Cruise and Ferry Review - Summer/Spring 2020

2 5 7 Godmother and model Christie Brinkley triggered a 15-litre bottle of champagne to smash against Seven Seas Splendor’s hull at her christening Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Many vessels will continue to be based at the port in 2020, including Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Horizon, Celebrity Cruises’ recently renovated Celebrity Silhouette, Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Sky, Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Magic and Royal Caribbean International’s Symphony of the Seas. New ships will also start homeporting in Miami for the first time in 2020. Regent Seven Seas Cruises christened its newly constructed Seven Seas Splendor at PortMiami on 21 February. She will homeport in Miami for the autumn/winter cruise season, sailing to the Caribbean and Mexican Riviera, including two crossings of the Panama Canal. Virgin Voyages’ first-ever ship Scarlet Lady also called at the port on 15 March following her delivery from Fincantieri’s shipyard in Genoa, Italy. From April, she will provide cruises to the Caribbean islands, and will be joined by her sister ship Valiant Lady upon her delivery for the autumn/winter 2020-2021 cruise season. Virgin Voyages’ commitment to the port extends beyond its homeporting vessels, to the creation of a 100,000-square- foot cruise terminal, Terminal V. The partnership between Miami-Dade County, which owns the port, and cruise lines such as Virgin Voyages is already impacting the local economy, and this is expected to increase when construction starts later this year. Other operators such as Carnival Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean are following suit to upgrade the port’s facilities for cruise guests. The new and expanded partnerships are projected to generate an estimated economic impact of around US$7.8 billion in South Florida, creating approximately 27,500 new direct, induced and indirect jobs annually. With all this in mind, Miami is maintaining its position as ‘cruise capital of the world’. In 2019, the port broke its own records, welcoming 6,824,000 cruise passengers, and it expects to improve on this again in 2020 with 6.9 million. CFR “In 2019, the port broke its own records, welcoming 6,824,000 cruise passengers”