Cruise port space race

Port Canaveral’s CEO, Capt. John Murray, was nonplussed when Florida state officials sunk plans to build a seventh cruise terminal at a cargo berth.

The terminal was designed to meet growing demand from the booming cruise industry and its increasingly larger ships, but Florida’s commerce and transportation secretaries argued that repurposing North Cargo Berth 8 for the cruise sector would jeopardize the growth of the space industry. 

Commerce secretary Alex Kelly and transportation secretary Jared Perdue even threatened to pull funding from Port Canaveral’s projects if it continued with the cruise terminal. Hence, the port authority’s board of commissioners voted 4-1 in late August to abandon those plans. 

In a press conference following the vote, Murray said that with the world’s largest cruise companies on a ship-building spree, the cruise industry needed more terminal space. And, he said, Port Canaveral and Florida also need it so that those cruise ships don’t leave the state. 

“Miami is full. Everglades is full. If we’re full, they’re going somewhere else,” Murray said about cruise ships. “And we don’t want large, brand-new assets moving over to Texas, California, New York. Because once it leaves, it’s next to impossible to get it back.”

While some of those Florida ports might not say that they’re “full,” the cruise industry has at least 40 ships on order over the next dozen years, many that will be bigger than existing ships. Cruise lines will need not only berths big enough for their ships, but terminals that can handle getting thousands of people and their luggage on and off these vessels. The smaller terminals built to accommodate ships of the past just won’t cut it, Murray said. 

“It’s like trying to put everybody on a 747 aircraft at a 737 gate,” he said. 

While Port Canaveral is unique in dealing with the competing interests of space travel, it is not alone among Florida ports that are considering the cruise industry’s growth and needs. 

Officials at Florida’s Big Three cruise ports, Port Canaveral, PortMiami and Port Everglades, are working to keep up with demand by constructing new berths and terminals, renovating old ones and getting creative with cruise schedules. And while these ports may compete with each other, they share the common goal of keeping as many cruise ships as possible at home in the Sunshine State.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Florida to the cruise industry. It’s the state where modern cruising was born and from where many cruise ships sail year-round. Even ships that cruise elsewhere throughout the year often return to Florida in the winter months, attracting vacationers escaping the cold. Cruise lines have also built several private Caribbean destinations within close proximity to Florida, making them an integral part of the cruise experience and major demand and revenue generators.

Capacity constrained 

Sitting an hour east of Orlando in Central Florida, Port Canaveral has grown in recent years. Today it is the second-busiest cruise port in the world after PortMiami. 

Long a homeport for older ships sailing short cruises to the Bahamas and private destinations, Port Canaveral now attracts some of the industry’s newest and largest tonnage. With a strong drive market due to its proximity to the southeastern U.S., Canaveral recorded 7.6 million passenger movements in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a 12% bump from the year prior, the port said. Murray said he expects to reach 8.4 million passenger movements this year.

“If we had that terminal now, we could fill it,” Murray said about the stymied port project during a state of the port address in late November.

The derailment of the those plans led Murray to lean into other projects. Port Canaveral’s berths are generally big enough for the largest cruise ships, but some of its terminals have needed modifications to improve passenger and baggage flow, particularly ones built 30 years ago when the largest cruise ships carried 2,500 passengers, he said. Other terminals are now due for such upgrades. 

Back then, those older terminals couldn’t have accommodated ships like Norwegian Cruise Line’s (NCL) upcoming Norwegian Aqua, which will carry about 3,600 guests at double capacity when it begins sailing from Port Canaveral in April, or Royal Caribbean International’s 5,610-passenger Star of the Seas when it starts sailing from the port in August. If loaded with third and fourth berths, the Star could board as many as 7,500 passengers. 

The Aqua and Star will dock at larger or recently renovated terminals when they arrive in Port Canaveral. The port is also redeveloping Cruise Terminal 5 to handle larger volumes of people, and it launched a feasibility study to do the same for Cruise Terminal 10. Both would serve multiple cruise lines, enabling the port to mix and match ships instead of being committed to one cruise line as is the case at other branded terminals.

MSC Cruises is also looking to homeport in Port Canaveral. The line is opting to position its fourth and yet-unnamed World-class ship there for seven-night cruises in the winter 2027-2028 season, in addition to sailing two other ships from the port.

But Murray is not giving up on his hopes to free up a seventh berth for cruises. He is pursuing two possibilities on the south side of the port, where he originally wanted to build a big berth, terminal and parking garage. Both possibilities come with obstacles: One involves tenant requirements that need to be resolved before the space can be freed up as a cruise berth, and the other includes moving an Air Force communication line underneath the harbor. 

Those complications could mean another four or five years before a new cruise terminal opens, Murray said. But if he can get one of those terminals built by 2028, he added, the port won’t have to turn away cruise business. 

While Murray stands by his assertion that the Big Three Florida ports are “full,” Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) CEO Harry Sommer has a different perspective. 

Like Murray, Sommer was unhappy that state officials voted against Port Canaveral’s cruise berth plans, especially because NCL’s Norwegian Joy was expected to sail from that terminal when it opened in 2026. 

Sommer chided the state while onstage at the CruiseWorld conference in November, saying the new terminal would have attracted “a million” cruisers and “benefited the whole industry” instead of a handful of space tourists.

