but to ensure that this is now changing the prime minister is starting a new tax specifically for cruise tourists every single person that stops in mikos and sorini is going to have to pay a €20 fee in order to get into the island now normally these fees are wrapped up in your taxes and port fees so if you do have a Greek Isles Cruise coming up in the next year you could see those taxes and port fees go up always always always look to see if the price has changed on your cruise taxes and port fees can change and that is in every single cruise contract when you say yes I'm going to the cruise and I am agreeing to pay the price that is here on my ticket Cruise fair and on board things typically do not change but your taxes and port fees based on the destinations that you are going to could go up so I'm sure it depends on what cruise line that you will be going on in terms of if this 20 will be wrapped up in your port fees or if you're physically going to have to pay an entrance fee to get into these places over in Greece Venice is another area that has banned cruise ships from coming in and out and now also charges a fee to get onto the island or get back off so we are seeing this happen in these extremely popular destinations Venice is another one that we have been to by land travel by the way not by cruise ship and I can say that it was absolutely packed when we were there one other thing that the Prime Minister said in Greece that they're going to do is that they're going to limit the number of cruise ships that can come in and out of these islands after 2025 so here is another place similar to Norway that we might see cruise ships kind of steering away from or not going to quite as much I said that I was going to share my opinion as to why I was not surprised by this well on our Greek Isles Crews that did visit Santorini and mikinos it was unbelievably crowded it was difficult to get through some of the very narrow streets it was impossible to get into certain shops or restaurants at different times of day because there was just so many tourists there when we were there we were there with four other cruise ships so five ships in total and I do think that that is two ships too many to be in that port on any given day I don't think that the fee is going to tour cruise ships from actually stopping at these places but a mandate saying only two ships or three ships per day in San Trini or mikinos will definitely cause the ships to not go there quite as frequently if you are looking at a CR to Greece I would actually give you a couple of recommendations first I would recommend cruising Mainland Greece we did this back in February we stopped at places like Thessaloniki Hydra Greece um we went to some of the smaller islands like roads and C this was one of the favorite cruises that Jared and I have ever taken because it was off season there was no one at these Port stops and we were immersed in the Greek culture got to know the Greek people and we truly loved this Cru experience contrast that to our summertime cruise to San Trini and mikos where it was difficult to get in places hard to move around and we had to pay pretty high fees to hire private tourers to really get us out of the public spaces because it was honestly miserable trying to get around from place to place well add Greece officially to your list as to places that are trying to limit cruise ships tell me what you think of this news today have you been to Greece recently were you there this summer was it totally overcrowded similar to my experience last year or do you disagree and do you have a big problem with the critics saying Cruisers don't spend any money in ports I still kind of think that's a little bit of a ridiculous situation but every time I say that here on the channel I definitely have some of the people come out and come for me in the comments so let me know what you think in the comments about this whole situation and on your way out today please don't forget to hit that like button well again my name is Jordan thanks so much for watching I will see you later I'm going to head off to our Broadway group cruise and until next time see y JJ Cru