Aiming at the problem of inaccurate positioning caused by nonlinear models and multi-source disturbance of dynamic positioning (DP) vessel models, a robust adaptive anti-disturbance control method based on a passive elegant extended state observer (PEESO) is proposed, which takes into account the characteristics of different disturbances and their responses in the nonlinear model. Firstly, the DP vessel model and multi-source disturbance model are established, and a PEESO is designed to estimate the vessel states and multi-source disturbance in real time according to the system model. Then, based on the model and estimated values of vessel state and disturbance, the dynamic surface control technique is introduced and the robust adaptive term is designed in the control law to compensate the estimation error. Finally, it is proven that all error signals of the DP closed-loop cascade system are consistent and ultimately bounded. The simulation results show that the proposed method is superior to the traditional ESO in disturbance estimation and state estimation, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed control method.