“Seems a little bit unbalanced to me,” Sommer said, sarcastically adding, “I’m not bitter.”

Still, when Sommer looks at the availability at Florida’s Big Three cruise ports, he said they are only full during peak times, such as Saturdays and Sundays in the winter. Finding space requires creativity, he said. 

“I think what you’ll see us [doing] is expanding to cruises that aren’t just seven-day cruises leaving in the winter on a Saturday or Sunday,” he said. 

NCLH is also positioning its ships at other Florida ports. NCL has one ship sailing out of Jacksonville and two from Tampa. Sister brand Oceania will also sail out of Tampa, a first for the brand, starting in March 2026.

Directors for several of Florida’s major cruise hubs agree that the ports and the cruise lines need to think outside the box to keep up with demand for berthing space during the busiest times. 

“Even now, we talk about ‘how can we get creative?’” said PortMiami director Hydi Webb. That could mean moving a seven-day cruise that traditionally leaves on a weekend to a Monday or scheduling two turnarounds at the same berth in one day, she said. 

PortMiami, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive south from Port Canaveral, has long been dubbed the “cruise capital of the world.” Its 8.2 million passengers made it the world’s busiest cruise port last fiscal year. 

And it’s still growing. 

The port will launch two more berths in April with the opening of MSC Cruises’ terminal, and a third berth is expected in 2028. That will bring the port’s berth count to 12, each one capable of handling the industry’s largest ships. But that will probably be the end of berth development for a while, Webb said.

Asked if she is concerned whether the number of ships will one day eclipse the space PortMiami has available, Webb said no, adding that the port’s close partnerships with the cruise lines enables it to “know what their plans for the future are. And we’ve built out for that future.”

But she reiterated that innovation is key. “We do encourage creative itineraries when you get to a max point, whether it’s two turnarounds in a day or nontraditional cruise patterns,” she said.

Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades, sitting between the No. 1 and No. 2 ports along the Atlantic coast, plans to renovate two of its eight cruise terminals to help passenger traffic flow better, said Joseph Morris, the port’s director. 

Port Everglades maintains its flexibility by keeping several berths unbranded like Port Canaveral does, leaving open the possibility for any ship to use those terminals. Morris said the port, which serves largely premium and luxury brands, usually has space for some spot availability.

Are new berths part of Port Everglades’ plans? Eventually, Morris said. The port considered building a finger pier that would have made way for a 12% increase in traffic, he said, but it’s unclear whether that project will make sense in the future as ships continue to get bigger. Instead, the port has put a higher priority on making terminal renovations to accommodate more passengers sooner.

Like the other port directors, he’s breaking from convention. 

“Agility and flexibility is something that we see as facilitating creativity,” he said. “But also we try to work that creativity into those renovation plans for the longer term.” 

As far as how travelers will feel about the changes the ports make, people in general are more comfortable with traveling at off-peak and less crowded times. Anthony Hamawy, president of Cruise.com, said that moving cruises to start midweek is acceptable to many cruisers and caters to an audience with more flexibility. 

As he sees it, summers and holidays are “family time” during which cruisers have less flexibility. The other parts of the year, or “retiree” time, are for people who have more leeway with their schedule. 

“A midweek cruise is less intrusive to people like that, versus a family that might say, ‘Oh my God, we can’t miss work,’ or ‘We can’t miss school for the kids,’” he said.

Lone Star competition

Port Canaveral’s Murray was onto something when he expressed concern about ships going to Texas. Although companies like NCLH are moving some tonnage to Tampa and Jacksonville, each of those locations requires passing under a bridge to access the port, which inhibits the largest cruise ships from sailing there. 

That’s not the case in Texas, said Rodger Rees, the Galveston Wharves port director.

“We’re one of those places where we can take whatever they throw at us,” he said. “Whatever size ship that the cruise lines have, we can accommodate that.” 

Rees, who was CFO of Port Canaveral for five years until 2018, is actively trying to attract more ships to the Lone Star State, citing capacity constraints in Florida. 

While Galveston is farther from key cruise company assets like private islands in the Bahamas, Royal Caribbean International is building out private destinations along the nearby Mexican coast, and Carnival Corp. has hinted that it will spruce up some of its destinations, several of which are in the Western Caribbean. 

Galveston is already the fourth-busiest cruise port in the U.S., but it has room for more ships, Rees said. The port is building its fourth cruise terminal, which will open at the end of this year for MSC. It also signed a long-term contract with NCL for the brand to operate there seasonally and homeport year-round after three years. 

Royal Caribbean International opened its own new terminal in Galveston in 2022, and Rees said he expects Texas will eventually welcome an Icon-class ship, something Royal Caribbean International CEO Michael Bayley has hinted at. Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Line sails four ships from Texas, including its newest, the Carnival Jubilee. 

Carnival is planning to build a new class of ship that is even larger than its last, and Galveston is ready for it, Rees said. 

Rees is so confident he can attract more ships that he suspects Galveston will overtake Port Everglades as the third-busiest cruise port in the U.S. by 2026. 

He has a way to go on his Texas-size ambition. In the past fiscal year, Galveston recorded 1.5 million passengers, compared to 4 million at Port Everglades.

“If you look at the order books for new ships, they’re coming out right and left,” Rees said. “They’re all big. This favors Texas.”