Two readings.
Seven pillars.
Value and durability, never averaged.
There is no curve here, and there is no single number. Every port of call on this card is read twice against full potential: once for what a call is worth to an itinerary, and once for how secure that worth is on the public record. A port can be valuable and fragile, or modest and secure, and a deployment plan needs to see both. So we grade both, and we never average them.
The ruler is the one the Cruise Commercial Excellence Index uses, and the letters mean the same thing. Against it the median graded port reads — on Itinerary Value and — on Deployment Durability.
A destination that limits cruise to protect the place is not marked down for it here. A published cap, allocated in advance and agreed with the lines, is scored as what it is to an operator: a rule you can plan against. What costs points is a rule that changes faster than a ship can be redeployed, a charge nobody can find, and a record that says nothing either way.
Every point on every card comes from a named criterion and the sources under it. A question mark means nothing was published either way; it scores nothing and it is not a finding. Grades are not negotiable, but they can be corrected in light of evidence, in either direction, in this edition.
A one-port review for a destination authority or a deployment team: every criterion state with its sources, the evidence that would move each reading, and how the port compares with its peer group. No confidential data is needed for the first read; scope and price are confirmed after it. The grade stays independent of any purchase. We would open on the two pillars furthest from full potential: —.
If your mail client did not open, write to [email protected].
Five assignments. No new pier required.
Each one is something a port authority or tourism ministry could publish this quarter. Every one of them moves a criterion on this card.
Ports of call, two readings
How the class scoredevery figure computed from the cards›
Three shifts the port cards keep surfacingsourced · each maps to a pillar›
Read the record for forty-one ports of call in a row, and the same three arguments keep surfacing in different handwriting.
The first concerns who decides how many ships a port takes. Juneau's municipal government and the cruise lines calling there agreed in 2024 to a voluntary daily limit of 16,000 passengers, 12,000 on Saturdays, layered on an existing five-ship-a-day cap.1 The 2026 season was the first to run under it: April-through-August passenger counts came in at 1,457,514 against a stated vessel capacity of 1,380,760, monthly utilization running 99 to 109%, and on September 8, 2026 the port's own board held a public hearing on raising its per-passenger fee, with no outcome yet on the record.2 A cap that is published, dated and booked against in advance is a different commercial fact than one announced without notice: an operator can build a deployment plan around the first and not the second.
The second is where the demand goes when a public port's growth slows. Carnival's Celebration Key, on Grand Bahama, took in 2.4 million guests in its first year of operation.3 In the two quarters immediately after Celebration Key's 2025 opening, the Bahamas' own tourism ministry recorded Nassau's first-port cruise arrivals falling — third quarter down 6.0%, fourth quarter down 2.6% — while Grand Bahama Island's rose 220.0% in the third quarter alone.4 That is the Cruise Commercial Excellence Index's private-destination shift, read from the port side: the two moved together, in the same quarters, on the same island chain. The public record shows that correlation clearly; it does not, on its own, prove that one caused the other.
The third is a compliance clock that isn't running at the same speed everywhere. Hamburg put shore power at all three of its cruise terminals for the 2026 season, after usage at berth rose more than 25% in a single year to 71% of shore-power-capable calls — which its own port authority describes as four years ahead of the EU's mandatory shore-power rule.5 Environment & Climate Readiness is built to read that clock port by port, because a rule that only binds from 2030 does not make every port's 2026 record identical.
None of this is a forecast. It is what forty-one calls' worth of public record shows as of this edition: capacity is starting to be governed rather than simply sold, a slice of Caribbean demand has a new address, and the emissions clock is running early in some ports and has not yet started in others.
Berth-days are becoming allocated, not just booked
Juneau's 2024 memorandum with the cruise lines' own association set a dated daily limit and a lower Saturday limit; the first season under it ran at 99–109% of stated capacity, and the port's per-passenger fee was under public review by September 2026.
A private beach and a public port moved in opposite directions
In the two quarters after Celebration Key opened, the Bahamas' own arrivals data show Nassau's cruise numbers falling and Grand Bahama's climbing — two figures moving together inside one island chain. The published data show the correlation, not the mechanism behind it.
Shore power is arriving on a port-by-port clock, not one deadline
Hamburg reached 71% shore-power coverage of eligible calls in 2025 and full three-terminal coverage for 2026, years before the EU rule it will eventually face binds it. Other ports on this card are still building the facility their own environmental criteria ask for.
