Guernsey in brief
Sixteen of 66. That is how many planned 2025 cruise calls at Guernsey were cancelled for poor weather, on the States of Guernsey’s own visitor figures.
Everything else on this page assumes the tenders ran. On those sixteen days, they did not.
This is a tender port for anything but a small ship.
Visit Guernsey’s trade guide says Berth 1 now takes ships of up to 130 metres alongside the harbour — a quay of 140 metres, 5.5 metres minimum depth, a 5-metre maximum draught.
Everything longer anchors off St Peter Port and sends you in by tender. The trade guide gives the anchorage as 10m+ deep, in a tidal range of 9m.
Guernsey Harbours’ 2026 schedule shows a berth code of A against 40 of its 44 Guernsey calls. We read that as anchorage — the PDF prints no key to check it against.
Code 1 appears only against small expedition and yacht ships: Le Bellot, SeaDream II, Le Champlain and Hebridean Sky.
Tenders land at the cruise pontoon on Albert Pier, in the town harbour, and a Visit Guernsey welcome team meets you there.
Landings moved to Albert Pier in 2016 — Cruise Trade News says it was chosen over White Rock for its capacity, and because it sits away from the inter-island quay and the commercial harbour.
The ride in is the one number Visit Guernsey gives two ways.
Its consumer article calls it “a short, 8-minute tender.” Its own Cruise Operator Guide says 15–20 minutes.
We print both, attributed, and choose neither. Budget for the longer one.
The weather record, in the island’s own numbers.
The Guernsey Travel and Visitor Annual Report 2025, published 10 February 2026, sets calls made against calls planned — 59 of 62 in 2023, 53 of 77 in 2024, 50 of 66 in 2025.
Guernsey Harbours publishes no statement on the weather limits for tendering, or on how a call gets cancelled. The figures on this page come from the States’ visitor statistics and the Guernsey Press, not from the harbour.
2026 has gone better so far. The Guernsey Press reported on 1 September 2026, citing Visit Guernsey’s bulletin, that 39 of 46 expected ships had arrived — 6 cancelled for weather, 1 postponed.
Far fewer people are landing than a few years ago.
The same annual report counts cruise passengers who came ashore: 85,541 in 2023, 38,456 in 2024, 28,397 in 2025.
Cruise Trade News reported more than 123,000 in 2015. The Guernsey Press puts Q2 2026 at 7,212 cruise visitors, down 40% on Q2 2025’s 11,982.
That changes nothing about your day once you are on the pontoon. It does explain why a Guernsey line on an itinerary is written in pencil, not ink.
If you land, the town is the easy part.
Visit Guernsey puts the high street a four-minute walk from Albert Pier. Its trade guide calls the pontoon 600 metres from the town centre.
The Town bus terminus is next to the pier, and the island’s buses run on a £1.70 flat fare or a £10 visitor day pass — paid by card, not cash.
Herm is about 20 minutes away by Travel Trident ferry from the Weighbridge, at £19 adult return. Sark is further, and it is a full-day commitment, not a side trip.
Which of those is worth paying someone else to organise, our Guernsey shore excursion guide takes one at a time.
On foot from the ship
Visit Guernsey’s consumer article says 8 minutes; its trade guide for cruise operators says 15–20, and the harbour gives neither. Add the wait for your tender group, which nobody publishes.
Visit Guernsey’s figure, and its trade guide puts the pontoon 600 metres from the town centre. The Visitor Information Centre is in Market Square.
Both leave from Albert Pier itself. Petit Train puts its stop about 50 metres from the tender pontoon, and on busy cruise days you buy at the kiosk and ride when it suits you.
Visit Guernsey calls it “a stone’s throw” from the pier. Fares are £1.70 a trip or £10 for a visitor day pass, by credit or debit card only — no cash on daytime fares.
Visit Guernsey puts the island’s largest taxi stand, off the Weighbridge roundabout, about 10 minutes’ walk away. Travel Trident’s Herm boats leave from the Weighbridge Clock Tower and Liberation Monument.
The museum’s own site puts it a 10-minute walk from the town bus terminus. Its 2026 season ran 25 March to 6 September, so any later call finds it shut — no autumn opening was published.
What's nearby, broadly
The harbour front, the high street, Market Square and the Hauteville House garden are all on foot from the pontoon. The Little Chapel and the German Underground Hospital are one bus route out — route 71 — and Herm is a 20-minute ferry. Sausmarez Manor is the one we could not route for you, because no source we read gives its bus or its distance from town.
