Falmouth's 2024 cruise ship season kick starts on Friday with the arrival of Ambassador Cruises Ambition as she calls on the penultimate port call of her 12 days ‘Easter British Isles Discovery’ cruise, which began and ends at Tilbury.

This will be the first of seven calls Ambition is scheduled to call at Falmouth this year as Ambassador Cruises begin a second season of cruising from Falmouth. April 14 will see the ship embark passengers here for a 12 days ‘Iberian Treasures Seville Fiesta’ cruise terminating at Bristol.

The European cruise season starts in earnest in April when the cruise ships make their way north from various locations around the globe.

Up to 50 cruise ships are scheduled to call again this year making it another bumper year for the port with major lines such as Princess, MSC, Holland America, Saga, Regent Seven Seas and Viking putting Falmouth on their itineraries once again.

The larger ships that cannot berth alongside due to their length are MSC Virtuosa, Zuiderdam, Regal Princess, Caribbean Princess, Island Princess will anchor in the bay for a tendering operation landing passengers at the docks.

Following the 41,000 tons Ambition will be the ultra luxurious Viking Saturn on April 10th as she arrives on Viking Cruises ever popular Barcelona to Bergen cruise. Viking Mars calls on May 18th and in her wake Viking Star both on the same itinerary of ports as the Viking Saturn.

A&P Falmouth has been allocated £6.3m for an industrial project to design, build and test a new clean energy shore side power solution suitable for multiple users at the Port of Falmouth. The aim is to provide the UK's first multi-vessel, flexible shore power connections on the Atlantic Peninsula.

The 2023 figures from Cruise Europe member ports are staggering following the pandemic.

Total calls numbered 9,111 while passengers numbers reached 18,935,154.

When it comes to call numbers, top of the leader board is Southampton with 497 calls and 2.7 million passengers handled.