World Cruise Center---purpose of old vehicle ramps?

[junglejane]

Here's a historical question for old-timers about the World Cruise Center and its original design from 1988.   On the south side, two freeway-like multi-lane car ramps lead up from the parking lot to the second floor of the building.   They form a "Y" shaped traffic-circulation system to the upper floor.    You may not even notice them when you are there, but they are obvious on  google earth or any other overhead photo.    The ramps have been fenced off and unused since at least around 2007, when I first saw them.   I have always wondered about their intended purpose in the original design.   Perhaps a baggage drop off location on the second floor?   

 

I'd love to hear any recollection of these ramps being used, or ideas as to their intended purpose.  

[Bruin Steve]

The outer edges of the roof, on two sides, are marked with parking spaces for about 150 cars.  If you look at Google Maps, you will even note that, in their fairly recent aerial photo, several of those spaces are being occupied by parked cars.  I don’t recall this area ever being used for general visitor parking...possibly just employee parking. I’m guessing it’s fairly impractical, for a number of reasons (security, traffic circulation, pedestrian circulation) to leave these ramps open during regular hours.

[cattolica]

In April 1993, our very first cruise, my husband drove us up that ramp.  He dropped me off with the luggage then went and parked the car.  A shuttle brought him back up the ramp.  Check in for the cruise was directly inside.   It was a cruise on the NCL Southward.   I will always remember that day.  

 

 

 

[junglejane]

OP here, thank you for the replies.  You don't need two huge ramps for a 150 car parking lot, so I suspected that the current use was an "afterthought."    This reminded me that google earth has historical images.   Sure enough, the space on the roof was not striped as a parking lot until 2013.   Before that, the ramps contained three pairs of up/down vehicle lanes that fed into specific paths marked by lots of directional arrows.  The right lane led to a loop around the south side of the second floor; the middle up lane led to a loop around the center; and the left up lane led to a loop around the west side.   This appears in an image from July 2007 (some cars were being parked up there by that point).  The oldest image on google earth is from August 2003.   At that time all traffic entering the World Cruise Center followed a smaller path that went right by these up ramps (through the middle of what is now parking lot).  An image from January 2005 shows them rebuilding the vehicle lanes into the larger circle that now goes around the whole parking lot, down by the USS Iowa.  

 

Anyways, I'm glad to hear from someone who actually used the ramps for "passenger drop off" as originally envisioned.  I wonder what they were thinking in the original plan.  I'd love to hear more from 1990's cruisers.