Commonly reached from
Guernsey is not a Southampton short-break staple, whatever you may have read. Guernsey Harbours’ 2026 schedule shows P&O’s Ventura calling on 8 June and 6 July as the last stop of a Southampton round trip, Silver Spirit sailing Guernsey to Southampton on 26 May and Southampton to Guernsey on 28 August, and Saga’s Spirit of Discovery arriving from Portsmouth on 25 June. We found no 2–4 night Southampton sailing with a Guernsey call. If you do sail from Southampton, the embarkation end is in our Southampton departure guide, and the region’s other calls are mapped in our Northern Europe cruise guide.
Planning your Guernsey day
The specific picks — which paid excursion is actually worth it, what to skip, and why — already have their own dedicated guide, built and kept current on its own schedule. This page stays at the port-identity level on purpose; that one goes deep.
Booking a tour yourself? Our comparison of Shore Excursions Group and Viator covers which of the two suits which kind of port day — and when the ship’s own tour is still the better buy.
Best Guernsey shore excursions
Four minutes’ walk from the pontoon and a £10 bus pass for the island — if the tender runs, which it did not on 16 planned 2025 calls.
See the full excursion guide →Practical notes
Money: sterling, with one trap on the way home.
Guernsey uses the pound and issues its own notes and coins. UK and Jersey money is accepted on the island, and Visit Guernsey says major credit cards are widely accepted.
The trap runs the other way. Visit Guernsey’s own words are “Channel Island sterling is not accepted in the UK” — so spend Guernsey notes before you reboard, or ask for Bank of England notes in your change.
Back in the UK, a Guernsey fiver is a souvenir, not money.
Some businesses take euros but give change in sterling. ATMs are at the high-street banks in St Peter Port, the airport, supermarkets and garages.
Card for the bus, cash for one museum.
The buses take credit or debit card only for daytime fares, on the States of Guernsey’s fares sheet.
Fares have been £1.70 a single since 30 March 2026, with a £10 one-day visitor pass, £15 for two days and £20 for a family day pass — two adults and up to three children under 16. Under-5s ride free.
The German Occupation Museum is the opposite. Visit Guernsey lists it as cash only, £10 adult, and open 10am–1pm with last entry at 12:15 — those are the listing’s 2025 hours, and the museum’s own site failed to load when we checked.
Stagecoach has run the island’s buses under a States contract since 1 April 2025, taking over from CT Plus. A new timetable started on 7 September 2026.
Route 71 serves the Little Chapel and the German Underground Hospital, and routes 91, 93 and 95 serve the German Occupation Museum. The operator’s own site blocked our checks, so round-island route numbers and frequencies are not printed here.
Taxis run on a regulated maximum, not a negotiation.
The States’ Tariff 1, effective 24 November 2025, covers Monday to Friday 7am–10pm and weekends 7am–7pm for one to four passengers: £4.50 to start, covering the first 461.46 yards, then £0.20 for each 125.55 yards.
Waiting is £32.20 an hour, Sundays add £2.00, and baggage is £0.20 an article. These are maximum fares, not fixed ones.
Ranks in St Peter Port are at the Weighbridge, Church Square, The Albany, Smith Street, The Quay and The Harbour. On-demand bookings go through the Guernsey Taxi App; island tours and advance bookings go to the taxi companies directly.
Entry: the ETA reaches Guernsey, and the island says nothing about cruises.
Guernsey is in the Common Travel Area with the UK, Ireland and the Isle of Man. From 23 April 2026, non-visa nationals from outside that area need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, applied for through the UK ETA system.
It costs £16, rising to £20. British and Irish citizens are exempt.
The States of Guernsey says the requirement covers “all modes of travel including scheduled arrivals by air or sea, private aircraft and pleasure craft.”
Neither gov.gg nor Visit Guernsey says anything specific about cruise passengers — so we are not inventing a cruise rule.
If you are not British or Irish, hold a UK ETA and follow your line’s instructions.
Visitors from outside the UK and Ireland need a passport. UK and Irish arrivals need photo ID.
Two calendar traps worth checking against your date.
Castle Cornet’s 2026 season ran 10:00–17:00 daily from 25 March to 6 September. The calls on 9, 17 and 23 September and 5 and 10 October find it closed, and no autumn opening was published.
