After waiting for 4 years for any kind of ship to cruise it, the all-but-virginal Bayport Cruise Terminal will at last get a seaborne visitor — starting next year. And it’ll be . . . a Caribbean Princess!
What was it that finally sparked the hookup — the daily grooming and maintenance? The word put out on the street that the $108.4 million taxpayer-funded facility would be willing to do whatever it takes to lure a few sailors to its waiting docks? More likely, the Galveston County Daily News‘s Laura Elder reports, it was just that the popular-with-the-cruising-set Port of Galveston was full-up, and Princess Cruises wasn’t interested in just squeezing in with all the other ships.
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Beginning next fall, Bayport will get Galveston’s leftovers: Carnival has made 27 dates with the port for the winter season. And a few tall Norwegians will get in on the action starting in 2014. An agreement with Norwegian Cruise Lines stipulates 75 calls in Bayport over 3 years, with an optional 2 year extension if the docking’s good.
- Princess Cruises moves to Houston [Galveston County Daily News]
- Houston’s Bayport Cruise terminal finally inks cruise ship deals [Houston Business Journal]
- Bayport secures two new cruise ship contracts [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: Nobody Wants To Cruise from Bayport, Pasadena Still Waiting for Its Ships To Come In
Photos: Flickr user Silent Z
And it really is the leftovers. The Caribean Princess is on of the old ships that run at lower rates.
Norwegian is not likely running any of their better ships there either.
If you are a local going on a cruise, you may want to use this port to avoid the out of town tourists flooding Galveston as a port of call.
Yeah, we all want to spend hours of our cruise time in the Houston Ship Channel.
Leftovers? More like sloppy seconds.
Lovely brown water laden with sewage, classy!
^^^^^^^^^
It just occurred to me that “Keep Houston Ugly” refers to the piss-poor attitudes of its citizenry.
If taking a cruise floats your boat, then you won’t care where you leave from as long as you are leaving.
As opposed to folks like me who see this as a vacation on a virtual prison yard.
I never thought I was a cruise person until last Spring Break. I took the Carnival Magic and I was blown away with the quality of thr food, entertainment and excursions. I leave in four months on the Princess cruise. I welcome more competition and I don’t care where it goes. I want to leave reality for a week.
“I want to leave reality for a week.”
Wish we could do more for reality than work so hard just to escape from it.