From Dubai: The smoke rising over Jebel Ali Port on the morning of 1 March told you everything you needed to know about how quickly a holiday can become something else entirely. Debris from an intercepted Iranian missile had sparked a fire at one of the port's berths, and black plumes hung over one of the busiest shipping terminals in the world. A few kilometres away, thousands of cruise passengers sat in their cabins, staring at locked cabin doors and instructions to stay away from windows.
This is what war looks like from the inside of a golden cage.
The US and Israel's military campaign against Iran, which began on 28 February, has led to widespread travel chaos across the Middle East. Not only has air travel shut down across much of the region, cruises around the Persian Gulf are facing major disruptions, leaving ships and passengers stranded in ports including Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Six cruise ships remain stranded in the Persian Gulf with none currently underway, and tracking data shows all vessels holding position in their last ports of call.
On board TUI Cruises' Mein Schiff 4, docked in Abu Dhabi, a missile struck the water not far from the vessel on Sunday afternoon according to observers, with clouds of black smoke rising over the sea. The situation on board is said to be tense, and it is not yet clear whether there were injuries among the approximately 2,500 passengers and around 1,000 crew members. On the ship's sister vessel, Mein Schiff 5, in Doha, some passengers had already boarded their return flights when planes were forced to turn back, with travellers waiting some 10 hours at the airport before being returned to the ship.
The geometry of the Gulf makes rescue by sea almost impossible. One of the most critical factors influencing the crisis has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow but strategically vital waterway between Iran to the north and Oman and the UAE to the south, measuring between 21 and 33 miles wide at its narrowest points. With the strait closed to civilian vessels, cruise ships have effectively been prevented from sailing toward safer waters. There is, quite simply, nowhere to go.
There are reports of thousands of Australians stranded across the Middle East, in Iran, Dubai, Yemen and elsewhere, who are currently unable to get a flight home. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has warned that "Australians overseas should be prepared for serious travel disruptions in the days ahead due to the conflict in the Middle East." The Australian government has raised its travel advice for the UAE to "do not travel", noting that the country has closed its airspace and that both Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports are shut.
The disruption is not limited to tourism. The economic consequences are compounding by the hour. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped by approximately 70%, with over 150 ships anchoring outside the strait to avoid risks. According to the US Energy Information Administration, about 20 million barrels of oil, worth around $500 billion in annual global energy trade, transited through the Strait of Hormuz each day in 2024. The implications for energy prices, and consequently for household budgets in Australia and across Asia, are real and immediate.
Ports in the region such as Jebel Ali and Khor Fakkan serve as transshipment hubs in global container networks, and alongside Maersk, German container shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd has suspended all transits through the Strait of Hormuz, citing the safety and security of its crews. France's CMA CGM has instructed all its vessels inside the Gulf to proceed to shelter. The shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd introduced a war risk surcharge of $1,500 per twenty-foot equivalent container on all bookings from 2 March, with $3,500 applying to special cargo, according to The Register's reporting.
For global supply chains, the pain is only beginning. The crisis has forced reroutes around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks to transit times and increasing costs. Oil prices have risen sharply, with Brent crude increasing by 10 to 13 per cent in initial trading, with analysts forecasting potential rises to $100 per barrel or higher if disruptions continue. Hamad Hussain, a climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics, has warned that if crude oil prices rose to $100 per barrel and held there, that could add 0.6 to 0.7 per cent to global inflation.
Technology supply chains face pressure too, though analysts caution against alarm. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued warnings prohibiting vessel passage through the strait, leading to an effective halt in shipping traffic. Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC, told The Register that the UAE is a major distribution hub for many products including technology, and that local markets in the region may face issues given that airspace and port traffic are closed or limited. Globally, however, those markets represent a small share of total volume.
There are legitimate arguments on multiple sides of how to weigh what has unfolded. Critics of the US-Israeli operation point to the severe civilian consequences, including the closure of airports that serve as critical nodes for global aviation and the stranding of hundreds of thousands of travellers who had no part in the conflict. Iran's retaliatory strikes hit UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, causing casualties and infrastructure damage far beyond any military target. The International Maritime Organization's secretary general Arsenio Dominguez condemned the violence, urging all shipping companies to "avoid transiting the affected region until conditions improve" and stating that "no attack on innocent seafarers or civilian shipping is ever justified," according to The Register.
Supporters of the operation argue that dismantling Iran's nuclear and military capacity addresses a long-standing threat to regional and global stability. From Canberra's perspective, the calculus is complex: Australia depends heavily on the Gulf aviation corridor for trade and passenger travel, and on stable energy prices flowing from undisrupted Gulf shipping. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has existing mechanisms to assist Australians in consular distress, but the scale of this disruption is testing those systems simultaneously across multiple countries.
What the passengers aboard those six stranded ships understand, viscerally and without ideological filter, is the cost of proximity to a conflict they did not choose. Many travel insurance policies do not cover acts of war, meaning that if travel has been interrupted by the outbreak of this conflict, it is unlikely that insurance will cover it. Celestyal has offered affected passengers the option of a full refund or future cruise credit, but for those watching missile intercepts light up the Abu Dhabi skyline from their cabin portholes, the question of refunds feels rather secondary.
US President Trump has said the dispute could last four to five weeks. For now, the shipping lanes are quiet, the airports are largely shuttered, and in the harbours of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, thousands of tourists wait for a signal that the world's most important maritime chokepoint is, once again, safe to cross.