Cruise tourism to Cozumel is on pace for a record 2026, with both ship calls and passenger numbers running well ahead of last year, and a major terminal expansion underway to handle the largest vessels now sailing the Caribbean.

The numbers so far this year

Between January 1 and July 5, 2026, Cozumel received 759 cruise ship calls carrying a combined 2,756,802 passengers, according to figures reported by Riviera Maya News, representing an 8.7 percent increase in ship arrivals and a 10 percent rise in passenger numbers compared with the same period in 2025. The island’s cruise authority has also flagged a particularly intense holiday period ahead, with dozens of ships expected across the end of year weeks alone, continuing a pattern of sustained growth rather than a single busy stretch.

A terminal built for the newest mega ships

The Cozumel International Cruise Terminal is in the middle of an 882 million peso expansion specifically designed to accommodate the largest cruise ships now in service, including Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas class. Once complete, the upgraded terminal is expected to allow three Icon of the Seas class vessels to dock simultaneously alongside another ship, a significant jump in capacity for an island that already ranks among the busiest cruise destinations in the Caribbean. The port has also announced a first call from Queen Elizabeth, a Cunard liner, scheduled for November 4, alongside continued growth in call volume from the major mainstream cruise lines.

Cozumel has operated as one of the Caribbean’s primary cruise ports for decades, and its appeal rests on a combination of a protected, reef lined coastline directly offshore and a compact downtown that cruise passengers can walk to from the pier. The current expansion is the latest in a series of upgrades the island has made as cruise lines have scaled up ship size, following an earlier project that added a third berth to accommodate growing call volume before this round of construction began.

What it means for resort based travelers

Cozumel’s cruise boom matters to all-inclusive travelers staying on the mainland as much as to cruise passengers, since the island is a common day trip and snorkeling destination from resorts along the Riviera Maya. Heavier cruise traffic generally means more visitors at Cozumel’s most popular reef and beach club sites on the days several large ships are in port simultaneously, which is worth factoring into the timing of an independently booked day trip. Our guide to snorkeling and diving access across the Riviera Maya covers Cozumel’s reef sites directly and is worth reading alongside this update if a reef day is part of your trip, since choosing a day with fewer scheduled ship arrivals can noticeably change the experience at the same site.

The island’s growth also sits inside a wider pattern of Quintana Roo tourism infrastructure investment this year, alongside Cancun’s new international route additions covered in our Cancun airport route update and the state’s confirmation that VISITAX will not increase for 2026. None of this changes the fundamentals of a Cozumel day trip itself, but it does mean an island that was already one of the busiest cruise ports in the region is on track to get busier still before the terminal expansion is finished.

Planning around the cruise schedule

Cozumel’s port authority publishes its ship arrival schedule publicly, and travelers planning an independent day trip to the island’s reefs or downtown San Miguel can check the specific date against that schedule before booking transport, since a day with two or three large ships in port will feel meaningfully more crowded at the main piers and nearby dive sites than a quieter weekday. This is a small amount of extra planning for a noticeably different experience, and it costs nothing beyond checking a public schedule before fixing a date.

As with any infrastructure project still under construction, the final capacity and completion date for the Icon of the Seas berths were not fixed at the time of the reporting cited here, and travelers planning cruise arrivals specifically around the new berths should confirm the project’s status with their cruise line closer to departure rather than assuming the expansion is already finished.

Source

Figures above are reported by Riviera Maya News and Travel Pulse, drawing on APIQROO and Cozumel port authority data.