A new cruise ship will set sail from Jacksonville beginning in November 2025 under an agreement approved by the Jacksonville Port Authority board during a special meeting Feb. 6.
Norwegian Cruise Line will offer cruises from Jacksonville to the Bahamas and Eastern Caribbean aboard the Norwegian Gem. The cruise ship, which holds 2,394 guests, will sail from Jacksonville from November to April through 2028 under the agreement.
The board approved the contract on a 7-0 vote. It calls for Norwegian to pay an annual guarantee of $1.61 million, for a total of $4.85 million over the course of the contract term. In return, JaxPort committed to prepaying a $2.74 million trademark licensing fee to Norwegian by the end of this year.
“I’m happy to say the JaxPort team has done it again,” said Jacksonville City Council President Ron Salem, who took part in a signing ceremony after the vote.
“We all know the city is a gem, and it will be fitting to soon have this ship in our port.”
The Norwegian Gem has visited Jacksonville before, when JaxPort accommodated it during the temporary suspension of cruises during the coronavirus pandemic. Eric Green, JaxPort CEO, said the port also accommodated ships operated by Regent Seven Seas Cruises, a division of Norwegian.
“All of those went smoothly and allowed us to establish a good working relationship with Norwegian,” he said. “Today’s agreement is a natural evolution of that partnership.”
Carnival Cruise Lines’ Elation is currently the only ship providing cruise tours from JaxPort’s Cruise Terminal. The Elation holds about 2,400 passengers.
Carnival offers four- and five-day Caribbean cruises year-round from Jacksonville, according to JaxPort’s website.
Green said Carnival and Norwegian will operate during the same time period with schedules that preclude their ships being ported in JaxPort at the same time. Carnival’s contract with JaxPort runs through 2026.
“Carnival is kind of the line that got us to the dance, right?” Green said. “We’re not abandoning Carnival at all. In fact, they have first priority on scheduling.”
Norwegian will provide 12-day and 11-day round-trip Eastern Caribbean sailings from Jacksonville, with stops including Great Stirrup Cay, the company’s private island in the Bahamas; Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic; St. Thomas and St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands; Antigua; Basseterre, St. Kitts; San Juan, Puerto Rico, and others.
In addition, passengers can select four- and five-day cruises to the Bahamas, with stops at Great Stirrup Bay and Nassau, Bahamas.
Bookings will be available starting Feb. 15, 2024, at nci.com.
“We go where we are felt as a partner, a stakeholder,” said Juan Kuryla, Norwegian senior vice president of port development.
“If it’s any indication of how your staff has treated us, we know our passengers are going to be incredibly happy and feel at home here in Jacksonville.”
According to a 2019 study cited by JaxPort, the cruise industry provides nearly 800 jobs and produces more than $187 million in annual economic impact for Northeast Florida. Darnell Smith, chief of staff for Mayor Donna Deegan, said the industry also generated more than 20,000 hotel night stays annually.
At the port authority board’s Jan. 22 meeting, Green told board members that a second cruise line – which he didn’t name at the time – had hoped for board approval that day on an agreement to operate from the cruise terminal. Documents could not be completed in time for the meeting, he said.
Board Chair Daniel Bean agreed to call a special meeting when the agreement was fully prepared.
Asked after the Feb. 6 signing ceremony about the potential to add year-round cruise service from Jacksonville, Green said JaxPort will “go through this maturation for the next couple of years and we’ll see how the cruise business will grow.”