Hauteville House, Victor Hugo’s home, is closed on Wednesdays, guided-only and booking-essential. 2026’s Wednesday calls were 6 May (two ships), 27 May, 10 June, 29 July, 5 August, 9 September and 23 September.
Its season is itself disputed — Visit Guernsey says 2nd April to September, the house’s own page says May to September, and neither gives the closing date.
Short calls exist, and they rule things out.
L’Austral’s 18 May call left at 12:00, Star Legend’s on 23 August at 13:00, and Scenic Eclipse II’s on 9 September at 14:30.
On a call that short, Sark is off the table, not merely tight. Herm still fits if you are on an early tender.
The two ferries, on their operators’ own timetables.
Travel Trident’s Herm boats leave the Weighbridge Clock Tower at 10:30, 12:15, 14:15, 15:15 and 17:15 in May, June and September, plus a 07:30 in term time only. July and August run 10:15, 11:15, 12:15, 14:15, 15:15, 16:15 and 17:15, with the same early boat.
On 23 September 2026 the returns from Herm were 09:35, 10:50, 12:35, 14:35 from Rosaire, 15:35 and 17:35.
The operator’s own caveat is “Sailing times subjects to weather and tidal conditions” — read it as a condition, not boilerplate.
Tickets are £19 adult return and £9 child from the kiosk, or on board if the kiosk is closed. Early-bird same-day returns cost less — £14 on the 07:30, £17 on the 08:30 or 09:15.
Isle of Sark Shipping’s September weekday pattern runs 08:30, 10:15, 12:00, 15:30 and 17:10 from Guernsey, and 09:20, 11:10, 14:45, 16:20 and 18:00 back.
23 September itself ran a different pattern, so read the live schedule for your date, not this one. The company’s office is at White Rock; the pages we read did not name the departure quay.
An adult day return is £33.30 and a child’s £16.62, including taxes and the fuel surcharge updated on 3 September 2026.
Your line’s port page may say you dock. Check it.
P&O’s own St Peter Port page says “Your ship will berth at state-of-the-art terminal at Albert Pier.” Ventura is listed at anchorage in the harbour’s own 2026 schedule, and Visit Guernsey says ships over 130 metres anchor.
Treat the harbour’s schedule as the fact and the brochure as the mood.
Getting ashore with limited mobility.
Guernsey Harbours’ Special Assistance page says passengers arriving at the cruise liner pontoon who need assistance “have reasonable access to and from their tenders.” It publishes nothing more specific than that.
Whether you can board a tender at all is decided at the ship end by your line, not by the harbour. Ask the shore excursions desk before the day.
The smaller things.
English is the language, and no official source we checked publishes a tipping custom.
UK mobile phones pay roaming charges in Guernsey — Visit Guernsey says so plainly, because the island is outside UK domestic tariffs.
Roads are narrow, with a 35mph maximum and 25mph in towns, and there are “filter in turn” junctions. Take care crossing, not just driving.
The Visitor Information Centre is in Market Square, GY1 1AQ. The old Market Buildings beside it now hold a Co-op Locale, open 7.30am–7pm Monday to Saturday and 9am–6pm on Sundays.
Guernsey Harbours says the season starts in April and runs until early October. The 2026 schedule runs from 3 May to 10 October.
Sources: Guernsey Harbours (harbours.gg — cruise ships page, 2026 cruise schedule Version 6, anchorages, special assistance and winter maintenance notices), Visit Guernsey (visitguernsey.com, including “Cruising to Guernsey in 2026” and the useful-information pages) and its trade Cruise Operator Guide (trade.visitguernsey.com), the States of Guernsey (gov.gg — Guernsey Travel and Visitor Annual Report 2025, bus fares sheet, taxi tariff, ETA introduction), the Guernsey Press (1 September 2026), Cruise Trade News, Guernsey Museums (Castle Cornet), Maisons de Victor Hugo (Hauteville House), the German Underground Hospital, the Little Chapel, Travel Trident, the Isle of Sark Shipping Company, Island Coachways, Petit Train Guernsey, Tuk Tuk Guernsey, the Channel Islands Co-operative and P&O Cruises’ St Peter Port page — all consulted September 23, 2026.
Planning a Guernsey port day?
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Guernsey FAQ
Do cruise ships dock or tender at Guernsey?
