- 150 cruise ships have called at Souda with 331,808 passengers so far this year — a new record.
- 18 ships docked at the Venetian Harbor with 6,711 passengers, up from 11 ships and 5,244 passengers in 2024.
- Passenger arrivals jumped 48.6%, while ship calls rose 54.1% compared to last year.
- More than 40 additional arrivals are still expected before the year’s end.
Yesterday, Chania welcomed two giants: the Sun Princess, with 4,267 passengers, and the Resilient Lady, with 2,619. The pair underscored once again the growing weight of the port in the Mediterranean cruise circuit — and the city’s increasingly crowded cobblestone streets.
Records and Realities
The numbers speak louder than any press release. Chania has already obliterated last year’s record of 279,754 passengers, with months still to go. But behind the statistics are just 12 employees keeping the cruise machinery turning.
As Dimitris Virrirakis, president of the Port Authority of Chania (ΛΤΝΧ), put it:
“This achievement becomes even more valuable if one considers that our entire staff consists of only 12 people, with limited resources at our disposal. The success shows that Chania is loved by visitors and underlines the need for cooperation among all local stakeholders so that the upward trend can be maintained and the economic benefits shared across the region.”
The arithmetic is simple: record-breaking crowds, a skeleton crew running the show, and an island still figuring out how to balance prosperity with sustainability. Whether Chania can keep ringing the cash registers without ringing alarm bells is the question that lingers long after the ships sail away.