- Juneau Empire, Limit of 16,000 cruise passengers daily, 12,000 on Saturdays, agreed to by CBJ and industry, 2 June 2024: "A voluntary agreement of 16,000 cruise ship passengers a day in Juneau, with a lower limit of 12,000 on Saturdays, beginning in 2026." Source.
- City and Borough of Juneau, Docks & Harbors, The Tide Line monthly newsletter, September 2026: April–August 2026 cruise-ship passenger counts of 1,457,514 against total vessel capacity of 1,380,760 (monthly utilization 99–109%), and Board approval of "a public hearing to discuss whether to increase the $2.05 Passenger for Hire fee." Source.
- Carnival Cruise Line Newsroom, Celebration Key Celebrates First Birthday After Welcoming 2.4 Million Guests, 19 July 2026: "today celebrated its first anniversary after welcoming 2.4 million guests since opening on July 19, 2025." Source.
- Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Research & Statistics Department, Cruise Visitor Arrivals by First Port of Entry 2025 & 2024, By Month & Qtr, accessed 16 September 2026: Nassau/Paradise Island third-quarter arrivals fell from 913,040 (2024) to 858,266 (2025), a published −6.0%, and fourth-quarter from 1,001,969 to 975,427, −2.6%; Grand Bahama Island's third-quarter arrivals rose from 107,293 to 343,302, a published +220.0%. Source.
- Hamburg Port Authority / Cruisegate Hamburg, Hamburg festigt Spitzenplatz bei Kreuzfahrten: Über 1,4 Millionen Passagiere in 2025, 17 March 2026: 162 ships took shore power in 2025, "eine Versorgungsquote von 71 Prozent aller landstromfähigen Anläufe" (71% of all shore-power-capable calls), available at all three terminals from 2026, "vier Jahre vor Inkrafttreten der EU-Vorgabe zur verpflichtenden Landstromnutzung" (four years before the EU's mandatory shore-power rule takes effect). Source.
One grading scale, twelve steps
One scale for every card and every pillar in all four H&K readings, published in full and applied by the same rule. The letter translates the score; it does not add to it. Here each port holds two letters, one per reading, and the red row marks the card above on its Itinerary Value reading.
Descriptions characterize a typical destination at each grade; a card's letter grade is set by its score alone, computed from its criteria.
No port publishes the whole record
No port on this card earns an A on both readings, and the reason isn't a shortage of good behaviour — it's that good behaviour on the public record fragments by pillar. Juneau publishes a dated capacity policy and a full season of utilization against it, but its own port board held a public hearing on raising its per-passenger fee on September 8, 2026, with no outcome yet shown in the record reviewed for this edition.12 Hamburg publishes an environmental outcome years ahead of the regulatory deadline it will eventually face, but nothing reviewed for this edition shows a published berth-allocation rule for the 2027 season.5 A port that did both — closed the fee question and published the allocation rule behind the environmental record — would be closer to an A on both readings than any port graded here.
Resident sentiment is measured in different registers, and the method reads the register, not just the result. Sitka's proposed cruise-visitor cap was decided by a town-wide public vote in May 2025 and lost by more than two to one — a dated, public measurement of resident sentiment.6 Juneau's cap, by contrast, is a memorandum between the borough and the cruise lines' own association, never put to a town-wide vote.1 Both sit on the public record. Neither is the other, and a card that can't tell them apart isn't reading the record closely enough to earn a durable score.
The same split shows up in Environment & Climate Readiness. Hamburg's port authority publishes a shore-power adoption rate, its year-over-year change, and a named comparison to a coming EU deadline — three separate, dated figures behind one outcome.5 Copenhagen's 2025 annual and sustainability report describes a comparable facility, names the ship that first used it and the head of state who opened it, and stops there: nothing in the report reviewed for this edition gives a shore-power adoption share or a transit-versus-turnaround passenger split.7 Both ports built the infrastructure. One published the outcome.
Who is doing whatsourced›
Every port in this review publishes part of what Deployment Durability asks for; none, on this record, publishes all of it. What's missing differs port by port and criterion by criterion, which is why the two readings are scored and reported separately rather than folded into one number.
Four ports, four different public records
| Destination | What is on the public record | What the record reviewed for this edition does not yet show |
|---|---|---|
| Juneau, Alaska | A dated, published capacity policy — the 2024 memorandum with the cruise lines' own association capping calls at 16,000 passengers a day, 12,000 on Saturdays, from 2026, on top of an existing five-ship limit — and a full season of published utilization against it (99–109% of stated capacity, April through August 2026).12 | Where its own per-passenger fee lands: the port's board held a public hearing on raising it on September 8, 2026, with no outcome yet shown in the record reviewed for this edition.2 |
| Sitka, Alaska | A dated, public measurement of resident sentiment: a citizen-initiated ballot to cap cruise visits at 4,500 a day and 300,000 a year, decided by a town-wide vote rather than negotiated in private (2,071 against, 773 in favor).6 | An adopted capacity policy: the proposition's defeat left the underlying daily-limit question where it was before the vote. |
| Hamburg, Germany | A quantified environmental outcome measured against a future legal deadline: 162 ships on shore power in 2025 (71% of shore-power-capable calls, up more than 25% year on year), and the facility available at all three terminals from 2026 — by its own port authority's account, four years ahead of the EU's mandatory rule.5 | A published berth-allocation or advance-booking rule for the 2027 season, in the material reviewed for this edition. |
| Copenhagen, Denmark | A new shore power facility at its Oceankaj terminals, inaugurated by Denmark's head of state, with the first connecting ship named in the port's own annual report.7 | A shore-power adoption rate, or a published transit-versus-turnaround passenger split — neither appears in the same report.7 |
Context for the grading scale, not an input to any score on this page.
- Juneau Empire (Daily Sitka Sentinel wire), Sitka voters reject cruise ship limits, 28 May 2025: "The vote was 773 in favor and 2,071 against the proposition" to limit cruise visitors ashore "to 300,000 annually, and 4,500 daily." Source.
- Copenhagen Malmö Port, Annual & Sustainability Report 2025, April 2026: "Copenhagen's new shore power facility is inaugurated by H.M. King Frederik X of Denmark at CMP's Oceankaj terminals. The first ship to connect to the facility is AIDAnova from AIDA Cruises." Source.
Who gradesThis card is graded by Hawkes & Kwortnik's AI research and verification agents under the published method: they research, code and cross-check every criterion state against the cited source record. No partner set, reviewed or adjusted a criterion state on any card.
How a grade is setEach pillar is scored from 60 to 100 — 60 plus 40 times earned points over applicable points — on a fixed rubric, and each of the two readings — Itinerary Value and Deployment Durability — is the weighted mean of its own pillars, translated onto the same thirteen-grade scale as the Cruise Commercial Excellence Index. The two readings are never averaged into one number: a destination can be valuable and fragile, or modest and secure, and a deployment plan needs to see both.
How sure we areEvery non-zero criterion state is attacked by a refuting skeptic, and every zero state is searched by an upgrading skeptic, before publication; a conflict the evidence cannot settle takes the lower state and is marked contested with both sources shown. A published coverage gate holds back any reading built on too little evidence: below 60% coverage a destination is marked not graded rather than scored, and from 60–79% its grade is published as provisional with a stated range.
The universe: who is graded, and by what ruleadmission and registers›
Scored: public ocean ports of call, admitted by the largest official 2025 cruise-passenger counts within each of six deployment regions, up to a fixed cutline per region — ten each for Caribbean, Bahamas & Bermuda and for Mediterranean & Adriatic; six for Northern Europe & Atlantic islands; five each for Mexico & Central America, for Alaska, Canada & New England, and for Asia-Pacific & Middle East. That is forty-one graded ports of call in this edition. A port is read as a call, rather than a homeport, when transit passengers are at least 30% of its official cruise total; below that share it is listed as a homeport, and the share and its source are published on the card.
Four registers sit alongside the graded forty-one, admitted or excluded by the same published rule. Twenty-two ports are listed, not graded, because official sources show turnaround as the majority function — Barcelona and Piraeus among them — and a homeport reading is not yet built. Twenty-seven private islands, beach clubs and line-owned or line-operated terminals, including Costa Maya, Amber Cove, Grand Turk Cruise Center and Isla Tropicale, are recorded in an unscored register with their own public facts; their commercial value accrues to one operator and is read through that operator's own card on the Cruise Commercial Excellence Index instead. Forty-eight ports of call were considered and not admitted this edition, below their region's cutline or without a qualifying official 2025 count. Thirty-four entries were considered and excluded under a named rule, mostly the line-owned exclusion above.
