Avalon City Council Establishes Terms and Votes to Move Forward with Cruise Ship Port Agreements for Catalina Island Calls

On Tuesday, July 15, 2025 the City of Avalon city council met for a council meeting which included an agenda item on cruise ship port agreements. This agenda item is a continuation of the public discussing that started during the February meeting in which the city council approved the city manager to negotiate an agreement with Disney Cruise Line. Currently, there is no written policy regarding the scheduling of cruise ship anchorage requests for calls to Catalina Island, California.

In the last year or two, the City of Avalon started to look into the documentation on file pertaining to cruise ship in which they discovered there were no governing documents or agreements with cruise lines on file other than an anchorage identification of where they could anchor and preference to anchorage policy when there are multiple ships.

The city has been dealing with local impacts due to cruise ship visits issues include number of visits, size of ships and the impacts of the visits on the community. The city reached out to their primary cruise partners: Disney, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean asking each to if they would be interested in establishing a long term port agreement and if so provide the city with preferences on days of the week, number of visits and size of ships.

Negotiations have taken place with each cruise partner by which the City requested proposals of “like terms” in order to evaluate the needs of the cruise line and the city.

While all three cruise lines provided information, the city and Disney have significantly progressed in the process following the February meeting where a potential port agreement with Disney Cruise Line was discussed. During the February meeting, the City of Avalon approved the term sheet with Disney, and they are currently working on finalizing the port agreement.

Since the February City Council Meeting, the City of Avalon has engaged in discussions with Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean, exchanging their respective preferences for Port Agreements which are outlined below along with Disney Cruise Line’s terms.

Cruise Line Port Agreement Proposals

Carnival Cruise LineDisney Cruise LineRoyal Caribbean GroupShip Passenger Load3,000 approx.2,700 approx.3,800 approx.Preferred Date(s)
Shoulder SeasonTuesday preferred
Wednesday possibleTuesdays and SaturdaysMonday and WednesdayPreferred Dates(s)
Summer SeasonTuesday or
WednesdayTuesdaysWednesdayLength of Agreement5 years, with two
additional 5 year
options.5 years, with two
additional 5 year
options.3 years, with two
additional 3 year
options.Proposed Increase in Rate$7.50 wharfage,
+$1.50/passenger$7.50 wharfage,
+$1.50/passenger$7.50 wharfageCPI Adjusted Rate“inflationary indexed during term”2.5% increase/year2.5% increase/yearGuaranteed Minimumn/a$1,080,000 annually, or
120,000 pax$750,000 annually,
or 100,000 paxLongevity Calling on Avalon#1#3#2

During the meeting, Leon Sutcliffe, representing Carnival Cruise Line, presented the cruise line’s strategy to establish a long-term relationship with the city. This strategy involves requesting support from the council when it comes to voting on which term sheets are approved. Sutcliffe emphasized Carnival’s history, which spans over 25 years of sailing to Catalina and the first cruise line to include Catalina Island as a port of call.

Elaina Garcia, experience manager from IMMERSED: Ocean Wonders, a domed theater which opened in Catalina in 2023. IMMERSED is also a tour operator working closely with the cruise partners in which 30% of there company’s revenue can be attributed to it’s partnership with Carnival Cruise Line. Garcia shared a prepared statement (see below) from Mark Davidson, Founder and CEO, which supported Carnival’s and Disney’s efforts to establish a long term port agreement.

After opening IMMERSED in late 2023, we were taken on, uh, by Carnival Cruise Lines, who worked closely with us to develop our short excursions, both an individual tour and a combo tour with a part, with a, with a partner business from Catalina Island.

We’ve had nothing but overwhelmingly positive experiences with Carnival guests and Carnival staff in the, in the almost two years since, and approximately 30% of our revenue has come from their visitors. That’s powerful.

We likely would not still be operating if not for their partnership and investment in our small business. They were the first to take a chance on us, which is really appreciated as a small business, not many big places do.

And this paved the way for Disney to also take us on earlier this year for the first time. We’ve had the same excellent experience with Disney and their guests. Uh, so please take that into consideration when you vote.

Garcia was asked about IMMERSED’s relationship with Royal Caribbean which she reported, “we did a request and we had someone come out and do a site visit. And they found that we were not, um, appropriate for their demographic.”

Additional local tour operators took advantage of the public comment opportunity to share their own success stories with the cruise partners. Multiple operators spoke in favor of Carnival and, to a lesser extent, offered support to Disney Cruise Line, recognizing their potential for a significant positive impact on the community in the future.

Royal Caribbean and Disney Cruise Line did not have representatives speak during Tuesday’s meeting; however, Disney was in attendance and spoke during the February meeting.

Community feedback has stated a preference for smaller capacity ships as it seems they provide an overall more enjoyable experience for passengers as well as other Island visitors and residents. The reduced crowds result in less congestion, greater activity opportunities, and quicker queuing at the Cabrillo Mole.

All three cruise lines have offered to work collaboratively with the City to identify areas of opportunity or need and provide support and expertise to assist the City in developing strategies regarding design and engineering services, industrial engineering services, quality guest service culture and processes training, and operational efficiency analysis. The exact scope of services to be provided will be formally memorialized either in the final port agreement or separate port agreements by cruise line.

The primary purpose of this agenda item is to get the council discuss cruise ship port agreements in general to provide guidance and direction to staff to identity the most important aspects to address when selecting cruise line partners. The three cruise line’s proposals and preferred dates are similar and while Disney Cruise Line came to the table first, the council is first seeking to establish cruise partner criteria which will then be used as guidelines for staff to present definitive Port Agreements to Council for approval.

City council unanimously voted to direct staff to negotiate port agreements with the terms established in the chart above to bring back to the City Council for approval at a later date.

The City of Avalon says these pending port agreements would go into effect starting September 2027 and the terms provided in Tuesday’s agenda packet are not final.

The above details are available in the City of Avalon July 2025 meeting agenda packet, with an excerpt below for the specific cruise ship port agreements agenda item.

The full city council meeting is available here with the specific discussion regarding Cruise Ship Port Agreements presented below.

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We will continue to follow this story and report back when cruise port agreements are back on the agenda. With 120,000 committed passenger calls per year, a finalized port agreement would strongly suggest Disney Cruise Line will homeport the Disney Magic or Disney Wonder on the West Coast for a significant portion of the year, if not all year starting in late 2027. Disney began visiting Catalina Island as a seasonal port of call in 2022.
Appeared first on: Disneycruiselineblog.com

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Avalon City Council Establishes Terms and Votes to Move Forward with Cruise Ship Port Agreements for Catalina Island Calls

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