Marc Van Niekerk Posted July 19, 2018 Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Does anyone know if RCL plans to stop using the existing terminal when they open the new one? I am a racing fan and have been following a conversation about F1 coming to the streets of Miami and the proposed track layout comes from the Bisacayne Blvd / Bayside Marketplace area across the bridge to Seafarers Park which would likely cut off the existing terminal for at least a weekend not to mention track construction. See this link for some details. Miami Herald Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted July 19, 2018 Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Other terminals or those close by are used by many different cruise lines. Royal operates many ships from Miami and some days there is more than one ship in port. Plus sometimes ships based elsewhere call on Miami as a mid-cruise port of call, stopping for the day. All of this exceeds what the new terminal will handle, especially on weekends. While the idea sounds interesting I can't imagine it not having a significant impact on port operations. Weekends are when the port is busiest for cruise ships. Traffic for tens of thousands of cruise ship guests would be a nightmare likely causing arrival and departure delays. I was in Toronto and worked on the TV crew for it's first Grand Prix event. The road changes and closures then had a significant impact and that wasn't on an island and used fewer public streets. Cool idea but I would expect strong opposition to this on weekends at the busiest cruise port in the US. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted July 20, 2018 Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 You can explore POM on the PTZ webcam this weekend. It will display all the ships from various lines that use it on a typical weekend. You also see some of the road and bridges that the tentative course would use. http://www.portmiamiwebcam.com/ Mariner is in port today. At the bottom the map from marinetraffic.com identifies the ships at each terminal. Pretty light day today being a Friday, only 3 ships in port. Check it when there are five or more ships there. Imagine the havoc that closing port roads and grooming traffic onto side streets not meant to handle the volume would have. It's not like cruise ships who embarked their prior to the race could disembark somewhere else and bus people back and forth to POM, then deal with that for newly departing cruises race weekend. When they close roads in Toronto for Grand Prix it's the weekend and city traffic is lower because its the weekend. In the case of POM, the weekend is peak time. Closing roads then would be chaos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Van Niekerk Posted July 20, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 You echo my thoughts. This seems like a really bad idea. I am quite familiar with the IndyCar race in Toronto as I am a corner worker there and I just cannot see how this could work. Track construction generally begins almost 2 months before the event and the tear down takes weeks. That alone would be a huge impact on traffic not even considering totally closing it for a weekend which I would Imagine is the busiest of times for the port from a tourist perspective. The reason I asked about the RCL terminal is the proposed layout seems to use the roads directly in front of that part of the port. I would imagine that the tunnel could be used to access the ships further up the port but I think the existing RCL building would be completely inaccessible. twangster 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted July 20, 2018 Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 Right. Plus the new terminal will handle one ship at a time, like terminal 18 in Port Everglades which was built for Oasis. While Symphony might be reachable for guests, others ships not so much. Allure, Empress, Explorer, Jewel, Mariner, Navigator, Oasis and Vision all home port in Miami at times in 2019. Not all will use the new terminal (mostly OA class only). I imagine 2020 will see something similar, just different ships. This is also Carnival's busiest port and MSC Seaside uses it too, on weekends. Symphony and Seaside combined are over 10k guests. Fuel trucks supply ships with alternate fuels beyond bunker for the main engines and some others like the ones carrying cooking oil might not be able to use the tunnel due to Hazmat laws. If they can't use the bridge, what happens to them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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