Port Canaveral moving forward with major cruise terminal expansion

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Port Canaveral’s oldest cruise terminal is set for a $69 million expansion.

Port officials shared new renderings of Cruise Terminal 5 with Channel 9 Eyewitness News.

Canaveral Port Authority CEO Capt. John Murray stated that “Today the terminal is 90,000 feet, we could expand it as much as 80,000 feet, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, we’re only looking at 60,000. So, there’s other options for us to make that terminal more useful and a smoother operation for guest operations in the future.”

Port officials report that CT5 requires an expanded seating area, a larger luggage hall, increased security check capacity, and a new space for Customs and Border Protection as well as federal inspection services.

The port is experiencing an influx of drive-in passengers, such as Chris Thomas.

While visiting Jetty Park today, he shared his thoughts with us, “So, with most of the cruises coming out of the south, you have the Florida coastline or you’re down in Texas, right? So come out at golf. So really, when you’re looking at the East Coast, this is one of the premier locations to come to just because it’s more convenient for basically everybody east of the Mississippi.”

Port Canaveral experienced a 15% increase in passenger traffic compared to this time last year.

This news did not surprise Polk County resident Sabrina Ivy, who stated, “There’s a lot of people that love it because everything’s all-inclusive on the ship and then you just go and everything’s right there, they don’t ever have to leave if they didn’t want to even get off at the port.”