Old San Juan’s Cruise Growth Tests How Much the Historic City Can Take
- Luis Joel Méndez González, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
- 13 minutes ago
- 15 min read
Across from Old San Juan’s piers, taxi driver Carlos Vera Centeno waits for tourists who booked him in advance to disembark so he can take them on a tour or to a nearby beach. He has followed that routine for 18 years, but the time it takes him to pick up or drop off passengers at the port has doubled and, at times, tripled.
“This year, I had to raise [the price of] my services for cruise passengers because a trip that used to take me 20 or 25 minutes [now] can take me an hour just to drop [passengers] off because of the traffic,” Vera Centeno said.
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Traffic congestion is only one consequence of the overcrowding in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico’s main cruise port. The crush of visitors is also putting pressure on the historic city’s infrastructure and fueling frustration among residents.
Without a coordinated plan to address basic-service infrastructure, manage traffic into and out of the San Juan Islet, or ease the strain these conditions place on residents of the Walled City, the Puerto Rico government continues to promote the cruise industry as an economic activity that should keep growing, residents and business owners interviewed by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) said.
In August 2025, Gov. Jenniffer González Colón declared that “we want more” as Puerto Rico sought to become a homeport for additional cruise lines. Less than a year later, water tanker trucks can be seen parked along Old San Juan’s narrow cobblestone streets, supplying water to businesses and residents.
The tanker trucks provide temporary relief from low water pressure and service outages that affect other parts of the capital but occur more frequently on the San Juan Islet, according to residents. Vanessa Droz Martínez, a San Sebastián Street resident and member of the Asociación de Vecinos del Viejo San Juan, known as AVISAJ, said water pressure drops, particularly at higher elevations, when cruise ships are supplied with water. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) told the CPI that supplying docked cruise ships does not adversely affect water service for Old San Juan residents.
Overcrowding has consequences beyond traffic congestion and declining water pressure. The CPI’s investigation found that the poorly regulated, government-subsidized industry is also straining Old San Juan’s inadequate sanitation infrastructure and fragile streets, contributing to disorder and generating noise and air pollution.
Disconnected From Residents
As on other Caribbean islands, one limitation associated with cruise tourism is that the economic activity it generates is concentrated largely around port areas. As a result, it does not translate into significant revenue for other parts of Puerto Rico, or even other areas of San Juan, while placing tremendous pressure on the host community because the influx of people exceeds the historic city’s capacity, sources interviewed by the CPI agreed.
“The Asociación de Vecinos del Viejo San Juan views with deep concern the governor’s recent announcements concerning port expansion and the intention to turn Puerto Rico into a cruise hub similar to Miami,” the association said in a written statement to the CPI. “We believe these proposals reflect an economic vision disconnected from the physical, historical, environmental and community realities of Old San Juan.”
“Old San Juan is a living, historic and extremely fragile city,” the association added.
San Juan is the main entry point for cruise passengers in Puerto Rico. Ponce, on the southern coast, also receives cruise ships, although activity there is limited. The Puerto Rico Tourism Company announced that in 2027, Legend of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, will make a stop at the Port of Ponce. The government also wants to encourage cruise arrivals in Mayagüez, on Puerto Rico’s western coast, and has expressed interest in developing port infrastructure in Toa Baja and Cataño as part of its plan to make Puerto Rico a regional cruise hub.
AVISAJ said residents feel a tourism model has been imposed on them without opportunities for public participation, public hearings or rigorous studies assessing whether the islet can withstand the scale of activity generated by cruise ship arrivals.
Joel Pizá Batiz, former director of San Juan’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism, acknowledged that the Municipality of San Juan has no study measuring the cruise industry’s economic impact on the historic district. Pizá Batiz resigned from his position in July.
According to the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, 1.6 million people visited Puerto Rico by cruise ship in 2025. Two million are projected to arrive in 2026, according to Clarivette Díaz Sosa, general manager of San Juan Cruise Port, the company that operates six cruise piers in San Juan under a public-private partnership, or P3.
Compared with the rest of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico ranked fifth among the destinations that received the most visitors in 2024, according to the cruise industry’s most recent study by the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, or FCCA. It trailed Cozumel and Costa Maya in Mexico, as well as the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
Gerardo González Núñez, an economist and director of the graduate program at Inter American University of Puerto Rico’s School of Business, said the cruise industry is predominantly a Caribbean phenomenon. The Caribbean is the world’s most visited cruise destination, according to the 2025 CLIA Global Market Report. That year, the region received 44% of all cruise passengers, about 16 million passengers. European destinations ranked second, with 9 million passengers.
Still, “in terms of volume, the number of cruise passengers Puerto Rico receives is marginal compared with the number of tourists who arrive [by air],” González Núñez said. According to Tourism Company data, nearly 7.3 million tourists traveled to Puerto Rico by air in 2025, compared with 1.6 million who arrived by cruise ship.
