Cartagena Events Calendar: Festivals Month by Month

The Fiestas de Independencia de Cartagena, recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of the district, run preludes from October into a full schedule between 6 and 15 November. The confirmed programme opens with a bathing-suit parade, the Desfile en Traje de Baño, on 6 November in Plaza de la Aduana, followed by the Sesión Solemne and Ofrenda Floral on 11 November itself, concerts on 13 and 14 November, and the Cabildo de Getsemaní and Reinado Popular on 15 November. Confirmed performers for the 2026 edition include Juan Luis Guerra, Grupo Niche and Silvestre Dangond, alongside champeta acts local to the coast.

One detail this research could not confirm either way: whether 11 November counts as a paid public holiday specifically for Cartagena or the department of Bolívar, as opposed to being a civic festival date without holiday status. That matters practically because several monuments run different hours on Sundays and official holidays, San Pedro Claver switches to a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. holiday schedule instead of its weekday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. hours, for instance, so a visit planned for 11 November itself should confirm that specific site's hours rather than assume either schedule. Rooms inside the walled city sell out well ahead of the date and prices climb hard, a pattern covered from the weather angle on best time to visit.

Hay Festival Cartagena is the city's international literature and arts festival, and its next edition runs 28 to 31 January 2027, with tickets going on sale the November before, per the festival's own official site. It draws international writers and a dedicated audience for a few days each January, and hotel demand in the historic center rises accordingly for the festival window, though it is a smaller, more contained spike than the November fiestas.

Two other named events came up repeatedly in researching this page and could not be confirmed with dates: the Cartagena International Music Festival, historically associated with January, and FICCI, the Cartagena International Film Festival. Both are real, ongoing annual events, but this research did not locate an official page confirming their dates for the relevant window, so no date is printed here. If either festival matters to your trip, check the event's own site directly closer to your travel date rather than relying on a year-old date carried over from a previous edition.

Semana Santa, Holy Week, is one of Colombia's biggest domestic travel weeks, and Cartagena's own churches, San Pedro Claver among them, are active participants in the religious calendar the rest of the year through their own hours and holiday schedules. What this research could not confirm from an official source is Semana Santa's specific effect on Cartagena: whether Transcaribe reduces service, whether specific streets close for processions, or whether monument hours shift beyond their normal Sunday-and-holiday pattern. Rather than guess at a Cartagena-specific effect that no official page states, this guide flags the gap and recommends checking closer to the date, since Holy Week's calendar position shifts every year and its local effects, where they exist, are set closer to the event than a general guide can responsibly predict.

Cruise ships call at Cartagena's port through the year, and when two or three dock on the same day the fort and the old town absorb thousands of day visitors between mid-morning and late afternoon, a pattern already described on the homepage. What this research did not find is an official, published monthly cruise-arrival schedule for Cartagena specifically, so this page makes no claim about which months see more ship days than others.

The practical fix does not depend on knowing the schedule anyway. Do Castillo San Felipe at its 7 a.m. opening and save museums for after 4 p.m., and treat any day the old town feels unusually dense as a cruise day whether or not you knew one was coming. The beach and neighbourhood walks described on where to stay are a reasonable substitute for the walled city on a day like that.

One more honest gap worth stating: no source in this research broke cruise arrivals down by season, so this page does not claim the dry months of January through March, generally the highest tourist season on the weather calendar, also see more ships than the wet months. It is plausible that cruise lines schedule more Caribbean calls in the region's dry season, but plausible is not the same as confirmed, and this page only prints what a source actually states.