A New Era for Costa Maya: Cruise Lines Already Making Adustments

Royal Caribbean’s recent acquisition of the Costa Maya cruise port and adjacent land to build their exclusive “Perfect Day Mexico” destination have sent ripples throughout the cruise industry. While Royal Caribbean’s bold move has been well-publicized, a detailed look at future cruise itineraries reveals how the world’s biggest cruise lines are responding. By using data from cruisemapper.com, I’ve analyzed ship schedules for Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, and MSC from September 2025 through April 2027, and it’s easy to see cruise lines are already pulling back the number of ships visiting Costa Maya long before the planned fall 2027 opening.

The data shows one major player making is making a quick retreat while others maintain a steady, cautious presence, and haven’t made any major schedule changes yet, but it’s still very early and last-minute changes happen all the time.  For those into numbers, the tables used in this breakdown can be found at the end of this post for those who wish to cruise into the raw numbers for themselves.

Sneak Peek at What’s Coming to Perfect Day Mexico in Fall 2027

Royal Caribbean: The New Owner Wears the Crown

Royal Caribbean’s schedule shows they’re going all-in on Costa Maya.  Their itineraries show a consistent presence that is unmatched by any other cruise line.  Considering they paid $292M for the port and surrounding land, they want to make a return on that investment quickly, so they’re going to load itineraries up with stops at Perfect Day Mexico.

• Royal Caribbean has scheduled a total of 179 calls to Costa Maya in the analyzed period. This is the highest volume of any cruise line by a significant margin.
• Unlike their competitors, Royal Caribbean’s monthly calls are consistent. The number of calls averages over 8 per month, with peaks reaching 14 calls in December 2025 and 12 in both January and October of 2026. This shows that the port is going to play a key role in their Western Caribbean itineraries.
• Royal Caribbean is deploying a range of ships to Costa Maya, from the newest and largest vessels like Icon Of The Seas to more established ships like Enchantment Of The Seas.

Royal Caribbean’s strategy is clear: be the market leader for Western Caribbean cruises and this is easy since there’s no other destination that comes close to providing the amenities Perfect Day Mexico is set to offer once it opens.

Carnival Cruise Line: We’re Outta Here!

The most noticeable trend in the data concerns Carnival Cruise Line. While their presence in Costa Maya is significant at the start of the analysis period, it shows a big drop in the months leading up to the “Perfect Day Mexico” debut.

• From September 2025 through September 2026, Carnival maintains a solid presence, with monthly calls averaging around 5. This includes frequent visits from ships like Carnival Jubilee and Carnival Dream.
• The trend takes a dramatic turn in late 2026. After 4 calls in September 2026, the schedule shows zero calls for the months of October, November, and December 2026.
• The handful of calls in early 2027 seem to be exceptions rather than a return to regular service, with only one call in March and two in April 2027. This 90% drop in calls when comparing the start of the data to the period just before the fall 2027 opening is a clear signal.

Carnival’s decision is likely a direct response to the port’s new ownership. By redirecting its ships to other Western Caribbean ports, Carnival avoids a situation where its passengers would be docking alongside Royal Caribbean ships, only to be excluded from the exciting new “Perfect Day Mexico” which makes total sense.

Norwegian Cruise Line & MSC Cruises: No Major Changes

Unlike Carnival, Norwegian and MSC appear to be either waiting to make changes, or aren’t concerned about the impact Perfect Day Mexico may have. Their schedules don’t show any signs of a significant withdrawal.

• Norwegian Cruise Line has a total of 87 calls in the period, with a monthly average of about 4. While their schedules show some fluctuation, there is no dramatic drop-off. They are deploying a variety of ships, including the Norwegian Viva and Norwegian Luna, and appear to be relying on Costa Maya’s existing offerings, which, according to Royal Caribbean, won’t change.
• MSC Cruises is the most stable in this analysis. With 73 total calls, their schedules show a consistent monthly average of 3.3 calls. They have deployed ships like the MSC Seascape and MSC World America throughout the entire period. This suggests that MSC is not overly concerned with their competitor’s private destination.

The Takeaway for Cruisers

As I’ve written about before, the existing Costa Maya cruise port is a disaster.  The facility just is not built to handle the number of passengers that descend upon it when multiple mega-ships are in port.  It gets overcrowded, the local vendors are pushy, and it’s consistently a frustrating experience when you want to spend a day ashore.

Much of that congestion will be eliminated by shifting Royal Caribbean guests to their own area, while other cruise lines get the benefit of using the existing port with several thousand less people.  However, there’s no doubt that those not traveling on Royal Caribbean will look over at Perfect Day and say to themselves, “we need to book a cruise with them to check that out.”  By allowing other cruise lines to continue to call on the refreshed Costa Maya port, Royal is banking on exactly that, but the data shows Carnival isn’t going to allow that to happen.

Whether or not the other major players are going to revise itineraries ahead of the opening of Perfect Day Mexico remains to be seen, but if I were to look into my crystal ball, I’d say changes WILL be coming.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Raw Data

For those interested in the numbers, as I indicated earlier, I’ve analyzed published port schedules for the Costa Maya port from cruisemapper.com and have put the data below for you to check out and play around with.

Costa Maya Port Schedule 9-2025 thru 4-2027

Costa Maya Monthly Visits by Cruise Line & Ship 9-2025 thru 4-2027