Photos of Baltimore, Maryland Cruise Ship Terminal

Once you past security at the entrance, this may be your first stop i.e. parking your car at the terminal. There are lots on either side of the terminal and, you pay before you drop off your luggage and enter the terminal. The area is locked up when there aren't any ships at the terminal.

This will be either your first or second stop depending on whether your leaving your car at the terminal. If you're not, you should get whoever is driving you to bring you over to this part of the terminal so, you can easily drop off your luggage. I believe they later transfer the luggage from these containers to the ones the ship uses.

This part is pretty obvious i.e. you go in through the front entrance. When you disembark the ship, you'll come out the side of the building.

This picture shows the security scanners you'll have to pass through. I found security tough and no nonsense.

This picture shows the different lines boarding passengers will go through depending on their level of membership with Royal Caribbean's Crown & Anchor Society (frequent cruiser program) or lack of. Also, it shows some of the seating in the waiting area. Depending on when you arrive (I arrived earlier than expected), you may not have a wait.

This picture shows the entrance to a special lounge for those who are staying in suites and or are Pinnacle level members with Royal Caribbean's Crown & Anchor Society. Presumably, they got to board first once boarding started. There is a separate seating area in this area for Diamond and Diamond Plus members who are the second ones to board. They did offer water and maybe something else here. I don't remember seeing any soda or snack machines.

This last picture is of the standard mobile gangway you'll take to get on the ship. You'll walk out of the terminal building and zig zag up the gangway to where it connects to Grandeur of the Seas.

Overall, I feel Baltimore does a good job of getting you on and off the boat during your cruise. They claim they'll have you on the boat within an hour of arrival though this depends on when you arrive. I arrived around 10 a.m. and, they were still busy getting people off the boat so, I had to wait. I forget when they finished getting all the departing passengers off. For those who didn't bring their car or arranged to have someone pick them up, there are taxis outside the front of the terminal though I wasn't wowed by the one I took. I'd recommend you take Uber or Lyft as I think you'll get a better vehicle and maybe a better price. If nothing else, you should be able to get a decent quote from them on what it'll cost you.

I hope you find this post useful. I'll be cruising again out of Baltimore on Grandeur in January 2019 on a slightly different itinerary i.e. 1 day in Nassau, Bahamas and 1 day at Coco Cay, Bahamas. Royal Caribbean does offer cruises out of Baltimore on Grandeur of the Seas to Maine/Canada, Bermuda, Southern United States of America & the Bahamas and the Caribbean. I hope to do a Caribbean cruise in 2020 with my favorite aunt and uncle. One big down side to the ship's Caribbean cruises (in my opinion) is how much time you'll spend at sea getting down there and back (3 days each way).

The other major (in my opinion) cruise line that cruises out of Baltimore regularly is Carnival (Royal Caribbean's great rival). Their ship is called Pride and does 7 day cruises that leave and arrive every Sunday (as far as I know). As I've only cruised with Royal Caribbean, I don't know how that ship's cruises stack up. I have heard Carnival is the party line where Royal Caribbean tries to offer something for everyone.

That's all for now. Happy Travels and Happy Cruising!

Update: November 9, 2020 The Baltimore Cruise Ship Terminal is closed due to the coronavirus at the time of this update and, I don't have any idea when it'll reopen and cruising will start back up again. As I understand, cases of the virus in Maryland are going back up making it very unlikely they'll start offering cruises out of the terminal again any time soon.

Update: August 4, 2021 The Baltimore Cruise Ship Terminal has reopened HOWEVER no cruise ships are sailing as far as I know. I am keeping an eye on when Royal Caribbean plans to start cruising out of Baltimore again but, I haven't seen a date so far. I suspect Royal Caribbean is going to go with the bigger ships first as they would make more money for them. Also, there is the issue of having to do a trial cruise first on the ship to test their virus procedures.

Update: September 3, 2021 Royal Caribbean announced Enchantment of the Seas will start sailing out of Baltimore on December 23, 2021. Before it does that cruise, I believe it has to do a trial cruise to show the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that the ship has its procedures in place to their satisfaction. I haven't heard when the the trial cruise will be.

Update: October 31, 2021 Carnival started sailing again out of Baltimore on September 12, 2021 with a 7 night cruise to the Bahamas.

Portland Maine Cruise Ship Terminal

Here's a picture of the Portland, Maine cruise ship terminal. The terminal can handle 2 ships at one time. It has a small modern visitor's center where cruisers can book excursions and get information on what's available in Portland and other areas like Kennebunkport. The visitor's center doesn't offer Wi-Fi as I remember. According to cruisecritic.com, Portland gets close to 50,000 visitors a year via cruise ships. The ship on the left is the ship I cruised on i.e. Legend of the Seas. The ship on the right was a French named ship whose name sadly I don't remember.

Portland Horse Drawn Trolley Tour

During my Maine/Canada cruise back in September, I did a horse drawn trolley tour of Portland. The tour ended being really nice. The trolley took us around the historic parts of the city where the tour guide told us about the buildings as we passed them. I think the tour was 90 minutes long. I felt it was a very good tour and would recommend it to anyone visiting Portland.

Starbucks Portland Commercial Street Restaurant Wi-Fi

While in port during my recent cruise on Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas, I got to visit the Starbucks on 145 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine and try out their Wi-Fi. Due to expensive rates on the ship, I was looking for alternative Wi-Fi locations and, this Starbucks fit the bill superbly. Also, another nice thing about this Starbucks is that it isn't that far from the Portland cruise ship terminal. I think it was about 4 or 5 blocks from the terminal. As the terminal doesn't have Wi-Fi as far as I know, this is maybe one of the closer places to the terminal that offers it.

Also, the Commercial Street Starbucks has convenient hours. They are:

Monday to Thursday and Sunday: 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (current at the time of this post)

Overall, I was very pleased with the Wi-Fi connectivity at this Starbucks as well as the service. Prices were the same as at other Starbucks and, they do accept Starbucks giftcards as well as participate in their reward program. I'd definitely recommend this Starbucks and plan to use it again when I make port again in Portland some time in the far future. Happy web surfing all!

Bar Harbor Maine Cruise Ship Pier

Last month, I got to visit Bar Harbor, Maine for the first time while doing a Maine/Canada cruise on Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas. Bar Harbor was the only port on this cruise where the ship had to tender us in i.e. take up to port in smaller boats (this is standard for cruise ships as Norwegian Cruise Line's Dawn had to do the same thing while I was there). The reason for this is I believe is because the water is too shallow by the pier.

Concerning the pier, there isn't a cruise ship terminal there like at other places. The town did have 1 policeman nearby but, there weren't any dedicated cruise buildings. Royal Caribbean set up it's own security to check people before they were allowed on a tender which took them to the ship.

The pier does have restaurants which seemed useless to me since the free food on board the ship was fine. One plus in my opinion was the free Wi-Fi at Agamont Park which is right next to the pier. I tested this Wi-Fi and, it worked fine.