Skagen: Cruise Ships Are Not the Problem 11. August 2025
As a tour guide in Skagen, I experience the reality on the ground every day—and it's drastically different from what's being discussed on social media. The big concern among German tourists seems to be whether a cruise ship is in the harbor and therefore "clogging up" the city and the northernmost point.
But the numbers tell a clear story!
It's complete nonsense.
Because with 50,000 to 60,000 visitors per day during the season, the maximum 6,000 tourists arriving by cruise ship are only a fraction of what's actually here.
Besides, these guests don't come by car or motorcycle.
Most of them are on foot or in the tour buses we provide and that we guide personally.
That's why I know so precisely what's happening here.
But I keep reading in these Denmark groups online how terrible it supposedly is with these cruise ships and all the tourists they bring.
But the real problem is the lack of respect for nature!
When I stand with my colleagues at Grenen—the northernmost, actually northeastern point—we're overcome with dread every time.
We ask ourselves what we can do.
But what can you really do?
When we see the masses of people there who are not from the cruise ship and are on tour with us, we get frightened.
We explain to our guests along the way that they must not get too close to the seals.
That they must keep their distance.
We explain how mother seals stop caring for their young when they're disturbed.
We explain everything in detail—and our guests keep their distance.
But the bitter reality is this:
The others—the ones who are always complaining about cruise ship tourists—stand there by the hundreds to take pictures of themselves with the two seas and of course also with the little seals.
They keep coming closer and closer, pressing right up against the animals.
Often we see people letting their dogs get so close to these little creatures.
We talk and talk and talk, pointing out to tourists what they're doing, but nobody cares.
Everyone wants a picture with these little seals.
We've stopped talking.
We've stopped saying anything, because we've learned that you won't listen, that you don't give a damn, that you're willing to sacrifice a seal's life for a photo.
You should all be ashamed.
Cruise ships are not the problem—you are. Your thoughtlessness, your indifference toward nature and the animals that live here.
While you complain about 6,000 guided and informed cruise ship tourists, you yourselves are part of the 50,000 daily visitors who trample through nature uninformed and without respect.
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest, because that little, sweet seal from Saturday was lying dead in the sand on Sunday!
