by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
When they woke up this morning, about 400 passengers aboard the cruise ship C. Columbus got a view of Jacksonville that most cruise ship passengers don’t get to see from their ships.
Though most pleasure ships making a stop in Jacksonville are docked at Jacksonville Port Authority’s Cruise Ship Terminal on Blount Island, the C. Columbus, a 472-foot cruise vessel owned by Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, made the extra 10-mile trip Monday morning and moored itself at the city’s large ship dock adjacent to the Hyatt.
Besides the large passenger ships that came in for the Super Bowl, this is the first cruise ship in at least five years that has made a port-of-call in downtown Jacksonville, according to the city’s waterways coordinator Steve Nichols.
As passengers and crew members disembarked Monday morning, representatives from the city and the Jacksonville and the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau greeted them with bright yellow bags filled with information about Jacksonville and northeast Florida. While almost half of the passengers hopped on buses headed for a quick tour of St. Augustine, many of the remaining guests and crew members milled around the downtown area for the rest of the morning and early afternoon.
Jennifer McPhee, CVB director of communications, said that though it has been a long time since a big ship docked downtown plans are underway to ensure that cruise ships are a common site on the St. Johns.
“This is something that we are really trying to develop and continue in the future,” she said. “Because Jacksonville is serving as a port-of-call for this ship, it makes the most sense for it to stay in the downtown area so the passengers have a lot of things at their disposal. This is something that we are definitely planning to continue.”
Though the C. Columbus pushed off Monday afternoon for Miami, the Bahamas and Mexico, McPhee said the ship and a new load of European passengers are expected to return next year in November.