Alternative place for megaships to dock Florida Gulf Coast?

[ew101]

This is probably a Chengkp75 question, but is there a place megaships can dock on the Gulf Coast of Florida, south of Jacksonville?  It seems like Port Miami closed pretty early in anticipation of the storm. I think some of the misery of cruise schedules this week could have been avoided if the ships could at least dock and use a fleet of buses to get passengers back to Miami, FLL etc.  I think the actual cruise terminal in Tampa is pretty small for the largest vessels and so is Key West.  

 

 

Edited September 3, 2019 by ew101

[chengkp75]

In a word, no.  Regardless of terminal size, Tampa is out because of the Sunshine Bridge limiting height.  Key West is out, I believe, for larger ships unless you plan to disembark thousands by tender, and then you only have the Overseas Highway to get the folks out of Key West.  I think Jax is out for the largest ships due to a knarly bend in the river that I remember from calling there in the past.  Basically, the major ports on the East Coast of Florida are Miami, Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades, and Port Canaveral (size limited as well, I believe).

[newmexicoNita]

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

In a word, no.  Regardless of terminal size, Tampa is out because of the Sunshine Bridge limiting height.  Key West is out, I believe, for larger ships unless you plan to disembark thousands by tender, and then you only have the Overseas Highway to get the folks out of Key West.  I think Jax is out for the largest ships due to a knarly bend in the river that I remember from calling there in the past.  Basically, the major ports on the East Coast of Florida are Miami, Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades, and Port Canaveral (size limited as well, I believe).

You are right and this has added insult to injury but I am not sure about the limit on size in The Cape: we sailed out of there on the Epic. 

[DirtyDawg]

There's a nice pier in Naples, Florida but I don't think it's would be big enough for the SS Minnow! 

 

Maybe they could tender the mega ships there. Nice shopping on 5th avenue for the folks waiting for the buses.  

[shof515]

11 minutes ago, newmexicoNita said:

You are right and this has added insult to injury but I am not sure about the limit on size in The Cape: we sailed out of there on the Epic. 

I think they are only 1 to 2 docks that can handle a massive ship right now. One of the docks is the one Royal uses for their ships. They are building a newer bigger and deeper cruise terminal for a big carnival ship. Looks like cape is improving the infrastructure for big ships

[Georgia_Peaches]

2 hours ago, ew101 said:

This is probably a Chengkp75 question,

What does that mean?

[Son of a son of a ...]

4 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

What does that mean?

 

The Chief is like the Ghostbusters of CC ... "Who you gonna call?  Call Chengkp75!"  😀

[BirdTravels]

The Breakaway has been calling at Port Canaveral since it's inaugural  season. This year, we were on the Escape from NY when she called at the NCL terminal there. (The NY-based ships actually do their weekly provisioning at Port Canaveral using NCL's central provisioning for all of Florida vs. trying to provision at Manhattan). We also sailed on the Harmony of the Sea on it's inaugural cruise out of her new home port of Port Canaveral earlier this year. 

Edited September 3, 2019 by BirdTravels