Last Updated on March 3, 2025 by Mrunal & Jiten
Newport has become an increasingly popular destination for cruise liners, bringing thousands of tourists to Newport Harbor each year. At the same time, cruise ships have gotten larger and larger, with the current largest class of ships, Royal Caribbean’s Icon and Oasis classes, able to accommodate well over 6,000 passengers.
While these new behemoth ships have yet to enter Newport Harbor, many ships that do make it to the City by the Sea are massive themselves. The sight of one traveling through Narragansett Bay led one What and Why RI reader to ask “What is the largest cruise ship to dock in Newport?”
At 315.8 meters long and a maximum capacity of 5,655 passengers, the MSC Meraviglia is the largest ship to ever dock in Newport, Discover Newport confirmed for the Newport Daily News.
The Meraviglia first hit Newport in 2023, making headlines at the time for being the largest ship of the season. At the time service began in 2017, it was the sixth-largest cruise ship in the world. The 171,598-ton ship boasts 19 decks containing 20 bars, 12 restaurants, a 985-seat theater, a spa, a 315-square-foot shopping promenade, an entertainment center, a 6,000 square-foot gym and a sports complex.
It stopped in Newport three times that year, once in September and twice in October, the two most popular months for cruising to Newport, by far. It revisited Newport again in 2024, making one stop in April and another in September.
In addition to the Meraviglia, Perrotti Park welcomed passengers from more than 60 cruise ship visits in 2024, acting as the dock for passenger boats from the larger cruise ships which, due to their size, have to anchor out in Newport Harbor when they visit. Smaller cruise ships, such as the 170-passenger American Constitution and 90-passenger American Star, dock at Fort Adams.
Those 62 cruise ship visits were made by 21 different cruise ships, including the RMS Queen Mary 2, which also made headlines when it stopped in Newport as it is the only passenger ocean liner in the world still in operation. Considered the largest passenger ship ever built when it was constructed in 2003, the 1,131.99-foot-long, 148,528-ton RMS Queen Mary 2 was the second-largest passenger ship to sail into Newport Harbor last year, after the Meraviglia.
Like the Queen Mary 2, which serves as the flagship for the Cunard Cruise line, many of the cruise lines that service Newport are operated by Carnival Corporation & plc. This includes the Princess cruise line, four ships from the fleet of which docked in Newport Harbor in 2024; Holland America, which sent over the 1,432-passenger MS Volendam in April; and P&O Cruises, owner of the MS Arcadia, which visited in September.
Not to be outdone, the Norwegian Cruise Lines parent company also had several lines hit Newport last year. The Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Sky, Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Grandeur and Oceania Cruises’ Insignia and Nautica are all also members of the Norwegian Cruise Line family, which made stops in Newport in 2024.
While Royal Caribbean Group’s namesake line did not have any ships in its fleet land in Newport in 2024, the Silver Shadow, a 382-passenger ship under the Silversea Cruise Line brand, made 12 trips to the City by the Sea, the most stops of any line that year.
The Meraviglia, however, serves as a part of the fleet for MSC Group, the world’s largest privately held cruise company. MSC also sent over the MSC Poesia and the Explora I, a member of the new luxury Explora Journeys line.
A consolidated Newport cruise ship schedule for 2025 has yet to be published, though some lines have already announced stops for this year. The city is listed as the second stop on a seven-day cruise for the 3,963-passenger Norwegian Getaway.
This is also the first year cruise ships will have to pay an increased fee when they arrive and when they leave as a result of legislation passed in 2024. Rather than the $3-per-passenger fee the city has collected since 2014, ships now have to pay $10 per passenger. The revenue from these fees is intended to go toward infrastructure costs, such as covering the debt service to upgrade the Perrotti Park bulkhead.
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