Millions of people choose to board cruise ships for their holidays to be able to explore several destinations within just a few days while being fully catered for.

Across the world, there are several ports favoured by cruises, including Cozumel Cruise Port in Mexico and the port in Barcelona.

Only one, though, recorded nearly 7.3 million passengers between October 1 2022 and September 30 2023 – PortMiami.

This massive port on the eastern coast of the US was so busy last year that it didn’t just top the chart but also shattered its previous record for high number of passengers.

Between October 1 2018 and September 30 2019, PortMiami counted 6.8 million passengers using it as a departure or arrival point.

With the coronavirus pandemic, the number of passengers using PortMiami among others around the world for tourism purposes plunged.

In 2022, as the tourism industry was still gathering steam, another port in the US state of Florida, Port Canaveral, gained an edge over PortMiami and became the busiest in the world. PortMiami was the second busiest at the time.

On its official website, PortMiami is dubbed the “Cruise Capital of the World” due to the many cruise vessels reaching it every year.

One of the vessels to leave PortMiami in recent months has been the famous Serenade of the Seas, which is currently taking its guests on a nine-month world cruise.

This ship left PortMiami in mid-December and is set to return there in September this year after having touched down in more than 150 other ports in 60 nations across seven continents.

Other ports extremely popular with cruise ships are the Port of Nassau, thanks to the Bahamas being one of the destinations of choice of many cruises and the Port of Civitavecchia in Italy, just over an hour away from Rome.

Another port favoured by many cruise passengers is the one in Barcelona, a key junction for sea travel built in the 14th century.

The large number of cruise passengers using ports signals the cruise industry is on an upward trend.

In its 2023 State of the Cruise Industry report, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) noted more people expressed an intention to holiday on a cruise in 2023 than in 2019.