The Port of Palm Beach is getting ready to spend some serious money on its cruise port. How serious? Try $43 million for a new parking garage, passenger loading bridge, expanded security and baggage areas, and improvements to the berth.
That sounds like the kind of investment you’d expect at a cruise port preparing for a parade of ships and millions of passengers. Except Palm Beach currently has exactly one homeported cruise ship.
That ship is Margaritaville at Sea Paradise, which entered service in 1991 as Costa Classica. At 35 years old, she’s one of the oldest passenger ships still sailing from a U.S. cruise port and carries around 1,680 passengers on mostly short Bahamas cruises.
So, yes, Palm Beach is preparing to spend $43 million on its cruise facilities when its entire homeported cruise fleet consists of one ship old enough to remember when people booked cruises through travel agents after seeing an ad in the Sunday newspaper.
What Does $43 Million Buy?
The Port Commission voted September 24, 2026 to move ahead with a competitive solicitation for the project, which was previously identified as a priority in its 2023 Master Plan.
Plans call for a parking garage, new passenger loading bridge, increased passenger screening capacity, additional baggage handling space and new mooring dolphins that would allow longer cruise ships to use the berth.
That last part is really what this project is about.
Palm Beach isn’t spending $43 million simply to give Paradise passengers a nicer place to park and check their luggage. The Port is building infrastructure it hopes will make Palm Beach attractive to additional cruise ships in the future.
And that’s a huge gamble.
Build It and Hope They Come?
Palm Beach certainly has something going for it. The port is small, easy to navigate and doesn’t require spending the first hour of your vacation wondering whether you’re going to die in a six-lane traffic jam à la PortMiami
For cruisers in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, sailing from Riviera Beach can be ridiculously convenient compared with driving to Fort Lauderdale or Miami. The problem is that convenience only gets you so far when there’s just one very old, not-so-inviting ship to choose from.
The new mooring dolphins could change that by allowing longer vessels to use the berth, potentially opening Palm Beach to another Margaritaville at Sea ship, seasonal service from another cruise line or other opportunities that aren’t practical with the existing infrastructure.
But so far, this is all about spending tons of money and hoping for the best.
Palm Beach isn’t expanding because several cruise lines are pounding on the door demanding space. It’s expanding in hopes that better facilities will eventually give them a reason to knock.
Palm Beach Doesn’t Need to Become PortMiami
There’s absolutely no reason Palm Beach needs to compete with PortMiami or Port Everglades. In fact, it can’t. Its opportunity lies with trying to attract smaller ships, niche cruise lines and cruisers who would happily trade a roller coaster, six water slides and 7,000 fellow passengers for an embarkation day that doesn’t require blood pressure medication.
Margaritaville at Sea has already shown that people will cruise from Palm Beach, with more than 300,000 cruise passengers using the port annually. The question is whether another cruise line or ship can be convinced to join the party once the new infrastructure is in place.
If that happens, $43 million could look like a smart investment in turning Palm Beach into a bigger player in Florida’s cruise market.
If it doesn’t, Margaritaville at Sea Paradise is going to have one heck of a nice place to park.