Known gaps, disclosed rather than smoothed over. There is no official global count of ports of call, so a cutline set on official passenger counts is the most defensible admission rule available, not a claim of completeness. National and port authorities do not count the same way: some publish a clean transit-versus-turnaround split, some publish only a combined total, and at least one national agency's count disagrees with the pan-European trade association's own dataset for the same port in the same year — a disagreement this edition discloses rather than silently resolves. Polar and expedition landing regions, river ports and homeport performance are outside this edition's scope. A call or a season's volume lost to a named natural disaster, public-health order or armed conflict is excluded from the volume and season criteria for twelve months and read on the last comparable unaffected period instead.
The rules every card is scored undertwelve shared rules›
Every criterion, with its met and partly-met rulesthe whole rubric›
Evidence, coverage, confidence and fragilityhow the numbers are counted›
Every criterion state cites the sources it rests on, and every source declares an evidence mode: direct primary (95), official observed surface (85), multi-source primary (80), official source snapshot (78), independent reported (70), high-confidence proxy (65), moderate-confidence proxy (45). The mode values describe evidence reliability; they do not set any score.
Coverage is the share of a card's applicable criterion points with public evidence either way (met, partly met or not met). Under 60% a card is not graded; from 60% to 79% its grade is provisional and published with a range, reading every unevidenced criterion first as zero and then as partly met.
Confidence (method counted_citations_v2) keeps the CEI's four components and weights — breadth 25%, specificity 25%, recency 30%, primary coverage 20% — recalibrated for criterion-level citation: full breadth at 12 distinct sources; a source cited on three or more cards is not specific; recency is the mean freshness of the sources cited (100 within a year of the check, 70 within two, 40 within three or undated, 10 older); primary coverage is the share of applicable criteria resting on primary evidence.
Fragility is the share of a card's earned points that rest on a single source or on proxy evidence: low under 25, moderate 25–49, high 50 and over. It answers how much of a grade would move if one citation fell.
Evidence provenance follows the CEI rule: a card's profile is the set of its per-pillar evidence modes, and a profile carried by more than three other cards is marked shared.
Verification and reliabilityboth directions, with counts›
Verification runs in both directions, because a card can be wrong either way. A refuting skeptic re-opened every cited source and attacked every point a card earned; an upgrading skeptic searched for evidence behind every criterion that scored nothing. A reconciler applied a change only when the evidence held up on its own inspection, and where it could not settle a disagreement it took the lower state and marked the cell contested, with both sources shown.
What this index does not claimread before quoting a grade›
- Not a forecast of passenger volumes, revenue or deployment, and not a verdict on a destination as a place to live or visit.
- A cap, a fee, a lawsuit or a protest is not scored as a failing. Final adverse decisions appear as red flags; pending proceedings are context only.
- Question marks are not findings. A criterion with no public evidence scores nothing and says only that nothing was published either way.
- Criteria set by a national or state government, not the destination, are labelled on each card.
- Industry-funded economic-impact studies are cited and labelled as such; their figures are not audited here.
- Private and line-owned destinations are not graded: their value accrues to one operator and is read through that operator's CEI card.
- No destination was surveyed or interviewed for this first edition, and no confidential information entered any card.
Independence, conflicts, corrections & how this is madethe long form›
Independence. No destination authority, tourism ministry, port operator or cruise line paid to be included in this index, and none can pay to move a reading. Cards are finalized before any commercial conversation with a graded destination; buying a destination packet cannot change a score.
Conflicts. Hawkes & Kwortnik's own history touches this universe: Ethan Hawkes spent years leading onboard revenue at MSC Cruises, a brand whose deployment choices affect several destinations on this card, and the firm has demonstrated Signalry / Shorelight, a guest-intelligence product, to cruise lines that call at destinations graded here. The same published method applies regardless of any such relationship, as disclosed here.
What a grade is. Each grade on this card is Hawkes & Kwortnik's opinion, formed under the published method from the cited public evidence as of the check dates shown. It measures publicly evidenced practice and outcomes, not undisclosed performance. It is not a forecast and not a finding of wrongdoing.
Corrections & right of reply. Any graded destination may send evidence at any time; a substantiated correction is applied to this edition, in either direction, within ten business days and logged against the release ID. This first edition was published without advance notice to the destinations it covers, so the ten-business-day reply window is open now, not already closed.
How this is made. Evidence collection and scoring run under the published method through Hawkes & Kwortnik's AI research and verification agents: no partner set, reviewed or adjusted a criterion state on any card. The partners publish and own the method itself, not the individual states it produces.
One email per release: what moved across the four readings, and why.