Port Information - New York City (Manhattan and Brooklyn)

 

Cruise Terminals: Manhattan and Brooklyn

New York City has two cruise terminals, Manhattan and Brooklyn.  The former has room for one or two (and maybe a third) cruise ship, while the latter has room only for a single cruise ship.  Although there is a third cruise terminal in Bayonne, NJ, I treat it as a separate port as it is not easily accessed by NYC based mass transit (or cabs).

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The Big Apple is both an embarkation and a destination port, as well as being located in a city which should be visited for more than a short port visit.  Therefore, this entry focuses on the cruise terminals in this port, and not about the sights one can see in this city.

New York City is a popular port for cruises to Eastern Canada / New England, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Transatlantic crossings. Unlike some other ports in the Northeast, ships sail from this port year round.  However, most cruises from this port take place in the warmer months.

Both Manhattan and Brooklyn cruise terminals are reasonably close enough to the city's mass transit infrastructure to allow for cruisers to explore the city at will.  However, neither cruise terminal is optimally placed for tourists not familiar with the city to do shore excursions on their own. 

The Manhattan cruise terminal is a 2/3 mile walk to the nearest subway station, while the Brooklyn cruise terminal is a 4 block walk to the nearest bus, which then takes another 15 minutes to reach the nearest subway station. Alternately, the Brooklyn cruise terminal is only a 5 minute walk to a ferry which will allow the intrepid cruiser to reach Manhattan in under 30 minutes and be able to access mass transit after a short 5 minute walk.

Bus, Subway, and Ferry Prices:
-  NYC Subway and Buses - $2.75 
   (These are buses and subway trains run by NYC's MTA.)
   (free transfers between bus and subway with OMNY card)
    within 2 hours of start of travel
-  NY Ferries - $4.00 
   (These are ferries run by by www.ferry.nyc)
-  Staten Island Ferry - Free.                 

With the above being said, surface transit in NYC is often unpredictable. Therefore, the use of a rental car is unadvisable in the city, especially when parking often starts at $20 for the first 30 minutes in private lots.  Affordable, on-street parking is often impossible to find on weekdays, and never available in tourist districts. Depending on the distance one might need to travel from the cruise terminal, it may be wise to take a shore excursion offered by the cruise line, as the cruiser has the guarantee that it will wait for cruisers on shore excursions that it sells.  

On days when a ship is coming into a NYC port, or leaving it, one will usually get a good view of the New York City skyline, The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and The Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  Be sure to have your camera ready to capture these views.

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For cruisers whose ships make stops in New York:

Once in New York as a visitor, one will often want to visit the typical tourist attractions: Times Square, Rockefeller Center, The Statue of Liberty, Chinatown, Little Italy, and many others, far too numerous to be listed here.  Unless one has an overnight visit at this port, assume that one may need to spend up to a half day in transit reaching the sites you want to see and returning to the ship.  

Non-surface transit is the best way to get around NYC, especially on Manhattan Island. Once at a subway station (see maps: Day, Night, Accessible), service is relatively frequent on weekdays, and is often the fastest way to get around.  Although many of the important subway stations are accessible, many more are not accessible. (Note: Out of 472 subway stations, only 148 are accessible.)  New York has plans to eventually make most of the remaining stations accessible as major renovations take place at these stations.  However, no time frame has been set for these renovations.

Although most of the tourist attractions are on Manhattan Island, there are important sites in the outer boroughs worth visiting, such as: the Bronx Zoo and the Hip Hop museum, the Queens Museum and the New York Hall of Science, the Brooklyn Museum and the NYC Transit Museum, and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center.  Please note that reaching many of these sites is best done when staying overnight in New York, as many of them are at least 90 minutes (or more) from either cruise terminal via mass transit.

Cruise Itineraries - Eastern Canada / New England

 

The typical 7-day Eastern Canada / New England cruise stops at two Canadian ports (usually, Halifax, NS and Saint John, NB) and any two of the following United States Ports (Newport, RI, Boston, MA, Portland, ME, and Bar Harbor, ME) before returning to the ship's home port. Although these 4 US ports are the most common ports to visit, new ports in Maine (such as Rockland) are being added to relieve overcrowding in Bar Harbor when large ships are in port. 

In addition to the seven-day cruises, longer one-way cruises are often offered, traveling from/to ports on the East Coast of the United States to/from Canadian ports in Quebec. These cruises will port at two United States ports and at four Canadian ports.  Although much less common than these cruises, I've seen ten-day cruises doing round trips from New York, making port at the usual ports made on a seven day run, and include extra ports in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  (I was on one of these cruises between two hurricanes, and the ports of Sydney, NS and Charlottetown, PE were skipped dur to weather, making us port in Corner Brook, NL to solely to ensure compliance with the US Passenger Vessel Services Act.)

This cruise is best done in in Late Summer / Early Autumn, as most of the stores, restaurants, tourist sites, etc. will be open for business.  Doing this cruise after the USA's Columbus Day holiday will still be nice, but I have found that many stores and restaurants will be closed for the season shortly after the holiday.