Christmas is terrible at subtlety. It arrives with lights, music and an alarming quantity of marzipan, and certain places lean into the spectacle so enthusiastically that they feel purpose-built for a December call. Markets get all the attention, but there are ports where the whole city feels like the set of a festive film, even when you are nowhere near a mulled-wine stall.

Here are eight destinations that are unapologetically Christmassy, in ways that work particularly well when you sail in.

New York City, USA

Sailing into New York in December feels like arriving directly into the opening credits of a festive romcom. The air is cold enough to make your eyes water, the skyline looks freshly polished and, somewhere inland, an enormous spruce is patiently waiting to be lit.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree really is as over-the-top as it sounds: a seventy-plus foot Norway spruce strung with about 50,000 multicoloured LEDs and topped with a Swarovski star. Skaters are tracing nervous circles on the rink below, Fifth Avenue’s windows are staging full theatrical productions and the Rockettes are high-kicking through yet another century of shows.

For a December cruise that starts or ends here, you get the full New York holiday package in a couple of days: one evening for the tree and the lights, one for a Broadway show and a final early-morning sail away past the Statue of Liberty, coffee in hand, promising that next year you will be more restrained in Macy’s. You will not.

Québec City, Canada

Old Québec in winter looks like someone has handed a set designer the words “Charles Dickens” and an unlimited budget for fairy lights. From late November, the historic upper town is draped in decorations and snow, earning regular spots on lists of the world’s best places to spend Christmas.

It is not just the lights. The stone streets hold their own against the weather, restaurants glow invitingly behind frosted windows and there is always somebody heading past with a toboggan or a bag of cheese curds. From the ship you get the drama of the St Lawrence in winter; on land you get a city that has decided that if it is going to be this cold, it may as well do Christmas properly.

Bergen, Norway

Plenty of cities put up lights. Bergen switches on an entire hillside.

When the decorations go up in December, the old Hanseatic wharf at Bryggen and the tangle of wooden alleyways behind it are wrapped in a warm glow that makes the harbour look like a painting someone has forgotten to finish. Choirs sing on the waterfront, the sea air sneaks in around your scarf and there is usually a line of patient umbrellas outside the fish soup stand.

For cruisers, Bergen at Christmas is a neat double act: a working port and a winter stage set, with the added bonus that your ship is always only a short, slightly slippery walk away.

Tromsø, Norway

Travel brochures call Tromsø the “Gateway to the Arctic”, which is a polite way of saying “quite far north”. At Christmas, this is exactly the point. Deep inside the Arctic Circle, the city glows in the polar night, its main street strung with lights and the Arctic Cathedral lit up like a minimalist Christmas card.

From the quayside you can head out on Northern Lights cruises that slip into darker fjords in search of aurora, warming up in heated lounges while guides explain what is happening in the sky. On a good night, the whole thing feels like the universe has agreed to put on a private show for your sailing. On a cloudy one, you still get hot chocolate and the satisfying feeling that you have earned your breakfast the next morning.

Tallinn, Estonia

If you asked a child to draw a Christmas city, they would probably sketch something that looks suspiciously like Tallinn. The medieval old town climbs around its hill in layers of stone walls, church spires and pastel façades, and in December it all gets dusted with lights and, if you are lucky, a proper fall of snow.

Visit Estonia rather modestly describes it as a “winter wonderland”, with the old town turning into a stage for concerts, events and a long season of festive decorations. Even without the market, it feels like stepping into a storybook: narrow streets, wooden doors, the smell of hot glögi drifting out of cellar bars.

For Baltic itineraries that push into winter, this is the port where you suddenly understand why people put reindeers on jumpers.

Funchal, Madeira

Not all Christmas magic involves frostbite. Sail into Funchal in late December and the island has dressed itself for the holidays in lights rather than snow. The city climbs steeply up from the harbour, and almost every terrace, balcony and hotel façade seems to be taking part.

Madeira takes New Year’s Eve especially seriously: the Guinness-recognised fireworks display uses the natural amphitheatre of the bay, with bursts coordinated along the hillsides and around the harbour. Watching it from the deck, with a faint smell of fireworks drifting across the water and a slightly too-full glass of Madeira wine in hand, is one of the more civilised ways to start a year.

The days around Christmas are gentler: shirtsleeve weather, poinsettias in the parks and the low-level smugness that comes from texting a relative who is scraping ice off a windscreen.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh at this time of year is really two celebrations in a trench coat: Christmas and Hogmanay. The city’s Winter Festival runs from late November, filling Princes Street Gardens with rides, shows and a slightly surreal combination of bagpipes and festive covers.

Then comes Hogmanay, which Scotland refuses to treat as a simple “New Year’s Eve”. Edinburgh’s version stretches over several days, starting with a torchlight procession that sends a river of fire through the Old Town and building to concerts, street parties and midnight fireworks that rank among the largest public celebrations in the world.

Ships usually dock at Leith or South Queensferry, which gives you the pleasingly old-fashioned experience of travelling into the city by train or tram with other revellers, all wrapped in their best winter layers and quietly calculating how long they can stay out before losing feeling in their toes.

Choosing your kind of Christmas

None of these places needs a market to feel Christmassy, although several handily have them. What ties them together is that sense of cities leaning into the season, whether that means classical concerts in candlelit churches, northern skies that refuse to stay still or fireworks spilling down a hillside into the sea.

If you are the sort of person who secretly likes Christmas but claims you are “not that fussed”, a December or New Year sailing that strings together a few of these ports is a good way to test that theory. You can enjoy the lights, the music and the occasional questionable knitwear, safe in the knowledge that at the end of the day your cabin is waiting, and someone else is in charge of the washing up.