Port Canaveral acts to ease cruise terminal parking delays

Social posts from early January showed people claiming to be 'trapped' in the garage with a long wait to exit.

In his briefing to port commissioners last week, Capt. John Murray, CEO, said this occurred following two short cruises, of two and three nights, when passengers disembarked quickly en masse because most had only carry-on luggage.

Cruise Terminal 10's parking garage, unlike others at the port, has just one way in and out. It also is a pay on exit garage.

New high-tech system in testing

Murray said the port is looking at a pay on entry system. A new high-tech system being piloted at Cruise Terminal 1 may be implemented at CT-10.

It offers multiple pay options including Apple Pay and SunPass (a Florida highway electronic payment system). Another feature is the ability to immediately switch to hand-held modules should a back-up be needed.

A Canaveral spokesperson said port management plans to seek approval at the March commission meeting to implement this new system at CT-10, as well.

This is the first phase, with plans to upgrade the parking system at all the cruise terminals.

Ground transportation flow tweaked

At last week's meeting, Murray told commissioners the port would also change the ground transportation flow to ease CT-10 egress and, true to his word, that happened over the weekend. According to the spokesperson, an additional lane was opened and 'we did not experience any issues so it was an immediate improvement.

'Customer service is very important to us,' the spokesperson said. 'We want to have the customers happy and come back to cruise at Port Canaveral.'

Colossal growth

The world's second busiest cruise port is experiencing colossal growth due to newer and larger ships. It also has a very large proportion of drive business.

As Murray told port commissioners last week, in December 2021 — with pandemic recovery still under way — Canaveral handled just under 300,000 passenger movements.

This past December, passenger moves ballooned to more than 700,000.