Red Sea Tensions Delay Saudi Arabia Cruise Season

Published on Nov 21, 2025, 4:26 pm CST

9 min read

Key points

Cruise Saudi's CEO says most international lines are unlikely to resume regular Saudi sailings before the 2027 to 2028 season, leaving a multi year gap for big brand Red Sea cruises
Red Sea missile and drone attacks, along with more than 100 strikes on shipping since late 2023, have pushed war risk insurance costs sharply higher and made the corridor unattractive for cruise planners
Industry data shows port calls in the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean are down by about 72 percent from forecasts as lines cancel or reroute sailings away from Jeddah, Yanbu, and nearby ports
Saudi backed AROYA Cruises continues to homeport in Jeddah with short Red Sea itineraries, but most remaining options are regional or niche rather than mainstream international programs
Travelers who hoped to combine Petra, the Saudi Red Sea coast, and Egyptian ports on a single voyage over the next few winters may need to split itineraries by air and land or postpone trips into the late 2020s

Impact

Where Impacts Are Most Likely: Expect the biggest changes on winter cruises that would normally transit the Suez Canal or call in Jeddah, Yanbu, Aqaba, and Egyptian Red Sea ports, where many calls have been cut or replaced
Best Times To Cruise: If you want to wait for a fuller choice of Saudi and Red Sea itineraries, plan for 2027 or later seasons, since most big brands are not planning regular calls before then
Onward Travel And Changes: Assume that repositioning voyages will either bypass the Red Sea entirely or cross it without passengers, so build plans around flights and separate segments instead of relying on through cruises
Safety And Insurance Factors: Higher war risk premiums and lingering concerns over missile and drone attacks mean travel insurers and cruise lines may continue to treat the corridor conservatively even if ceasefires hold
What Travelers Should Do Now: Check your existing bookings for reroutes, consider AROYA or other regional operators if you are comfortable with the risk profile, and sketch alternative land itineraries for Petra, Egypt, and Saudi

Looming security risks and rising insurance costs now mean many Red Sea cruise Saudi ports plans are on hold, with Jeddah and Yanbu largely dropped from big brand winter itineraries through at least the 2027 to 2028 seasons. Cruise passengers who had penciled in Red Sea and Saudi Arabia sailings over the next few winters are the ones most affected, especially those hoping to combine Jordan and Egypt in a single voyage. For now, travelers need to assume this is a multi year gap, rethink bucket list itineraries, and decide whether to pivot to regional lines, land based trips, or other cruise corridors.

In practical terms, the Red Sea cruise Saudi ports problem is that most mainstream European and North American cruise brands have removed Saudi calls from their deployment plans, and the people who still want to visit those ports will need to piece trips together by air and land instead of relying on a single ship.

What Cruise Saudi Is Signaling

In an October 2025 interview, Cruise Saudi chief executive Lars Clasen said international cruise lines are unlikely to resume regular sailings to Saudi Arabia before the 2027 to 2028 season, citing both security concerns in the Red Sea and the long lead times for redeploying ships once they have been moved out of a region. He noted that most global operators have removed Red Sea and Gulf routes from their itineraries, that there are only a few occasional transit calls, and that there is no seasonal deployment other than Saudi backed AROYA Cruises.

Clasen also highlighted how quickly Saudi cruising had grown before the current crisis, with about 200,000 international cruise passengers in the 2022 to 2023 winter and a target of 1.3 million cruise visitors annually by 2035 as part of the wider Vision 2030 tourism push. Against that backdrop, the pause from foreign brands is not a tweak, it is a structural setback that will take several seasons to unwind even if security conditions improve.

Why Cruise Lines Have Stepped Back

The Red Sea had already become a focus of concern after Yemen's Houthi movement began drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in late 2023, nominally in support of Palestinians during the Gaza war. According to Reuters, there were more than 100 attacks on ships between November 2023 and December 2024, which pushed many cargo carriers to reroute from the Suez corridor around the Cape of Good Hope.

Those attacks have driven war risk insurance premiums sharply higher. Insurance industry sources told Reuters that in July 2025 prices for covering Red Sea voyages jumped from around 0.3 percent of a ship's value to roughly 0.7 percent after renewed attacks, with some underwriters quoting as high as 1 percent, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to a single passage and causing some insurers to pause cover entirely. Cruise lines may only transit the region a few times each season, but their risk committees and insurers are looking at the same figures as container ship operators.

An Associated Press summary of the situation in late 2025 noted that Houthi leaders have signaled a halt to attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping in the context of a fragile Gaza ceasefire, but experts and governments still treat the corridor as volatile and stress that the militants retain both capability and intent to resume strikes if hostilities flare. That combination of expensive insurance, reputational risk, and lingering uncertainty makes it very hard for cruise brands to promise multi year schedules that include the Bab al Mandab choke point.

