Hey, so there was a big traffic mess in Southampton, UK on Friday because they had to do some surprise security checks while four cruise ships were letting people off and taking on new passengers.
The delays went on for a long time, and officials were telling people who live nearby to stay away from the city unless they really needed to be there.
Okay, here’s what happened. Four cruise ships were at the Port of Southampton on May 12, 2023. The Border Force, which is the customs and immigration officials in the UK, decided to do some extra security checks on passengers. This caused a lot of problems because it took longer to process everyone, and the city got really jammed up with traffic.
The four ships that were there belonged to Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, P&O Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, and MSC Cruises.
Each ship was letting people off from their last trip and taking on new passengers for the next trip. Altogether, there were more than 28,000 people going in and out of the port, plus all the regular local traffic and port workers.
The security checks were causing even more delays. It was so bad that officials were telling people to stay home if they could.
Eventually, in the afternoon, the traffic started to ease up a bit. Most of the people getting off the ships had already left, and many of the people getting on the ships were already on board.
This kind of heavy traffic might become more common in the future. Southampton is already the twelfth busiest cruise port in the world, with about 1.9 million passengers each year. But usually, they don’t have four big ships all at once.
Because more and more people are going on cruises, and the ships are getting bigger and can hold more passengers, it’s likely that traffic problems like this will happen more often.
Actually, on Saturday and Sunday, there were also four ships at the port. On Saturday, there were ships from P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, and Celebrity Cruises. They had more than 26,000 people going on and off the ships.
On Sunday, there were ships from P&O Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Royal Caribbean International, with over 27,000 people embarking and disembarking.
After this really busy weekend, there won’t be more than two ships at the port until May 20, when there will be four again. May 20 is the last day in May with so many ships at once, but there will still be some busy days throughout the summer.
In fact, some days in June will be even busier, like June 17 and June 24 when there will be five ships each day. June 1 is another day like that.
It’s not just Southampton. Other cruise ports have had similar traffic problems on busy days or when there are other local issues.
For example, near the Port of Galveston, road closures have caused big traffic backups on busy weekends this spring. And in PortMiami, there were traffic problems because of local music festivals in late May.
Even at Port Canaveral, which is the busiest cruise port in the world, space launches can create a lot of traffic and cause problems for cruise travelers.
Cruise lines have been trying to manage the crowds and ease traffic by scheduling appointments and check-in times at the terminals. They started doing this even before the pandemic, and they kept it going when cruises started again in 2021.
If you want to avoid traffic when going on a cruise, it’s a good idea to check the port schedules and try to pick a day when it’s not too crowded. If a port is really busy, you’ll have to be patient and maybe use public transportation
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