This paper explores stakeholder perceptions of smart marine technologies in Greece and Cyprus, two coastal nations facing mounting environmental pressures and complex governance landscapes. Drawing on qualitative thematic and sentiment analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews across six stakeholder categories, the study examines how these technologies are perceived in terms of their functional roles, adoption barriers, and enabling conditions. Findings indicate strong cross-sectoral support for environmental monitoring and early intervention capabilities, positioning smart marine systems as critical tools for adaptive coastal governance. However, challenges such as regulatory fragmentation, limited institutional capacity, and post-implementation uncertainty persist. Although sentiment analysis revealed that most participants expressed optimism, conditional support was more prevalent in government and port authority sectors, which showed slight variation between the two countries. The study contributes to the underexplored regional literature on smart marine environments by integrating stakeholder-informed insights, offering practical implications for policy design, system implementation, and cross-sector collaboration in the digital transformation of marine governance.