Evidence From Cruise Itineraries

Industry data backs up the strategic retreat. CruiseMapper, citing the Cruise Lines International Association, reports that port calls in the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean for the current season are down about 72 percent compared with original forecasts, with major brands such as AIDA and TUI canceling trips and avoiding both Israeli ports and the Suez Canal.

Specific deployment decisions underline the pattern. Virgin Voyages cancelled its 2024 to 2025 Australia and New Zealand program because the ship would have needed to reposition through the Red Sea, which the line now judges too risky for repositioning cruises. Silversea's Silver Moon, Crystal Cruises, and other premium brands have also rerouted or cancelled voyages to avoid Red Sea transits after Houthi related incidents, and in some cases have opted to cross the Suez Canal without passengers on board.

For travelers, the key point is that this is not one company making a conservative call. From budget friendly lines to luxury world cruise operators, the consensus has been to treat the Red Sea as a high risk corridor and to remove it from commercial itineraries until the security and insurance picture changes in a durable way.

If you want a broader view of how regional tensions are reshaping air and sea networks, it is worth reading our coverage of long haul flight cuts to Israel and the loss of one stop links through the Gulf, which follows a similar logic of airlines and airports pulling back from contested airspace. You can also pair this article with our evergreen guide to Middle East and North Africa travel security to understand how these maritime risks interact with wider regional dynamics.

What Still Sails To Saudi Ports

Despite the retreat of foreign brands, Saudi Arabia is not completely off the cruise map. Cruise Saudi's own AROYA Cruises has launched a large resort style ship homeported at Jeddah Islamic Port, offering short regional itineraries marketed as Red Sea experiences with calls at ports such as Ain Sokhna for Cairo, Sharm El Sheikh, Safaga for Hurghada, Marsa Alam, Jabal Al Sabaya, and Yanbu.

Aroya's itineraries are currently the only regular seasonal Red Sea cruises that include Saudi ports, and they are designed primarily around the domestic and regional market, with strong Saudi cultural branding and relatively short three and four night routes. A small number of international ships still pass through the area on one off world cruise segments or repositioning voyages, but, as Cruise Saudi's CEO notes, these are transit calls and occasional visits rather than full seasonal deployments.

That distinction matters for planning. A short domestic style cruise out of Jeddah can be a good fit if you are already in the region and want a few days at sea and nearby resort ports. It is a poor replacement if your goal is a four week loop that ties together Petra, Luxor, the Saudi Red Sea coast, and the Suez Canal on a single ticket.

How To Rework Bucket List Red Sea Itineraries

If you were counting on a Red Sea cruise to stitch together Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia before the late 2020s, the safest assumption now is that you will need to split that trip into separate pieces.

For Petra, the easiest option is still to fly to Aqaba or Amman, then book overland transfers to Wadi Musa and Wadi Rum. The Egyptian Red Sea resorts such as Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada remain easy to reach by air from Europe and the Gulf, even as some cruise calls have been reduced, and they pair well with Nile cruises or Cairo city stays. To add Saudi Arabia, think in terms of flying into Jeddah for a few days on the coast, or combining a Red Sea stop with time in Riyadh or AlUla on a separate domestic itinerary.

For travelers who are still tempted by itineraries that mention Suez or the Red Sea on a future world cruise, it is vital to read the fine print. Check whether the line reserves the right to skip or replace those calls for security reasons, ask what happens to your fare and any shore excursions if that occurs, and examine whether the ship might cross the Red Sea with no port calls at all.

Booking Strategies Over The Next Few Winters

Through at least the 2026 to 2027 winter, cruise passengers should treat any itinerary that relies on Red Sea transits or Saudi port calls as highly changeable.

That means favoring flexible air tickets that can be rerouted if your ship's embarkation port changes, avoiding non refundable pre or post cruise hotel bookings in cities that depend on a Red Sea arrival, and choosing travel insurance policies that explicitly cover missed ports, itinerary changes, and war related disruptions where available. It also means being realistic about timing. Even if incidents decline, war risk underwriters and flag state regulators will want to see a sustained period of calm before they encourage a full return to pre crisis patterns.

If the Red Sea features heavily in your long term plans, the most rational approach is to track conditions, monitor what Cruise Saudi and regional authorities say at events like FII and Seatrade Cruise, and tentatively target late 2027 or 2028 for complex multi country sailings, while using the next few years to explore other corridors such as the western Mediterranean, southern Africa, or the Indian Ocean.