San Diego (California)

Port San Diego is located in Southern California and on San Diego Bay. The port city was founded in 1542 by Spanish conquistadors. San Diego is approx 120 mi (190 km / 2-hours drive) from Los Angeles (direction south) and approx 350 mi (560 km / 5-hours drive) from Las Vegas.

As cruise port, San Diego CA is a major departure port / homeport for turnaround operations (roundtrip itineraries). The Port's cruise ship schedule offers convenient departures to ports in Hawaii, Mexico's Riviera and California coastal cities. The most popular itinerary from San Diego is the 7-day "Mexican Riviera Cruise" visiting Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. Longer voyages go to South America or the South Pacific (Australia-New Zealand).

San Diego Bay (where the cruise port is located) features a coastline with numerous luxury hotels. The Port alone is the landlord for 17 hotels at the waterfront. Here are still operational 3x shipyards - NASSCO (National Steel and Shipbuilding Company), Huntington Ingalls (Continental Maritime) and BAE Systems (Southwest Marine). NASSCO is West Coast USA's largest shipbuilding yard. It specializes in building auxiliary and support vessels (for the US Navy), as well as oil tankers and dry-bulk cargo carriers.

Currently, by annual cruise berthings, San Diego is ranked California's 3rd-busiest cruise port - after Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Port San Diego CA

Port San Diego (locode USSAN) was established in 1962 as a public-benefit corporation. As cargo port, it is currently ranked one of USA's top 30 containership ports, with annual cargo shipping volume of ~3 million tons. For FY2017 (fiscal year), the Port reported USD 9,4 billion impact to California's economy. Its business supports 44300+ local jobs (shipbuilding, cargo operations, tourism, hospitality).

The Port's largest/main terminals are 10th Avenue Marine Terminal and National City Marine Terminal.

• 10th Avenue Marine Terminal covers an area of 96 acres (39 ha) and has 8x multi-purpose berths. The imported cargoes include refrigerated food, fertilizer, cement, break bulk cargoes, forest products. There is a large, on-dock cold storage warehouse (sized 300,000 ft2 / 28,000 m2) used for storing perishables (including fresh produce).
• National City Marine Terminal (operated by The Pasha Group) covers an area of 125 acres (51 ha) and has 7x berths. Annually, here are handled 450,000+ vehicles. The terminal serves as primary port for imported cars (Honda, Acura, Isuzu, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Hino Motors, VW).

San Diego is the primary port for imported vehicles (Fiat, Audi, VW, Honda, Mazda, Acura, Isuzu, Nissan, Mitsubishi). The seaport holds a lease with Dole Food Company (importing much of the USA's bananas).

San Diego Bay waterfront's most visited tourist attraction is the Maritime Museum. The 1948-opened museum has one of the USA's largest collections of historic ships, featuring the Star of India (1863-built iron-hulled sailing ship), San Salvador (100-ft/30-m long full-rigged galleon, replica of the flagship of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo/1497-1543), HMS Surprise (3-masted sailship, 1970-built as replica of HMS Rose/1757-launched 20-gun/6th-rate post ship of the British Royal Navy) and Berkeley (1898-built ferryboat that served San Francisco Bay crossings between West Oakland and San Francisco). On Berkeley is also the MacMullen Library & Research Archives.

In April 2023, San Diego's Maritime Museum announced a plan to redevelop the North Embarcadero premises to include galleries, a store, an educational theater, a cafe bar, roof-top terraces, as well as public and administrative offices. The US$28 million project also includes reconfiguration of the dock/moorings.

San Diego cruise port is located downtown (North Embarcadero). Its main passenger terminal facility (B Street Pier) has 3 berths. The historic Broadway Pier was redeveloped (inaugurated in December 2010) as the second cruise terminal. The list of largest cruise shipping companies homeporting vessels here includes HAL-Holland America Line, Celebrity, DCL-Disney, RCI-Royal Caribbean, NCL-Norwegian, Carnival, Princess, Silversea. Each San Diego roundtrip voyage results in an average USD 2 million in economic impact to California.

Most cruises leaving from San Diego are to Mexico. In early April and early November are also offered Panama Canal repositioning cruises. The port is often included in around-the-world voyages offered by companies like Costa, Oceania, Phoenix Reisen.

In the period 2002-2006, the cruise port reported a 44% growth in ship calls - from 122 (in 2002) to 219 (in 2006). In that period, the passenger numbers jumped from 276,000 to 619,000. In 2008, the port reported a record year with handled 252 cruise ship calls and over 800,000 passengers. In 2007, this business declined due to slumping US economy and the violence in Mexico.

In May 2013, the port was visited by its largest so far cruise ship - Celebrity Solstice. In 2016, the cruise port reported a 50% increase in ship calls. The growth was largely based on turnaround operations by Holland America and Disney ships.

Port San Diego reported a total of 69 ship calls during season 2015-2016 and scheduled 83 calls in 2017-2018. The increase in passengers was from 198,000 (season 2015-2016) to over 242,000 (2017-2018). The increased passenger shipping traffic was mainly due to Mexican Riviera itineraries. Previous cruise port statistics show 200 ship calls (season 2009-2010) and a drop to 79 calls (2012-2013).

In 2017, Disney Wonder had scheduled 13 San Diego departures. Princess ships visit the port on round-trip Mexican Riviera itineraries leaving out of Los Angeles. HAL-Holland America Line also cruises to Mexico Riviera ports, as well as Panama Canal transition and Mexico-Hawaii cruises leaving out of San Diego and visiting Ensenada (Baja California). For season 2019-2020, HAL homeported here a small fleet of 3 liners (Oosterdam, Eurodam, Maasdam) for 7-day Mexican Riviera itineraries visiting Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan.

