Cruise ship traffic drops dramatically in Victoria as season nears its end

Victoria’s cruise ship season is quickly winding down, with just six cruise ship visits scheduled at Ogden Point this week.

Between Monday, October 5th and Sunday, October 11th, the vessels have a combined estimated capacity of 12,490 passengers, less than half the potential passenger traffic Victoria saw just last week.

It is a dramatic slowdown from the peak summer months, when Victoria regularly welcomed more than a dozen ships and upwards of 40,000 cruise passengers in a single week.

Last week, nine ships with a combined estimated capacity of 25,789 passengers were scheduled to visit Victoria. The week before that saw 12 ships carrying a potential 36,129 passengers.

There will be no cruise ship arrivals Monday or Tuesday before activity picks up Wednesday. National Geographic Quest will arrive in the morning for a full-day visit, followed by the much larger Carnival Spirit later that day.

Friday will bring the largest single ship of the week, Norwegian Bliss, which has an estimated passenger capacity of 4,250.

Saturday will be the busiest day by overall passenger capacity.

Noordam arrives at 8 a.m. and will spend 14 hours in Victoria before Norwegian Encore arrives that evening. Combined, the two ships can carry an estimated 5,916 passengers. 

There could also be a little bit of history made at Ogden Point this weekend.

Based on the GVHA schedule, approximately 326 cruise ship visits have taken place in Victoria through Sunday, October 4th. Victoria’s existing record is 329 cruise ship calls, set in 2022.

If the remaining visits take place as scheduled, Norwegian Bliss would become the 329th ship of the season when it arrives on Friday, tying the record. Noordam’s arrival Saturday morning would then become number 330, setting a new record for the terminal. 

It would come during what was expected to be a record-setting year from the beginning.

When the first ship arrived in April, the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority projected 335 cruise ship visits and 1,008,109 passengers for the 2026 season.

The current schedule has changed slightly since then, including a cancelled National Geographic Quest call listed for October 8th, but Victoria remains on track to finish above the previous ship-call record. 

Passenger numbers could also be significant.

Based on the estimated passenger capacities listed on the schedule, the first 326 calls of the season represented approximately 987,577 potential passengers through October 4th.

Those figures represent vessel passenger estimates rather than a confirmed count of how many people actually arrived or disembarked in Victoria.

For comparison, GVHA reported 989,950 cruise passengers during the entire 2025 season, while both 2023 and 2024 saw approximately 970,000 passengers. 

Once this week is over, there will be just two cruise ship visits remaining on the current 2026 schedule.

Norwegian Encore is scheduled to return Tuesday, October 13th, followed by National Geographic Venture on Sunday, October 18th, which is expected to officially close out Victoria’s 2026 cruise season. 

Here’s the current schedule for Monday, October 5th through Sunday, October 11th:

Monday, October 5th

• No cruise ships scheduled

Tuesday, October 6th

• No cruise ships scheduled

Wednesday, October 7th

• National Geographic Quest: 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., estimated 100 passengers
• Carnival Spirit: 8 p.m. to 11:59 p.m., estimated 2,124 passengers

Thursday, October 8th

• No cruise ships scheduled

Friday, October 9th

• Norwegian Bliss: 7:30 p.m. to 11:59 p.m., estimated 4,250 passengers

Saturday, October 10th

• Noordam: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., estimated 1,918 passengers
• Norwegian Encore: 7:45 p.m. to 11:59 p.m., estimated 3,998 passengers

Sunday, October 11th

• National Geographic Venture: 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., estimated 100 passengers