Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo and naval port in Brevard County, Florida. It is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world with nearly 2.8 million multi-day cruise passengers passing through during 2010. As a deep water cargo port, it has a high volume of traffic. Over 3,000,000 short tons (2,700,000 t) of bulk cargo moves through each year. Common cargo includes cement, petroleum and aggregate. The port has conveyors and hoppers for loading products directly into trucks, and facilities for bulk cargo containers. The channel is about 44 feet (13 m) deep.
There is 750,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of covered freight storage capacity. It handled 4,000,000 short tons (3,600,000 t) of cargo in 2004. The port exports fresh citrus; bulk frozen citrus juice stored in one of the largest freezer warehouses in the state; cement and building materials. The port receives lumber, salt for water softening, automobiles, and steel sheet and plate. It transships items for land, sea, air and space. Port Canaveral’s Foreign Trade Zone is among the largest general purpose FTZs in the nation – over 5 square miles (13 km2). The port boosts Brevard’s economy by 1/2 billion dollars annually.
In 1965, a lock was dedicated at the port, as part of the Canaveral Barge Canal. The Canaveral Lock is still in operation, and is maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The focus of the port throughout the 1960s and 1970s remained commercial fishing and shipping, with three 400-foot (120 m) cargo piers built on the north side of the Port in 1976, and a succession of warehouses built in the port area. Port Canaveral has played a role in support of NASA projects out of nearby John F. Kennedy Space Center. During the Apollo program, segments of the Saturn V rocket transited through the port and lock. Most recently he Space Shuttle‘s external tanks were floated into Port Canaveral for each mission, and the solid rocket boosters were towed back through Port Canaveral after being fished out of the Atlantic Ocean after each launch.
The SS Scandinavian Sea, a 10,427 ton ship, was the first cruise ship to home-port at Port Canaveral. Early cruises were simple day cruises out into the ocean and back. Carnival Cruise Lines, Disney Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International, are some of the cruise lines which dock at one of the six cruise terminals. The port hosted 109,175 multi-day cruise passengers in October 2008. There was a high of 307,005 passengers in April 2009. This fell to a seasonal low of 221,557 in October. With the loss of daily gambling ship cruises, port authorities do not expect this high to be exceeded for some time. There were 2.8 million passengers in 2010.