Cruise passengers in Puerto Rico spent $367 million in 2024, according to a study by Discover Puerto Rico, the organization responsible for marketing Puerto Rico as a tourism destination. Discover Puerto Rico said those figures could be attributed to Old San Juan because most cruise ships visiting Puerto Rico dock there.
But the Puerto Rico Planning Board estimated in its most recent economic report that cruise passengers spent $228 million in Puerto Rico in 2024 — $139 million less than Discover Puerto Rico’s estimate. Discover Puerto Rico said its estimate was higher because it included members of the military in the excursionist category and used “a different model to analyze the data.”
The Planning Board’s analysis was also based on fiscal years, while Discover Puerto Rico uses calendar years.
Revenue Left on the Table
One of the Puerto Rico government’s tools for making the island a homeport for cruise lines, extending ships’ stays and increasing passenger volume is the use of economic incentives.
The Puerto Rico Incentives Code includes a portfolio of 12 incentives available to cruise lines and port agents. Port agents are companies that provide administrative and logistical services to cruise ships before, during, and after they dock in Puerto Rico. The incentives include fee discounts and bonuses for using Puerto Rico as a homeport, incentives for vessels that remain in port for more than eight hours, and partial reimbursements for purchases of supplies, maintenance services, and products.
“The main incentive cruise ships receive is not a tax incentive, but an economic incentive that operates as a discount on the per-passenger fee and depends on the volume of passengers arriving in Puerto Rico,” the Department of Economic Development and Commerce said.
The incentives are not discretionary. The Tourism Company must grant them to any company or cruise ship operator that applies and meets the requirements established under Act 60-2019.
The Tourism Company estimated that from 2023 through 2025 it awarded at least $30.8 million in economic incentives to cruise lines Carnival Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Royal Caribbean, as well as the port-agent companies Pérez & CIA and Continental Shipping.
The incentives are paid as reimbursements once “compliance with the requirements established by law is documented and validated,” Tourism Company press officer Reimarie Carrero said.
Pizá Batiz, who also headed the Puerto Rico Ports Authority during the previous four-year administration, said the incentives are intended to increase the number of passengers arriving in Puerto Rico.
“They’re going to put their ship in the destinations that generate the most money for them,” he said. “So, we, as destinations, are under pressure to figure out how to make ourselves more attractive and how to make the destination generate more money for the [cruise] line.”
The FCCA, whose members include executives from cruise lines and related industries, has actively lobbied for economic incentives before the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, the entity imposed by the U.S. Congress on Puerto Rico in 2016 to oversee the territory’s fiscal management and budget.
The Department of Economic Development and Commerce told the CPI that it measures the effectiveness of incentives through studies and return-on-investment analyses. But in its most recent report of this kind, published in 2024 using 2020 data, the cruise industry is mentioned only once, and the report offers no analysis of these economic incentives.
Decline in Gross Revenue
In 2023, the Puerto Rico government received nearly $21 million in revenue from fees and charges related to cruise traffic at piers then operated by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority.
Between February and March 2024, those operations were transferred from the Ports Authority to San Juan Cruise Port under a contract signed in 2022. The P3 agreement, finalized during the administration of Gov. Pedro Pierluisi for a 30-year term, initially provides the Ports Authority with 5% of operating revenue. That share will gradually increase to 9% over the first decade of the contract, according to financial analysis firm S&P Global.
In 2024, the Ports Authority collected $4.7 million during the months it still operated the cruise piers, plus another $967,571 representing its contractual 5% share under the P3 agreement, according to data provided by the public corporation. In 2025, the Ports Authority received $1,435,507 from the total revenue collected by SJCP. The CPI requested SJCP’s total revenue figures, but they had not been provided by publication time.
SJCP is a subsidiary of Global Ports Holdings, which operates other cruise ports in the Caribbean, including in St. Lucia, the Bahamas and Antigua. In Puerto Rico, SJCP is responsible for “establishing, charging, retaining and enforcing payment of all cruise port-related revenues,” according to a document from its parent company.
The Ports Authority said the Puerto Rico government’s benefit from its agreement with San Juan Cruise Port is not limited to its share of operating revenue.
“Under the contract, SJCP assumed responsibility for developing and implementing, at its own expense, a comprehensive design, maintenance and construction program aimed at keeping the cruise port facilities safe, efficient and suitable for the industry’s needs,” the Ports Authority said.
“In addition, SJCP must carry out repairs and improvements at several piers using its own resources, including work necessary to address structural deficiencies identified at the facilities,” it added.
On April 29 of this year, the Ports Authority transferred $98.2 million in federal funds to SJCP for repairs to the cruise port facilities, according to records from the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico. The company says the rehabilitation project will cost $425 million and includes development of the port areas, which are divided into two districts: Old San Juan, where piers 1, 3 and 4 will be used for transit calls and luxury cruises; and the homeport district, which includes the Pan American piers and piers 11 and 13.
