![]() “Canaveral has built its market share on Disney World,” he says.īeyond Terminal 25, Port Everglades has helped to upgrade the experience of passengers at other facilities, too. Meanwhile, Disney Cruise Line has propelled passenger growth at Port Canaveral due to the port’s proximity to Disney World. They appear to be ahead of the game,” says Steve Cernak, chief executive and port director at Port Everglades. At the same time, annual passenger traffic increased from 2014 to 2018 by 9.6 percent to 4.5 million at Port Canaveral and by 13.2 percent to 5.5 million at PortMiami. ![]() It peaked at 4 million in 2014 and stayed below that record level in each of the last four years. But in recent years, Port Everglades’ passenger traffic has flattened. It remains the third-busiest cruise port on the planet, behind number one PortMiami and second-ranked Port Canaveral, about 45 miles east of Orlando International Airport. ![]() But it’s really the first time at Port Everglades that a brand has gotten involved to the level which Celebrity got involved.”Ī boost to the cruise side of Port Everglades’ operations is overdue. “Obviously, Port Everglades invested in it. “It’s the first really brand-designed terminal,” says Gies, who oversaw the development of Terminal 25 in her prior position as port captain of Celebrity. People really feel they’re starting their experience on the Edge as they’re coming into the terminal,” says Meaghan Gies, port captain for Royal Caribbean International, part of a family of cruise lines that includes Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises, which also operate at Port Everglades. “The feedback we’re getting on the terminal is absolutely in sync with the ship. The T25 project may be a major step toward pushing the port past its 2014 record for passenger traffic. But it probably won’t be the port’s last high-priced project to serve as a landside haven for cruise passengers. The new ship and passenger terminal promise welcome growth in Celebrity’s passenger traffic at Port Everglades, which is expected to rise to about 500,000 a year, well above the cruise line’s historic annual average of about 335,000.ĭeveloped at a cost of about $120 million, Terminal 25 is the most expensive cruise-terminal investment in the history of Port Everglades. The signature feature of the Edge is a big elevator-style space called the “Magic Carpet” that goes up and down the ship’s starboard side, from deck to deck. Opened in November, Terminal 25 (or T25) is owned by Port Everglades but largely designed by Celebrity Cruises as the operating base for Celebrity Edge, a new cruise ship with room for 2,918 passengers. Even the biggest artwork is high tech: On the back wall of the check-in area, a 300-foot interactive art installation depicts a metallic map of the world’s 24 time zones, with a lighted area that smartphone users can move east or west, from zone to zone. ![]() Facial recognition software speeds the check-in process for many passengers, and for others, mobile agents with computer tablets complement the agents stationed at check-in counters. Faced with increasing competition from PortMiami to the south and Port Canaveral to the north, Port Everglades is ambitiously updating its facilities for both people and goods.Ī new technology-packed terminal at Port Everglades is designed to give cruise passengers a leisurely sense that their vacation starts before they board the ship.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |