Red Hook, Line, and Sinker: The New Home for Cruise Lines
October 31, 2005
New York City's sea-washed, sunset gates will be opening their arms to more people once the pier at Red Hook in Brooklyn begins operations next spring. But besides welcoming cruise lines and cruise passengers that travel across "the pond," the Red Hook terminal will give northeasterners a new place from which to sail off into the sea, relieve congestion at the family of area terminals, and, according to many city and port officials, create approximately 600 new jobs.
Even though the new Pier 12 cruise terminal at Red Hook is still under construction, it didn't stop P&O Cruise Lines' 1800-passenger Oriana from docking there en route from the UK to Boston and Canada last month. Oriana was welcomed by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz and other officials.
In fact, the docking was rather spontaneous, but indicative overcrowding of cruise lines that the creation of the Red Hook pier will attempt to overcome. "Today [Sept 24], we had a parking problem in Manhattan," explained Bloomberg to a crowd of city officials and other insiders. Six ships—one too many for the Manhattan cruise docks—arrived on that day, so port officials re-routed the Oriana to the yet-to-be-completed Red Hook pier, which will eventually be able to receive and hold two cruise ships at a time.
The Oriana is just the first of a number of cruise ships and cruise lines that will be arriving at the new Red Hook terminal; starting next spring, Cunard Cruise Lines' Queen Mary 2 will dock at the new terminal for her 20+ transatlantic crossings, while the Queen Elizabeth 2 will also use the pier during some calls to New York. Princess Cruise Lines' Crown Princess also will call Brooklyn home next summer on 9-night Caribbean cruises, with calls including Grand Turk, Jamaica and Grand Cayman.
Red Hook will be vying for the attention of some major cruise lines with the New York City Passenger Ship Terminal in midtown Manhattan, which is only blocks from Times Square, and the Cape Liberty cruise port in Bayonne, NJ, a port from which Royal Caribbean and Celebrity vessels currently set sail.
"Pier 12 on Buttermilk Channel will soon be the official first stop in North America for visitors from all over the world, like those docking here today," said Markowitz on September 24th. "The cruise industry will be great for Brooklyn, creating hundreds of new jobs and allowing Brooklynites to throw their luggage on a boat and before they know it arrive in the Caribbean or England."
And when it comes to Cape Bayonne, NJ's current cruise line resident, Markowitz stated, "My hope is in two years to get Royal Caribbean to come over to Brooklyn."
Beginning in April, the Red Hook terminal will be the official New York destination of Cunard's Queen Mary 2, as well as to Princess's new Crown Princess, which debuts in June 2006. But while the cruise terminal is still under construction, that doesn't mean you can't book your cruise from Red Hook right now. Call 1-888-267-1232 to speak to one of the Cruise Specialists with Cruise Network, or visit www.cruisenetwork.com.
