There seems to be growing protests in some ports about the visits of cruise ships and the supposed effect of the cruise ships and tourists have on the local environment.

The most publicised recently of such protests, mainly organised by Extinction Rebellion, has been at the locks at Noordersluis and Zeeslius at Ijmuiden preventing ships from going further down the River Ij to the cruise terminal situated in the heart of Amsterdam. Several cruise ships have been delayed or cancelled due to protesters who tied themselves to the lock gates. All ships going to Amsterdam need to go through these locks.

This has resulted in several cruise line operators cancelling their scheduled calls in Amsterdam replacing them with calls at Ijmuiden and elsewhere.

Amsterdam have made it clear that they want to cut down on the number of tourists visiting the city and stopping cruise ships is one way to start doing this.

Amsterdam is not the only port to be suffering from such protesters. Barcelona is also trying to cut down on the number of cruise ships using the ports as are the port of Palma in Majorca and the French ports of Bordeaux and Concarneau.

Both Amsterdam and Barcelona are used to start and finish many cruises which means that cruise ships will be provisioned at the start of each cruise with a huge bonus to the local economy.

These ports cannot have it both ways. They must either accept considerable damage to their economy or allow the cruise ships to dock.