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 Travel & Outdoors | July 2006 
There's no Place like Home (Port)
 Luisa Frey Gaynor - USA Today
| | Ports across the USA have responded to the increase in the number of ships and passengers by renovating or building new piers and passenger terminals to accommodate growth. |
Love to cruise but hate to fly? Or perhaps you're daunted by how much it costs to take your entire family to Florida just to catch a ship? If so, the tide has changed drastically. There are more domestic homeports — cities from which cruise ships offer regular departures — than ever before.
South Florida was once the prime region for embarking on a cruise to the Caribbean, Bahamas or Eastern Mexico, while Vancouver was the main port for Alaska departures. After 9/11, cruise lines sought to lure those wary of flying by bringing the ships closer to passengers with ports all along the East, Gulf and West coasts.
Cruise lines now offer innovative itineraries ranging from four to 11 days long, on average, from domestic homeports. Since modern cruise ships can sail at much greater speeds than prior generations of vessels, they can make up for the increased distance that passengers must travel from New York to the Caribbean vs. Miami to the Caribbean, for example.
Ports across the USA have responded to this increase in the number of ships and passengers by renovating or building new piers and passenger terminals to accommodate growth.
Cruise line options
When Norwegian Cruise Line boldly announced that it was going to offer year-round cruises from New York City to the Caribbean starting in May 2003, industry onlookers were skeptical. Three years later, however, there is a whole pack of ships from several lines heading for the Caribbean from piers in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Following are some of the newer and popular cruise itineraries from domestic homeports such as New York/New Jersey; Galveston, Texas; Norfolk, Va.; and Seattle, as well as a rundown of ports that have substantially upgraded their facilities.
Carnival Cruise Lines: Carnival is the leader in the number of domestic homeports. In 1993 the line sailed from a mere four ports, while it now offers cruises from 18 homeports nationwide. New York is a popular seasonal hub, with the Carnival Legend making eight-day Caribbean voyages seasonally from Manhattan, and the Carnival Victory offering seasonal sailings to New England and Canada on four, five and seven-day voyages. Galveston is frequented year-round by Carnival, with Western Caribbean cruises offered on both the Carnival Conquest (seven-day itinerary) and Ecstasy (four and five-days). www.carnival.com
Holland America Line: This year, HAL ships depart from 11 homeports in North America including Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Norfolk, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa and Vancouver, British Columbia. Two of the more popular non-Florida homeports are New York and Seattle. This spring, the line returned to New York City with the Noordam, a new ship offering 10- and 11-day Eastern and Southern Caribbean cruises in the spring and fall. Additionally, the line added a third Alaska-bound ship homeporting in Seattle, from which it offers the most sailings of any line. www.hollandamerica.com
Norwegian Cruise Line: Norwegian Cruise Line has also embraced domestic homeporting, servicing 12 departure points this year. New York continues to be popular for NCL, with year-round sailings from the Big Apple on the Norwegian Dawn and Norwegian Spirit. The Dawn sails to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda and New England/Canada. The Spirit sails six, eight, 10- and 11-day cruises to Florida, the Bahamas, the southern Caribbean and New England/Canada. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Seattle is seasonal homeport for the Norwegian Star and Norwegian Sun. Plus Honolulu is home to three NCL America ships, which all sail the Hawaiian Islands year round. www.ncl.com
Princess Cruises: There are 11 North American homeports from which Princess Cruises' vessels sail seasonally or year round. These include: Fort Lauderdale, Galveston, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and Whittier, Alaska. Princess has been sailing from Galveston since 2004 with seasonal Western Caribbean itineraries, while the Sun and Dawn Princess are positioned in Seattle for summer Alaska cruises. A new terminal in Brooklyn is the latest port for the line with the recent debut of Crown Princess, offering nine-day Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries. www.princess.com
Royal Caribbean International: In 2004, Royal Caribbean International began seasonal cruises from Cape Liberty, which is a new port in Bayonne, NJ. The line renovated a terminal and berth there to better accommodate RCI's mega ships than the smaller piers across the river in Manhattan. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises are the only lines using Cape Liberty, with ships headed for Bermuda, the Caribbean and/or New England and Canada. Other newer, popular domestic ports for RCI include Seattle and Galveston, the latter of which hosts three Royal Caribbean ships with Western Caribbean and Mexican itineraries. www.royalcaribbean.com
More ports offer options
Detailed below are some of the new facilities at rapidly growing ports that may happen to be in driving distance from your home:
Galveston: Galveston has seen one of the largest increases in passengers, from 32,000 in 2001 to 600,000 anticipated in 2006. This represents a huge 1,777% increase in only five years. Over the past few years, with the increase in mega ship traffic, Galveston has created new bus and taxi staging areas to improve traffic flow. Some of the largest ships homeporting in Galveston include Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, Carnival Cruises' Carnival Conquest and Princess Cruises' Grand Princess. All these ships sail four to seven-day cruises to the Western Caribbean. The passenger terminals are near Galveston's Strand Historic Landmark District filled with 19th century iron front buildings.
New York / Brooklyn / New Jersey: With the surge in popularity of year-round cruising from Manhattan, New York City's west side terminal no longer can accommodate all the ships and passengers. So the city opened a new $56 million cruise facility in Brooklyn. Carnival Corporation entered into an agreement with the city of New York and made Brooklyn its New York berth of choice for its Princess Cruises and Cunard Lines. In the meantime, the Manhattan cruise terminal is undergoing changes to better accommodate large ships: Five berths will be made into three so that mega ships can dock more easily; terminals are being reconfigured so that passengers do not disembark and embark on the same level; and a pedestrian bridge will be built across the West Side Highway to provide better access to taxis and Manhattan's attractions. Plus tri-state-area passengers can sail from Bayonne, N.J., where Royal Caribbean built its own port facility in 2004.
Norfolk: In the past few years, Norfolk has really arrived on the cruise scene with 775% growth in passengers from 2001 to 2006. To accommodate the surge, the port is in the midst of building a $36 million state-of-the-art cruise terminal to be completed by spring 2007. This is the first terminal built entirely from the ground up since 9/11 and is being labeled by port officials as the "most security-focused customs and border protection area of any cruise terminal nationwide." The terminal is in within walking distance of downtown shops, restaurants and hotels. Due to Norfolk's central location on the Eastern seaboard, homeporting ships can sail to Bermuda (Celebrity Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises), the Bahamas (Carnival), and the Caribbean (Holland America Line).
Seattle: Prior to the 2000, Vancouver had the lion's share of ships for Alaska cruises, while Seattle only had six ships annually on average. However, with the recent shortage of berth space in Vancouver, many Alaska itineraries now start in Seattle and include a call at Victoria or Prince Rupert, B.C. This summer, Seattle will entertain about 200 ships headed for Alaska, a 335% increase from 2001. To accommodate this rapid growth, the port built new cruise terminals in 2000 and 2003. Cruise lines homeporting in Seattle include Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean International.
Luisa Frey Gaynor is the family cruise editor for CruiseMates.com, a contributing editor at Cruise Reports newsletter/website, and writes for other travel publications. Unlike USA TODAY staff writers, Luisa, who wrote this piece on a freelance basis, does sail on complimentary cruises. However, she is dedicated to offering unbiased opinions of cruise lines and their youth programs. She can be reached at travel@usatoday.com. |
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