Expect to see a full house at Port Everglades over the next three days, January 6-8, 2012, as the South Florida seaport will host eight major cruise ships plus the daily cruise ferry to the Bahamas each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If lined up bow to stern over the three-day period, these passenger vessels would be more than 4 miles long and stretch from the Port to trendy Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
The number of passengers traveling over the three days, an estimated 106,000 (excluding the daily ferry), would easily overflow Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, which could only seat three-quarters of the Port’s cruise guests.
“We don’t know of another homeport that has ever hosted so many cruise ships consecutively over three days. It is certainly a record weekend for Port Everglades,” says Port Everglades Chief Executive Phil Allen.
The ships are returning to Port Everglades from specially scheduled New Year’s holiday weekend cruises.
Here are a few more fun facts. If lined up bow to stern, the ships sailing this weekend would:
1. be as tall as eight Burj Khalifa towers in Dubai (2,717 feet high)
2. be as tall as 22 Eiffel Towers in Paris (984 feet high)
3. be as long at 72 football fields (300 feet long)
4. fill 255 jumbo jets (Boeing 747 with capacity for 416 people)
The cruise ships arriving at Port Everglades this weekend include:
Friday, January 6: Holland America Line’s Amsterdam, Statendam, and Zuiderdam; MSC Cruises’ MSC Poesia; Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Mariner and Seven Seas Navigator; Seabourn’s Seabourn Spirit; and Silverseas Cruises’ Silver Whisper.
Saturday, January 7: Holland America Line’s Eurodam; Princess Cruises’ Crown Princess, Emerald Princess and Grand Princess; Royal Caribbean International’s Liberty of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas; Silversea Cruises Silver Cloud and Silver Whisper.
Sunday, January 8: Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Freedom; Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Solstice; Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam and Westerdam; Royal Caribbean International’s Allure of the Seas and Navigator of the Seas; Princess Cruises’ Island Princess and Ruby Princess.
Balearia’s Pinar del Rio, the Bahamas Express fast ferry, sails daily to Freeport, Bahamas, except on Wednesdays.