Most tender. Visit Guernsey says ships under 130 metres can come alongside at Berth 1, and everything larger anchors off St Peter Port and tenders passengers to the cruise pontoon on Albert Pier.
In Guernsey Harbours’ 2026 schedule, 40 of the 44 Guernsey calls carry a berth code we read as anchorage. The PDF prints no key, so that reading is ours.
If your line’s page says you will berth at Albert Pier, check the ship’s length before you believe it.
How often are Guernsey cruise calls cancelled?
Often enough to plan around. The States’ annual visitor report counts 50 of 66 planned calls made in 2025, with 16 cancelled for poor weather — and 53 of 77 in 2024.
The Guernsey Press reported on 1 September 2026 that 39 of 46 expected ships had arrived that year: 6 cancelled for weather, 1 postponed.
Guernsey Harbours publishes no weather limit for tendering. Treat the call as likely, not certain — and keep anything you prebook refundable, or cheap enough to lose.
How long is the tender ride to St Peter Port?
It depends which Visit Guernsey page you read.
Its consumer article says “a short, 8-minute tender.” Its trade Cruise Operator Guide says 15–20 minutes.
Neither is the harbour’s figure, and the harbour publishes none. Plan on the trade guide’s number, not the consumer one, plus the queue for your tender group.
How far is St Peter Port town centre from the tender pier?
About a four-minute walk from Albert Pier to the high street, on Visit Guernsey’s figure — its trade guide calls it 600 metres.
The Town bus terminus is next to the pier, and the island’s largest taxi stand is about 10 minutes’ walk away at the Weighbridge.
How much is the bus in Guernsey, and can I pay cash?
£1.70 flat for an adult single, £10 for a one-day visitor pass and £20 for a one-day family pass, on the States’ fares from 30 March 2026.
No cash — daytime fares are credit or debit card only.
Route 71 from the terminus beside the pier serves the Little Chapel and the German Underground Hospital.
Can I visit Herm or Sark on a cruise stop?
Herm, yes. Travel Trident’s crossing is about 20 minutes from the Weighbridge, £19 adult return, with several sailings a day — subject to weather and tide, and some returns leave from Rosaire rather than Herm Harbour.
Sark takes 30–50 minutes on Visit Guernsey’s figure, at £33.30 for an adult day return, and it only works on a full-day call.
Our own rule is a return sailing that leaves at least 90 minutes before all-aboard, and a ship that stays until 17:00 or later.
What currency does Guernsey use? Can I use my UK pounds?
Sterling. UK and Jersey notes and coins are accepted, and Visit Guernsey says major credit cards are widely accepted.
Guernsey’s own notes are not accepted back in the UK. Spend them before you reboard, or ask for Bank of England notes in your change.
Do I need a passport or an ETA to visit Guernsey from a cruise?
British and Irish citizens do not need an ETA. From 23 April 2026, non-visa nationals from outside the Common Travel Area need a UK ETA, £16, and the States of Guernsey says it covers arrivals by sea.
Neither gov.gg nor Visit Guernsey says anything specific about cruise passengers, so follow your line’s instructions. Non-UK and non-Irish visitors need a passport; UK and Irish arrivals need photo ID.
Is Victor Hugo’s house open to cruise passengers?
Yes, by guided tour only — one hour, a maximum of 10 people, £12 adult, booking essential. It is closed on Wednesdays.
The garden needs no booking and is open 10:00–12:00 and 14:00–17:00. The season is given as 2nd April to September by Visit Guernsey and May to September by the house itself, with no closing date published.
Is Castle Cornet open on my call?
Only if your call falls between 25 March and 6 September, on the 2026 dates. It opened 10:00–17:00 daily in that window, at £12 adult and £3 for children 7–17 and students.
The September and October 2026 calls after that found it closed, and Guernsey Museums published no autumn opening.
Which cruise lines call at Guernsey?
A wide mix, mostly small and mid-sized ships.
The harbour’s 2026 schedule lists Ponant, Hapag-Lloyd, SeaDream, Silversea, Oceania, Windstar, Saga, Fred. Olsen, Ambassador, Regent Seven Seas, Scenic, Phoenix Reisen and others.
The largest are P&O’s Ventura at 3,078, Mein Schiff 3 at 2,506, AIDAsol at 2,194 and Carnival Legend at 2,124 — and Ventura, at least, is listed at anchorage in the schedule.
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