Baltimore Cruising Proving to be Popular in Cost and Convenience
May 16, 2005
Nearly 2,000 cruise passengers boarded Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas in Baltimore, MD on Sunday for the first of 28 cruises to the Caribbean and Bermuda during the summer 2005 cruise season. Having found steady interest in the convenient Baltimore cruise port since 2001, Royal Caribbean Cruises was the only cruise line to return a ship to the state-owned industrial waterfront in Dundalk, MD for the 2005 summer season. Cruise industry and Maryland state officials say interest in cruising from Baltimore has not changed much locally or nationally this year, although 2005 will be a time of transition as the port of Baltimore is preparing to debut a new, more passenger friendly and less cargo-filled home at another public cruise terminal in South Locust Point. A new chief executive from the U.S. cruise mecca of Miami will also be moving to Baltimore later this year to take the helm of the new port.
Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas will be embarking on a total of 28 sailings from Baltimore to the summertime cruise hot spots of Bermuda and the Caribbean, each lasting five to nine nights in length. This is down from a high of 60 sailings last year, but according to cruise industry officials is more in line with what the industry and the city of Baltimore expect from a relatively new entry in the cruise business that is not located directly on the Atlantic Ocean.
Baltimore and other cruise ports between New York and Florida, the top two East Coast states for cruising, became popular after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York made air transportation to and from these port cities more difficult for a short period if time. Baltimore specifically benefited when ships were diverted from New York to Dundalk just after the attacks, and cruise lines discovered that passengers actually liked it.
"We're considered a drive-to port," said Lisa Ellis Marr, manager of cruise market development for the Maryland Port Administration. "People like the fact that they can get into their car in New Jersey, drive here, park their car, get on a ship and go on vacation. And that's why the new homeland cruise ports have come up throughout the country, not just in Baltimore. We're close to about 36 million people and make it easy for them to drive and park adjacent to the building."
The state of Maryland, which owns the Dundalk and Locust Point docks, decided that moving forward with the large investment of a brand new larger and more posh Baltimore cruise port is not currently a cost-effective decision. Consultants have warned city officials that the cruise traffic in Baltimore is not likely to grow at a rate near to what it has in several other popular east coast port cities, however, there is plenty of room for gradual expansion. According the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), more people that ever before will cruise this year. A record 10.5 million people took a cruise of some kind in 2004, up almost 11 percent from 2003, and the group predicts about 11 million people will cruise this year, so there is certainly plenty of cruise business to go around.
Baltimore ranked in the middle of the pack among the nation's largest and busiest cruise port cities as the 14th busiest U.S. cruise port, according to a 2003 survey by the association's sister trade group, International Council of Cruise Lines, using the most recent data. The port of Baltimore had a total of 57,000 passengers, about the same number that boarded in Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego. Florida topped the survey, where the top three ports each boarded an astonishing one million cruise passengers. New York boarded close to half a million passengers.
The Caribbean remains as one of the most popular cruise destinations for U.S. passengers with about half of all cruises departing from U.S. ports sailing to the region. This year, all the Baltimore cruises will head to the Caribbean or Bermuda. Attracting new cruise lines along with new destinations has gotten more competitive with the growing number of participating U.S. and other North American ports, which now totals a whopping 30. Of these 30, most are U.S. ports, and many have been around for years, but not used much for passenger cruising prior to 2001.
The convenience of mid-Atlantic cruise port cities, including Baltimore, are growing in popularity for many of those cost-conscious travelers that don't want the extra expense of an airline ticket, yet may not want to drive the long distances to New York or Florida, or the overnight hotel stay that would probably be required. Royal Caribbean is the only one of five cruise lines that has served Baltimore to return this year. Baltimore port and other cruise line officials say that there simply just aren't enough cruise ships to go around at this point, and that ships that had previously sailed out of Baltimore had already been promised elsewhere; however, future growth and expansion of the Baltimore cruise industry appears to be quite promising.
