Big Updates on the Current State of Cruising from a Popular Florida Port

As the situation with COVID-19 changes, various business and industries continue to be impacted but some have also started to see improvements.

Though the cruise industry was shut down for quite some time, cruising has now resumed from many places and many companies — including Disney Cruise Line. Now, we’ve got an update on just how one cruise port Disney sails out of in Florida is doing.

According to The Orlando Sentinel, more cruises continue to sail out of Port Canaveral. With activity increasing, the CEO of the port is actually getting a raise, bringing his salary to more than $500,000.

The cruise industry was one of the many businesses shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Port Canaveral specifically had its first revenue sailing in OVER a year back in July with Carnival’s Mardi Gras. Since that time, Port Canaveral has welcomed more ships with passengers, including cruises from Disney Cruise Line.

The 2022 Fiscal Year for the port started on October 1st and the CEO of Port Canaveral, Capt. John Murray, discussed the status of various things in a meeting with port commissioners. According to Murray, they are “trending in the correct direction.” Murray shared that in October the port saw $5.4 million from cruise revenue (including parking). 

The port CFO, Michael Poole, has indicated that November numbers continue that upward trend.

Just how many passengers has Port Canaveral seen over the past few months? According to the Orlando Sentinel, this is what it looked like:

• 94,000 passengers in August
• 139,000 passengers in September
• 206,000 passengers in October
• 251,000 passengers in November

The port budget has projected that ships will be at around 50% capacity through December. They then project that ships will increase to 75% for the remainder of the 2022 fiscal year.

During the 2021 fiscal year, there were only 2 full months of cruise operations at Port Canaveral. Because of this, the total revenue for the port was “the lowest in nearly two decades.”

For the 2022 fiscal year, the projection is that the port will “best” the record they set in 2019. In 2019, they averaged about 55 ship calls a month. It seems the numbers are getting close to those levels, as there were 49 home port calls in October and 5 calls from visiting ships. In terms of Disney ships, there were 13 port calls in October from Disney at Port Canaveral.

Including November’s numbers, the port’s numbers appear to be $2 above budget, and traffic looks like it will be ramping up.

CEO Murray said “Looking forward into the holiday season – Christmas, New Years, all of our booking numbers are looking very, very strong, so we’re expecting a very active cruise season this year.” In fact, December 26th, 2021, will be the busiest port day since the COVID-19 shutdown and restart as there will be 6 cruise ships in port at the same time.

The port also continues to collect money from cargo.

As part of the recent budget decisions, the commission voted to increase Murray’s salary to $510,000 per year. The last time he received a salary increase was February of 2019.

Disney Cruise Line has announced various cruises for the upcoming years, and has even shared details about an agreement to have a new year-round port at Port Everglades. We’re on the lookout for more cruise news, and we’ll be sure to share that all with you.

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