HAL from Norfolk va?

[sassy~one]

Has there been any talk of HAL coming back to Norfolk? I so miss them sailing from there.

 

thank you.

[Krazy Kruizers]

No

With all the problems they had on some cruises with the ship arriving late back in port -- became costly for HAL.

[Sea Belle]

We wish they would return also. The lovely terminal is barely used now though Carnival is due to announce some cruises in 2015 season. There is definitely a market here, but way back when they were using the old "lack of" terminal space there were problems. While dining with the captain on the Maasdam one night we inquired as to how he liked sailing out of Norfolk, and his remarks were less than complimentary, mostly stemming from labor/union problems. We haven't given up hope though! ;)

[rothbury]

Norfolk Navy Base ran all the cruise ships away. They wanted tighter security and they made it tough for cruise ships to get up the Elizabeth River. The City of Norfolk built a multi-million dollar cruise terminal that sits vacant except for the occasional "party".

 

I believe Carnival Cruise Line (Not Carnival Corporation) is negotiating to have 3 or 4 cruises in 2015.

[Randyk47]

Norfolk is not the only port that built or remodeled cruise terminals in hopes of attracting and keeping more cruises/lines. Galveston did much the same around 2004-2007 when Celebrity based the old Galaxy out of Galveston for three or four Caribbean winter seasons. Those were 11-12 day partial Panama Canal transits and while they supposedly sold well Celebrity pulled out and to the best of my knowledge never came back. I haven't paid much attention to Galveston based cruises, most were the 7-day variety which don't interest us, so I'm not sure exactly what the present schedule or line availability is right now. I did talk to a regional HAL representative a few years ago about HAL trying Galveston but she was pessimistic and doubted it would happen.