{"id":13232,"date":"2012-06-21T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T08:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=13232"},"modified":"2012-06-21T01:00:16","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T08:00:16","slug":"13232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=13232","title":{"rendered":"Houston Cruising Still a Sad Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fourth-largest seaport in the U.S. Access to the Gulf of Mexico. Thirteenth busiest port in the world. Sounds like a natural for a cruise terminal, doesn't it?<\/p>\n

As the cliche goes…Hello, Houston. Is there a problem?<\/p>\n

The problem has been well-documented. The cruise ship terminal that cost $100 million was finished four years ago, after 13 years of planning but before any cruise lines committed to using it as a home port. In four years, cruise-ship traffic has gone from a few to none.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Galveston is a good part of the reason. That port is right on the Gulf of Mexico. When Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston, ships porting there moved to Houston<\/a>. Temporarily. The impact of hurricanes like Ike is part of the reason Texas became less desirable, yet Carnival<\/a> and Royal Caribbean<\/a> and Princess<\/a> and Celebrity<\/a> all currently operate cruises from Galveston.<\/p>\n

Approaches were made to a dozen cruise lines in the last year. Nobody came. There could \"\"<\/a>be another reason why cruise lines are avoiding Houston, one of our favorite cities.<\/p>\n

Reaching the Gulf of Mexico from Galveston<\/a> is a relatively short trip, at ship speed. Galveston is just under an hour's drive — at 60 miles an hour — from Houston. So travelling the Houston ship channel to the Gulf is likely to take at least a couple of hours, maybe more.<\/p>\n

If it's an oil tanker, that's just part of the distance to travel. If it's a cruise ship, that's lost time to generate revenue at on-board shops and casinos, which have to remain closed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, that $100-million terminal sits just east the city (in Pasadena), without customers. Meanwhile, it reportedly costs more than $4 million a year just to maintain.<\/p>\n

In Houston, they're still waiting — and hoping — for that ship to come in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n\tCarnival Elation<\/a>
\n\t5 nights
\n\tAugust 25, 2012
\n\tNew Orleans<\/a> (return): Progreso<\/a>, Cozumel<\/a>
\n\tInside: $329
\n\tCost per day: $65<\/strong><\/span>
\n\twww.carnival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourth-largest seaport in the U.S. Access to the Gulf of Mexico. Thirteenth busiest port in the world. Sounds like a natural for a cruise terminal, doesn't it? As the cliche goes…Hello, Houston. Is there a problem? The problem has been well-documented. The cruise ship terminal that cost $100 million was finished four years ago, after… Continue reading Houston Cruising Still a Sad Tale<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,31,19,15],"tags":[137,154,948,138,912,72,51,385,575,64,33],"class_list":["post-13232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-ports","category-ships","category-stories","tag-caribbean-cruises","tag-carnival","tag-carnival-elation","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruise-ports","tag-galveston","tag-houston","tag-princess-cruise","tag-royal-caribbean","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}