Cruises From Philadelphia

[BobbiFlekman]

I'm curious about the cruises that used to originate from Philadelphia. What were the itineraries?  Why were cruises discontinued?

[shipgeeks]

We sailed out of Philadelphia twice, many years ago.  One was on Celebrity, one on RC, small ships.  I think one went to Bermuda; not sure about the other; probably Caribbean.

We were welcomed back by Mummers.

 

[navybankerteacher]

15 hours ago, shipgeeks said:

We sailed out of Philadelphia twice, many years ago.  One was on Celebrity, one on RC, small ships.  I think one went to Bermuda; not sure about the other; probably Caribbean.

We were welcomed back by Mummers.

 

I think the size of todays ships has put an end to Philadelphia as a cruise port.

[princeton123211]

12 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

I think the size of todays ships has put an end to Philadelphia as a cruise port.

To an extent-- the Navy Yard can take some big ships with deep drafts-- USS New Jersey and USS JFK being examples. 

 

They also never really finished the cruise terminal infrastructure that was promised. And then theres the fact that sailing with a pilot for a significant part of the Delaware River has to be enormously annoying-- you'll have a pilot embarked much longer than you would sailing from NYC.

 

And then theres the fact that NYC is literally an hour from us by train-- its really not difficult for Philadelphians to get there. I think it's a combination of a bunch of things. 

 

We still do have occasional ships call-- mostly smaller ones doing East Coast reposition cruises. One of the old Seabourn ships being run by Windstar makes a regular call each year and interestingly enough docks North of the city in an industrial area along the Delaware (which doesn't make any sense to me). 

[uncleboo]

I don’t know what happened to all the cruises out of Philadelphia but I live in South Jersey and it was so convenient when they had them they have smaller ship second  there I don’t know why Philadelphia isn’t doing their best to bring more tourism to the city by seeing what they could do to get more cruise ships back as it was a nice port ever a lot of extra income to the city

[princeton123211]

4 hours ago, uncleboo said:

it was so convenient when they had them they have smaller ship second  there I don’t know why Philadelphia isn’t doing their best to bring more tourism to the city by seeing what they could do to get more cruise ships back as it was a nice port ever a lot of extra income to the city

Ships got a lot bigger in the ensuing years. Even "small ships" of the major cruise lines right now are considerably larger than anything that was calling at Philadelphia in the past. 

[chengkp75]

On 10/3/2022 at 11:52 AM, princeton123211 said:

To an extent-- the Navy Yard can take some big ships with deep drafts-- USS New Jersey and USS JFK being examples.

Draft is not a problem, but air draft is.  You will notice that the mast on the JFK was removed to get her under the bridges.  This, and the length of the river transit (pilotage fees, closed casinos) are what made Philly untenable as a cruise port.  Along with the closeness of NYC and Baltimore.