Cruise terminal sets sail
Norfolk trying to capitalize on trips to Bermuda

by Elizabeth Cooper
for Virginia Business
March 2007

It’s a big step up from a heated tent. In fact, with this month’s opening of a modern, 80,000 square-foot cruise terminal, Norfolk hopes to position itself as the preferred East Coast gateway to Bermuda.

The $36 million Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center is expected to draw more visitors downtown and enhance passenger comfort at what until now had been a small, cramped heated tent used by passengers to board ships at the city’s waterfront.

“It means hundreds of thousands of visitors to downtown Norfolk,” says Mayor Paul Fraim. Cruise passengers are expected to spend an average of $140 per person per day during their stay, he adds. “Many will use our airport, hotels and taxis, eat in our restaurants and shop in our retail establishments. It will have a significant impact on the economy.”

Named for a fort built in the shape of a half moon on the downtown site in 1673, the facility is the first cruise terminal constructed in the United States since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Expected to be a prototype for future terminals, it conforms to Department of Homeland Security standards integrating customs and immigration procedures in a spacious 10,000-square-foot area complete with computerized kiosks.

Access to the terminal is by way of Town Point Park. Elevators will ferry people to the second level where they will cross an elevated bridge into a grand rotunda. From there, passengers pass through security checkpoints and onto an elevated gangway for boarding. People disembarking a ship will go to the lower level to collect luggage and pass through a customs and border protection area.

When ships are not in port, the glass-enclosed facility with views of the Elizabeth River becomes a “celebration center,” with more than 33,000 square feet on its top floor available for meetings and other events. In addition, artifacts denoting Virginia’s ties to Bermuda are on display in the facility’s Bermuda Room.

Norfolk’s facility is one of the few built specifically for the cruise industry. Most cruise terminals are converted cargo facilities, says Stephen Kirkland, the city’s cruise operations and marketing manager. “Aesthetically, it just doesn’t compare.”

Half Moone also differs from other terminals in that it is a city project, instead of a division within a port authority. That gives Norfolk more control on such issues as the on-time arrival and departure of ships, and on the overall experience of cruise passengers from the time they leave home until they step on a ship’s gangway.

A big priority will be encouraging them to take in the sights of Norfolk and surrounding area. “Our objective is to really brand the commonwealth. We want passengers to stay in our hotels and learn more about the region,” says Kirkland, noting the varied activities and hotels within walking distance. “I know of no other port where you can walk off a ship and literally roll your bags a few feet to within 2,000 hotel rooms.”

Norfolk has welcomed more than 300,000 seafarers since venturing into the cruise business in 2001 when 27,000 passengers set sail. That number grew steadily each year, reaching a high of approximately 105,000 in 2005. Officials estimate about 90,000 passengers will depart from the new cruise terminal in 2007 due to smaller ships serving the facility.

Royal Caribbean International’s Empress of the Seas will be the first cruise ship to use the terminal when it sails to Bermuda from Norfolk on April 28. The Empress of the Seas will travel to Bermuda throughout the spring and summer. Carnival Cruise Lines also will depart from Norfolk for six-day cruises to the Bahamas and two-night cruises at sea this year.

While Norfolk is one of the country’s fastest growing cruise ports, the facility’s single berth limits expansion. “We’re not going to be another Miami, and we don’t want to be,” says Kirkland. “We want it to be a very hands-on, people-focused place.” That focus includes marketing the port outside a 300-mile radius and eventually offering diverse itineraries, such as cruises to Canada and New England, as well as resuming Caribbean cruises. “If we do that, we can really sustain this,” he adds. “Our mantra is grow smartly.”