Abu Dhabi closed 2024 with nearly 700,000 cruise arrivals, holds 174 calls for the 2025–26 season — up 27% — and took the World Cruise Awards’ title of World’s Best Cruise Destination.
The Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal at Zayed Port opened in December 2015 and was scaled up with a second terminal in late 2022: 7,800 m² of terminal space, a 5,000-passenger hall, berths for three mega-vessels and airline-style check-in counters run with Etihad. The terminal sits minutes from the Saadiyat Cultural District, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Corniche.
A multi-year homeport agreement with MSC anchors the calendar, and the Cruise Arabia alliance — Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia — sells the Gulf as one itinerary.
The emirate’s second cruise asset is the Arabian Gulf’s only dedicated beach cruise terminal: Sir Bani Yas Island, a wildlife reserve with safari drives, beaches and water sports — a shore day with no city at all.
The dual-port model is the strategy: culture and city at Zayed Port, desert-island escape at Sir Bani Yas, and it is what the World Cruise Awards jury cited for 2025.
Abu Dhabi is the cruise call where the shore plan makes itself. From Zayed Port the sequence writes itself: Grand Mosque first (it closes to tourists at midday on Fridays — time it), then the Louvre or the new Zayed National Museum on Saadiyat, Corniche sunset on the way back. Taxis queue at the terminal gate when two ships discharge together; walk fifty metres to the main road for a faster pickup. If your itinerary offers both Abu Dhabi and Sir Bani Yas, treat them as opposite days — museums versus beach — and pack accordingly. The terminal’s airline check-in counters make it the Gulf’s easiest homeport if you fly Etihad: bags go to the plane from the port.
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