Cabo Rojo named finalist at the Seatrade Cruise Awards

The Cabo Rojo port in Pedernales landed among the three finalists for Port of the Year at the 2026 Seatrade Cruise Awards, one of the cruise industry's most prestigious global honors. The Dominican terminal is in that shortlist according to Dominican Today, which confirms the nomination alongside two other international ports.

For a young project like Cabo Rojo, making that list is no small feat. Seatrade brings together operators, cruise lines and port managers from around the world, and being in that group puts Pedernales on the Caribbean route map. For a province that until recently did not exist in the cruise circuit, the nomination works as a technical endorsement and as a commercial pitch to cruise lines still weighing whether to add the Dominican south to their itineraries.

The read is simple: the country now has a second gateway for cruise passengers, and that gateway sits in the south. If Cabo Rojo consolidates, Pedernales gains traffic, local tour operators widen their catalog and MITUR adds another destination with its own numbers. Worth watching the final result and, above all, making sure the port backs the nomination with operations and services that live up to it.