Reinvestment in the Economy?
Tourists arriving on cruise ships generate about half of merchants’ annual revenue, estimated Eddie Pérez Morales, director of the Corporación para el Desarrollo Empresarial y Cultural de la Isleta de San Juan (CODEVISA).
“Without the economic impact provided by cruise ships,” Pérez said, “merchants would be under a little more pressure.”
Businesses in Old San Juan, like other small and midsize businesses across Puerto Rico, contend with high electricity costs, inflation and difficulty retaining employees. Old San Juan businesses face the additional challenges of operating in a city built during the Spanish colonial period.
The economic benefits generated by cruise passengers flow primarily to businesses closest to the piers or major tourist attractions, the CODEVISA director said. In his experience in the industry, tourists spend most heavily on souvenirs and local food.
As a result, neighborhood grocery stores, pharmacies and medical offices that residents need have been replaced in Old San Juan by bars, restaurants and souvenir shops, said Yoamadil Cabán González, a Sol Street resident. Those shops do not necessarily sell goods made by Puerto Rican artisans because generic souvenirs imported from China have proliferated, she said. Many residents have also moved away, and even the neighborhood’s only medical office has closed.
“[Old San Juan] is being transformed from the living, historic residential city [it once was] into a floating theme park that benefits only large corporations while weakening our health, our infrastructure, our biodiversity and, above all, our sense of community,” Cabán González told the CPI.
“Cruise ships are not bringing a sustainable or respectful economy,” she said. “They are putting pressure on our infrastructure and driving out the businesses that residents actually need.”
Because cruise passengers have meals and drinks included on board, their economic impact “is superficial and low-value,” Cabán González said.
Discover Puerto Rico spokesperson Karen Garnik said the organization’s perception studies show that tourists view Old San Juan’s residential and historic character positively.
“If you remove the residents, the rhythm fades. If you replace the traditional restaurant with a chain store, the flavor becomes generic. If you displace the artisan from Cristo Street, the architecture becomes a backdrop. We have seen this story play out in Venice [in Italy] and Dubrovnik [in Croatia]. We’re not interested in the sequel,” Garnik said.
She added that decisions concerning port management, excursion contracts, businesses at the piers and ship arrivals “fall under the Puerto Rico Tourism Company and the Puerto Rico Ports Authority.”
Among residents’ many concerns is the construction, with support from the Tourism Company, of a Hard Rock-branded hotel across from the Port of San Juan. The project would require raising the site’s ground level and has a design that does not conform to Old San Juan’s architecture.
Impact on Infrastructure
“When those people disembark, that’s thousands of people coming into San Juan. There are no public restrooms here,” said Lourdes Suárez Valle, a Sol Street resident. “They walk around and buy one thing or another. But they’re not a particularly appealing clientele for businesses or for us.”
The former director of San Juan’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism said the municipality places portable toilets in the area on days when large numbers of cruise ships are in port. It plans to build 10 public restroom facilities at the former Old San Juan Tourism Office behind the Tapia Theater. According to the municipality’s 2025-2026 budget, the work would cost an estimated $230,000.
In October 2025, two months after the governor called for more cruise traffic while announcing the FCCA convention in Puerto Rico, Old San Juan residents and merchants accused PRASA of supplying cruise ships with water while they had gone without service for days.
PRASA told the CPI that cruise ships do not receive priority over other commercial and residential customers and said that during periods of low pressure or service interruptions, cruise ships are affected like any other customer.
“The Authority states that there are no records or evidence linking the presence of cruise ships at Old San Juan’s ports to adverse effects on the drinking water supply [for residents or businesses in the area],” PRASA press officer Gian Paul Luciano Ramos said.
But Luna Street resident Nitayno González Otero does not believe that.
González Otero said water pressure in homes in the historic district drops as the number of cruise ships increases. These fluctuations typically occur in the afternoon and last about two hours.
“The elevation where you live makes a difference. For example, I’m on Luna Street, and I’m on the first floor, and you can feel the difference in pressure. You can see just a trickle of water coming out. But people who live on the second or third floor, or on higher streets, are affected even more because the pressure simply doesn’t reach them,” he said.
PRASA supplied more than 105,000 cubic meters of water to cruise ships at the Port of San Juan from January 2019 through March 2024, according to Ports Authority data. That amount is equivalent to one month of water use for just over 6,000 households, which consume an average of 17 cubic meters per month, according to PRASA.
Tourists and Residents Compete for the Same Space
Víctor R. Castro Gómez, a Luna Street resident, said tourists and residents compete for the same pedestrian and roadway infrastructure.
“The first thing you see when those ships arrive is people competing for space, practically battling with vehicles,” he said.
Old San Juan has about 20 streets.
