The Cape Liberty Cruise Port is one of three trans-

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

passenger terminals in the

Port of New York and New Jersey The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable water ...

. It is located in

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

at the north side of the long pier of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, a former military ocean terminal, and began operations in 2004.

History

The Cape Liberty Cruise Port is located on a site that had been originally developed for industrial uses in the 1930s and then taken over by the U.S. government during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as the

Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne (MOTBY) was a U.S. military ocean terminal located in the Port of New York and New Jersey which operated from 1967 to 1999. From 1942 to 1967 the site was the Bayonne Naval Drydock. The site is on Upper New Yor ...

. After conversion of a portion of the site for use as a passenger terminal with full customs and immigration facilities, in May 2004, the ''

Voyager of the Seas Voyager may refer to: Computing and communications * LG Voyager, a mobile phone model manufactured by LG Electronics * NCR Voyager, a computer platform produced by NCR Corporation * Voyager (computer worm), a computer worm affecting Oracle d ...

'' became the first ship to depart from the site, the first time in almost four decades that a passenger ship had departed from a port in the state. The ''Voyager of the Seas'' was one of two ships to have her base of operations shifted to Bayonne from the

Manhattan Cruise Terminal The Manhattan Cruise Terminal, formerly known as the New York Passenger Ship Terminal or Port Authority Passenger Ship Terminal is a ship terminal for ocean-going passenger ships in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. History The New ...

on the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

waterfront of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's West Side.

Operators

Royal Caribbean is one of the port's primary tenants. In May 2006 the – then the world's largest cruise ship – was christened in a broadcast carried live on the NBC's ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

''. Celebrity Cruises bases the ''

Celebrity Summit GTS ''Celebrity Summit'' is a owned and operated by Celebrity Cruises and as such one of the first cruise ships to be powered by more environmentally friendly gas turbines. Originally named ''Summit'', she was renamed with the "Celebrity" prefi ...

'' out of Cape Liberty from May to October. Before the cruise terminal opened in 2004, no cruise ships had been based out of the New Jersey

Hudson Waterfront The Hudson Waterfront is an urban area of northeastern New Jersey along the lower reaches of the Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay and the Kill van Kull. Though the term can specifically mean the shoreline, it is often used to mean the contigu ...

since the

Hamburg-America Line The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), known in English as the Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. Among those involved in its development were prominent citi ...

left its

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...

dock several decades previously. The '' Oasis of the Seas'' was originally supposed to begin to sail out of Cape Liberty in May 2020, but due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, it ended up beginning to sail out in September 2021 for the 2022–24 seasons.

Ferry service

The city of Bayonne has rented land from PANYNJ and is negotiating with SeaStreak to establish ferry service to Manhattan, with a terminal adjacent to the cruise port. Service was expected to begin in September 2020.

References

External links

Official website
{{Hudson County Transportation Network Water transportation in New York (state) Transportation in Bayonne, New Jersey Ports and harbors of New Jersey Port of New York and New Jersey 2004 establishments in New Jersey Passenger ship terminals Water transportation in New Jersey Transportation buildings and structures in Hudson County, New Jersey

History

Operators

Ferry service

See also

References

External links