Cruise Ships Docking in Florida Are Not for Passengers

Whoops, hold on a minute there.

All those cruise ships you see pulling into ports down in Florida? Um, yeah, they’re not there for us.

Not yet, anyway.

Someone had to burst our bubble of hope and in a great article by Ron Hurtibise of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, it was noted that the ships are docking to retrieve some supplies, not passengers.

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Several ships, including, notably, the Carnival Sunrise, Carnival Vista and MSC Meraviglia, have docked at the Port of Miami and Port Everglades. They have been seen rotating in and out of slips.

But cruise lines are still under strict suspension in the U.S. as they await approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin ‘test cruises’ to see how they will handle new health and safety protocols to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

As the Sun-Sentinel noted, however, cruise lines must keep their respective ships operating at peak efficiency – which means keeping some crew onboard to run the operations, which in turn means needing food and supplies for even the minimum number of crew members.

Hence docking into slips that are normally used for boarding passengers – which got our hopes up.

Port Everglades spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy told the newspaper that ships that would be otherwise stationed on the Intracoastal Waterway have to dock inside the port’s turning basin to make room for cargo ships that need a wide berth.

“Also, sometimes we will put a cargo ship at a cruise berth if it is not in use. Port Everglades is considered a diverse seaport because we handle cruise, cargo, energy, cement, car carriers and yacht carriers among other types of vessels. So our docks can accommodate a variety of ships,” Kennedy said.