How can I find out when cruise ships (of any line) visit a particular port?

Question

I am considering going to some places that I know are on the itinerary of at least one cruise ship. Having been in Venice when a cruise ship went past, and later when it disgorged passengers into the tiny streets, I would like (assuming it's possible) to arrange my own itinerary so I don't visit a place on cruise ship day. (Consider Aitutaki, which has a population of 2000 people on the whole island, when a ship carrying 330 people arrives, or Port Vila, population 40,000 when 2000 people arrive.) I understand that some places may be visited by cruise ships every day, but others I am quite sure are not.

So far I have tried pretending that I want to take a cruise that stops at the places I'm going. There are a LOT of cruise lines large and small, and they only list sailings they're still willing to sell - some lines are listing only 2016 dates, so I can't tell what days they will be in each place in 2015. Is there a way to get this information in a relatively compact way, other than scouring each and every cruise line? For example, you can visit an airport's web site to see who flies from it - is there something similar for cruise ports?

Answer 1

There actually is a site that provides information you seek though not as far forward as all of 2016 but you can look at:

• Ports @ Cruise TT

Which gives listing of many ports and the schedule of various cruiseships that intend to enter the port and if you click on a ship it will tell you its schedule as well.

Answer 2

I'm sure you've already tried this but, for completeness, I'll post it as an answer. Any decent-sized port will have its own website and that may well list scheduled cruise arrivals. For example, Liverpool,^* Vancouver, Venice.

^* At the time of writing, this page is blank as cruises don't visit Liverpool late in the year and the 2015 schedules haven't been released yet.

Answer 3

Another site that lists ships' arrivals in ports is WhatsInPort.com. Choose the port of interest (country first, then the specific port). Once on the page for the port, click on the "Cruise Ship" link for a listing of all ships that call on that port, including passenger capacity; or go farther down the page to click on "Cruise Calendar" to find out which ships are in port on each day. I've just recently discovered this web site, so I can't vouch for its accuracy, but several ports I checked list arrivals for the next two years. In addition to using this to find cruises visiting a particular port, you can use it to find out what other ships will be in the ports your cruise visits so you can judge how crowded they will be.