In this paper we describe the evolution of the cruise tourism industry and we analyze different impacts on tourism destinations of this segment of the travel industry. The study includes the discussion of economic, social, environmental, cultural and political effects. We present data to analyze and compare the performance of the main cruise destinations and cruise lines. Analysis and data are based mainly on a selection of information taken from different official worldwide reports (OMT, CTO), press releases and previous studies. The economic impact is estimated from tourist expenditure and local information. Environmental impacts are compiled from historical and current data. We also describe different activities related to the cruise ship industry to identify costs and benefits to different actors of the local economies. From the analysis, we discuss some stylized facts about the cruise ship industry and we show that some optimist evaluations of local decision makers are not completely