Cruise Terminal For Sale: No Ships But Great Fishing

For cities and towns that want to be a home port for cruise ships, it would make sense to be set up to handle them first. Ensuring that today’s giant ships can dock, that there will be shore-side services available and figuring out the logistics of it all are checklist items one might consider mandatory. But there’s a big difference between being “ready” and having a $100 million cruise terminal sitting empty with no ships scheduled to call.

That seems to be right where Houston Texas is today; all dressed up and with no place to go as the would-be cruise port can’t find cruise lines that want to sail from their bright, shiny terminal.

“I’m convinced that no cruise line is going to come. They may as well forget about using it as a cruise terminal,” Texas Judge Ed Emmett told ABCNews.

Worse yet, the losses keep growing. In the last year, the port has spent another $4.7 million just maintaining the cruise terminal. The ABCNews report notes that some of the money was spent to improve the gangways for cruise passengers that may never use them.

Perhaps Houston was a bit too ambitious?

Maybe, maybe not. Business is great at the close-by Port of Galveston; in 2010 it reported its highest gross operating revenue since 1941. Making $7.3 million off revenue of $23.5 million is a pretty fair return.

So why are there no ships sailing from Houston?

Among other reasons, it takes ships much longer to reach international waters from Houston. Ships sailing from Galveston are out of U.S. waters in minutes. Sailing from Houston takes 2 hours longer to get out of U.S. waters – where cruise ship shops and casinos can open.




Flickr photo by notsogoodphotography

Boston cruise terminal sets record, Philly pulls out

Boasting a 7% increase in passengers over 2009, Boston’s cruise terminal is going full speed ahead on bookings. At the same time, with only two ships scheduled to visit in 2011, Philadelphia’s cruise port , once an important part of the city’s push for more tourists, could soon be transformed into an Urban Outfitters retail store.

USA Today’s Cruise Log reports that “It looks like Philadelphia is getting out of the cruise business, even as sailings out of nearby cities such as Baltimore and New York take off.”

Philadelphia, peaking at 36 departures in 2006, has seen a gradual decline in sailings as passengers opted for itineraries sailing from New York, prompting cruise lines to move ships to other ports. This week’s decision to end a 20-year lease eight years early hopes to save the city a reported 18 million in port improvement costs.

Boston, buoyed by an increased interest in New England and Coastal/Canadian voyages among others, has seen more cruise passengers sailing. A recent announcement for an $11 million makeover of the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, a facility dating back to World War I, is intended to fuel further expansion in Boston’s growing cruise industry.

Flickr photo: Smudge 9000