Port CEO says two of three Disney Cruise Line ships headed to Port Canaveral
Disney Cruise Line is no stranger to parking their new ships at Port Canaveral, and that looks to be where the line’s next two new ships will call home.
Port Canaveral CEO John Murray made comments about Disney’s forthcoming vessels during the Canaveral Port Authority Board of Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, which also solidified the port’s deal to bring a new Carnival Cruise Line ship to the port.
“What’s going to impact Port Canaveral in the near term, you’ve got Carnival will have the first ship immediately followed a year later by Disney immediately followed a year later by another Disney ship,” Murray said. “Disney’s got a total of three. We don’t know if we’ll have two or three, but they’re coming to Port Canaveral.”
The news isn’t a surprise since all four of the existing ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet have made Port Canaveral their home port when they debuted, but this is the first official statement regarding the new ships’ eventual home. The line’s two current biggest ships, Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy, call the port home year-round while the older ships Disney Magic and Disney Wonder rotate home ports including Port Canaveral while also serving Europe and Alaska.
Disney’s new ships will be powered by liquefied natural gas, which is a cleaner burning fuel than what’s currently used. International maritime law for air emission standards is pushing cruise lines to make the switch, which is pushing North American ports to make adjustments ahead of their debut.
“If you just look at the numbers, we’re the second largest cruise port in the world,” Murray said. “There’s 26 of these ships on order right now. You have to know they’re coming here. They’re coming to Miami. They’re coming to Port Everglades.”
The yet-to-be-named Carnival ship will arrive at Port Canaveral in 2020 and eventually use the brand new $150 million Terminal 3. That will be the first LNG-powered ship to be based in North America. Murray said the first Disney ship could arrive to Port Canaveral as early as November 2021.
While Carnival has a deal with Shell and a planned method in place to refuel the new LNG-powered ship using a barge, down the road, Murray said the port will need a different method in place.
“When Disney comes in with their assets and when we have multiple vessels fueling at the same time, we’re going to have to grow into a different type of operation,” he said. “We don’t know what that is right now, but we’re looking at all the options. We as facilitators are trying to guide the cruise lines in a direction that makes the most sense for Port Canaveral.”
The three new Disney ships are slated to debut in 2021, 2022 and 2023. All three ships are on order with Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany.
While not much detail has been revealed about any of the three new ships, the line says that they will be 140,000 gross tons, which is slightly larger than the 130,000 gross tons of Dream and Fantasy, but will have the same number of staterooms: 1,250.
The only revealed image of the new ship design has shown a similar look and design to the rest of the fleet, but with its own unique water feature that’s different than the AquaDuck on Dream and Fantasy or AquaDunk on Disney Magic.
At a June Port Authority meeting, Murray revealed that Disney Cruise Line intends to home port three ships year-round utilizing an improved Terminal 8, which it uses now as well as sharing the larger Terminal 10 with Norwegian Cruise Line.
“Their terminal hasn’t had a significant upgrade since 1998,” Murray said. “It’s the smallest terminal although the most efficient terminal because of the way they operate it in Port Canaveral. But with the newer ships, there’s a desire to refresh the facility and bring it up to the current standards.”
rtribou@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5134
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