The Cruise Hive Cruise Ship Awards are an annual occasion recognizing the very best within the business, as voted on by Cruise Hive readers. One of the vital intently contested classes is Greatest Homeport, which acknowledges the highest ports that function the place to begin for cruise holidays.
This yr, Port Canaveral got here out on high, incomes 24% of the votes and taking the first-place spot. It’s the third yr in a row that Port Canaveral has taken the highest spot, adopted intently by Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Port Canaveral is the Greatest Homeport in the US
Situated on the east coast of Florida, Port Canaveral is the second busiest cruise port on the earth and is house to most of the business’s high cruise strains, together with Carnival Cruise Line, Disney Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, MSC Cruises, and Royal Caribbean Worldwide.
Port Canaveral gives easy accessibility to greater than 50 locations, together with the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Jap and Western Mexico.
The easy accessibility, brief switch from the airport, parking availability, and easy accessibility to Orlando’s many theme parks imply that a few of the hundreds of thousands of visitors crusing from Port Canaveral every year have dubbed it the very best Cruise Homeport within the Cruise Hive Ship Awards 2022.
Voting began in September 2022 on the Cruise Hive web site. Readers have been capable of forged a single vote in every of the seven classes. The ultimate outcomes don’t embody any repeat votes or suspicious exercise.
Coming in second place with 22% of the votes was PortMiami, often known as the “Cruise Capital of the World.” Situated on the southeastern tip of Florida, PortMiami is the busiest cruise port on the earth.
In third place with 11% of the votes was Port Everglades, positioned in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s the third busiest cruise port on the earth and is house to varied cruise strains, together with Carnival, Superstar, and Royal Caribbean.
In fourth place, we discover the primary non-Florida port, the Port of Galveston, Texas, with 8% of the votes. Situated on the Gulf of Mexico, the port is changing into more and more in style, with extra cruise strains stationing greater and newer vessels within the final yr. These embody Attract of the Seas, Norwegian Prima, and from subsequent yr, Carnival Jubilee.
It’s no shock that these 4 ports took the highest spots within the Greatest Homeport class, as they’re all main gamers within the cruise business and supply a variety of locations for vacationers to select from. Collectively they serve greater than 15 million cruise passengers every year.
Port Canaveral’s Distinctive Development
Port Canaveral is perhaps the second greatest cruise homeport worldwide at this time, nevertheless it wasn’t at all times like that. The port started operations in 1953 as a cargo and naval port. The primary cruise terminal opened in 1982.
Carnival Cruise Line grew to become the primary cruise line to make use of Port Canaveral as a homeport in 1990 completely. Disney Cruise Line adopted in 1998, and Royal Caribbean in 2000.
Right now, Port Canaveral is house to seven cruise terminals and was the primary port in the US to welcome and refuel the environmentally friendlier LNG-powered Excel-Class cruise ship Mardi Gras in 2021. The $163 million terminal, berth, and 1,800-vehicle parking storage was the most important capital challenge within the Port’s historical past.
Learn Additionally: Port Canaveral Cruise Parking – What You Have to Know
Port Canaveral had 792 cruise ship calls and 4.1 million passengers throughout the 2021-22 monetary yr, the primary full yr of operations for the reason that international pause in operations. For the 2022-2023 monetary yr, that quantity is anticipated to extend to 904 cruise ship calls and 5.8 million passengers.