For season 2018-2019, the port handled 92 ship calls (83 calls in 2017) and ~242,000 passengers (8% increase over 2017). The projected growth in cruise passenger numbers is 5-8% a year - to 280,000 by 2020. In 2019, Walt Disney expanded its San Diego homeporting season to 2 months. Also in 2019, the seaport celebrates its 250th anniversary.

For season 2019-2020, the cruise port had scheduled (berth bookings) 104 ship calls with expected ~338,000 passengers (295,000 more than 2018-19). Season's highlight is the return of Carnival Cruise Lines (last homeporting here in 2011) with Carnival Miracle (beginning December 1, 2019) for 12 roundtrips. Carnival's planned itineraries included 7-day Mexican Riviera; 14-15-day Hawaiian Islands, 3-4-5-6-day Baja Mexico.

In 2020, the Port opened a second shore-to-ship power connection. Using power supply from the city's power grid, shore power reduces bad emissions from vessels while berthed in port.

• After 2020, cruise companies with more than 5 ship calls in California are required to plug-in (use shoreside power supply) for 80% of the calls. The mark before 2020 was 70%.
• In April 2021 was announced a USD 4,6 million investment (equipment, installation, construction) to double the shore-power capability at the terminals "B Street Pier" and "Broadway Pier". In January 2022, for the project (completed in August 2022) were contracted Cochrane Marine LLC (to buy equipment, also for construction management, testing, coordinating, commissioning) and Baker Electric Inc (to install the new electrical equipment and to replace/terminate the medium voltage cables).
• Now, at both terminals, two vessels can be plugged in simultaneously. The first two ships that simultaneously used the expanded shore-power facility (on January 13, 2023) were Disney Wonder and Oceania Insignia.
• In December 2023 was planned a third shore power plug/point (at B Street Terminal's south berth) to be operational in 2024.

CCL-Carnival stopped homeporting here in 2012. Carnival Elation was the first homeported year-round in San Diego (between 2007-2010), followed by Carnival Spirit (2011-2012, then relocated to Australia). Starting December 1, 2019, here was homeported Carnival Miracle (previously deployed in Tampa FL) for a 3-month season to Hawaii (14-15-day) and Mexico (5-7-day).

In late-July 2020, Port San Diego was approved by CBP (US Customs and Border Protection) to activate an FTZ (Foreign Trade Zone) at TAMT (10th Avenue Marine Terminal / 96-acres / 39-hectares site). The FTZ offers as business benefits duty reduction (in merchandise processing fees), deferral (flow savings until cargoes are imported/exported), logistical, cost savings. At the FTZ, equipment manufacturers can assemble components to create USA-made products, thus obtaining additional savings (duty drawbacks). As of 2020, San Diego County has 19x FTZx (mainly warehouses). The seaport has two cargo terminals - TAMT and NCMT (National City Marine Terminal) - both benefiting from the deep-water and well-protected harbor.

Due to the global Coronavirus crisis, in 2020 Port San Diego lost 49 cruise ship calls (~174,000 tourists) or ~40% of 2020-2021 (September-May) season's planned 137 calls (expected ~450,000 tourists). The canceled 49 calls (12x by Disney and 17x by Holland America) resulted in ~USD 79M loss of revenues.

On September 29, 2020, Port San Diego completed the USD 24 million project for the modernization of 10th Avenue Marine Terminal. Partially, the TIGER project ("Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery") was funded by US Department of Transportation (USD 10 M). Works included removing two obsolete warehouses (redeveloping their area with project cargo handling facilities), improving dock rails, and installing new lighting and pavement. Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal serves mainly RoRo vessels (vehicle carriers), break-bulk cargo carriers (military equipment, wind energy equipment, shipbuilding steel), boxships (reefers/refrigerated TEU-containers with fresh import produce), dry-bulk cargo carriers (soda ash, aggregate, cement / used in construction projects).

Season 2022-2023 became the cruise port's busiest (since 2009-2010) with 140 booked berthings (+45% over 2021-22) and estimated ~460,000 tourists. In season 2022-23, Disney doubled its homeporting operations (from 16-24 to 51), while Princess booked 13 berthings and for the first time started homeporting in/roundtrips from San Diego.

Season 2023-2024 comprised 100 ship calls and ~338,000 passengers.

For season 2024-2025, the Port had booked 75 cruise ship berthings.

San Diego cruise terminal

San Diego tours, shore excursions, hotels

City Tours and Shore Excursions

USS Midway Museum: it is within 5 minutes walking time from San Diego cruise port, along North Harbor Drive. Discover the naval tradition of San Diego.

San Diego Maritime Museum: amazing historic ships collection. It is north of San Diego cruise port. You will find ships like Berkeley, Star of India and Californian.

Seaport Village: the best place for shopping. It is 2/3 miles away from San Diego cruise port.

Embarcadero Marine Park: located just across Seaport Village.

Balboa Park: 12,000 acres with 15 galleries and museums like San Diego Museum of Art and the San Diego Natural History Museum.. There is also the San Diego zoo, the Japanese Friendship Garden and the Inez Rose Parker Memorial Rose Garden.

Gaslamp Quarter: the most attractive area of San Diego. It dates from 1867. Discover wide range of restaurants, fashion shops,sidewalk cafes,galleries, jazz clubs, nightclubs and bars. The Victorian atmosphere combines with a party atmosphere for an amazing experience.

Spanish Missions: there 21 catholic missions. The first one is Mission San Diego de Alcala, known also as Mother of the Missions.

Coronado Beach: you will need half an hour by ferry to reach Coronado island and discover that lovely beach.