The frenzy snarls traffic, particularly for residents and merchants, forcing them to adjust when they enter and leave the historic district.
It is also not unusual for Old San Juan’s cobblestones to become damaged or for streets to sink under the weight of vehicles and pedestrians. Many of these streets were built over vaulted structures and paved with blue cobblestones, some installed in the late 19th century and others added later as replacements.
Pizá Batiz said the municipality has a pedestrian plan for the historic district that is activated on certain streets only during special events, generally once a month. He added that turning Old San Juan into a pedestrian city would have to be accompanied by a more robust public transit system.
He also acknowledged that the municipality has no tourism carrying-capacity study to determine how many people can be in Old San Juan at the same time without jeopardizing its historic infrastructure and essential services for residents and businesses.
San Juan’s Office of Emergency Management has established a maximum capacity of 33,000 people in the city, but that threshold is intended to prevent emergencies or facilitate crowd management during large-scale events.
Andy Rivera Rivera, founder of the Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Dibujos de Edificios Históricos, explained that during the first years after the U.S. invasion in 1898, water channels were designed beneath the streets of the Walled City as a key part of its aqueduct system. To date, 32 tunnels, 48 crypts and 1,232 cisterns are known to exist in Old San Juan. Although they are no longer in use, Rivera Rivera warned that this complex network of tunnels, crypts and cisterns makes the city’s streets vulnerable to excessive vehicle loads.
Lack of Will From Authorities
As Old San Juan residents tried to sleep one night in April 2024, a cruise ship was blasting music, its lights were on, and its smokestacks were emitting a strong odor and soot. The light, noise, and air pollution from the massive vessel made it impossible to fall asleep.
Residents called the Puerto Rico Police Bureau but were told the agency did not have jurisdiction to intervene. Police Bureau spokesperson Axel Valencia declined to address the residents’ allegations and said in a written response to the CPI that the Municipal Police is responsible for security in the community and the San Juan Bay area.
Contrary to Valencia’s statement, Puerto Rico Ports Authority regulations establish that the Puerto Rico Police Bureau must patrol port facilities alongside Ports Authority security officers to prevent crimes and other legal violations. Under the regulations, Ports Authority officers must cooperate with police investigations into alleged legal violations at port facilities and in the San Juan Bay area.
More than 100 Old San Juan residents signed a petition calling on the Tourism Company, the Ports Authority and the Municipality of San Juan to address their complaints.
“The increase in the number and size of cruise ships means more noise, light pollution and environmental pollution that negatively affect residents’ health, emotional well-being and peaceful coexistence in a city where people actually live,” said the letter sent by AVISAJ. “The mismanagement of cruise ships threatens our ability to live in health and harmony.”
Lilliam Cruz Viñas, a Sol Street resident, said the community also lacks enough law enforcement officers. Residents who call to file complaints find that there are not enough municipal officers or patrol cars, even though “fights have broken out” among tourists late at night, along with other violations of the Public Order Code.
“The police are absent,” she said. “I almost never call the police because it doesn’t really affect me, but it does affect my neighbors. So, what happens? They call the station, and the police say they don’t have patrol cars, that they don’t have motorcycles — if they answer at all, because they don’t always answer.”
Pizá Batiz said 85 Municipal Police officers are assigned to Old San Juan. Municipal data show that the officers have 18 motorcycles and eight patrol vehicles.
“The cruise industry stirs up a lot of passions, both among those who support it and those who oppose it,” he said. “Situations are going to arise, and they have to be mediated, always starting from the premise that this is an important [economic] segment and that we are competing with other jurisdictions.”
“We have to address these issues knowing that we cannot fall behind commercially,” he added.
The former official said he met periodically with residents and business owners in the area. He was unfamiliar with whether the Public Order Code applies to cruise ships.
Reinaldo Segurola Pérez, a Sol Street resident, documented on Facebook the incidents Old San Juan residents experienced almost daily and said he then forwarded them to the Municipality of San Juan. Even so, he said, communication with Mayor Miguel Romero was scarce and limited.
“Old San Juan is the place where anything goes,” Segurola said. “It’s one thing for Old San Juan to be an excellent tourist destination and another for it to be an excellent place to live.”
“Those are two different visions, and I’m not saying we have to choose one or the other,” he added. “But we have to find a way to reconcile those interests, which are sometimes in conflict with one another, so the residential community can be sustained.”
Segurola told the CPI that the failure to address residents’ concerns pushed him to move out of Old San Juan in late December. Old San Juan’s urban core lost 32% of its population between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Its population fell from 3,570 residents in 2010 to 2,417 in 2020. Across the entire San Juan Islet, the population declined by 10%.
This investigation was made possible in part with support from the Metcalf Ocean Nexus Academy program, created by Ocean Nexus and the Metcalf Institute in collaboration with The Uproot Project.
This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.
