Three football fields long and 13 stories tall, the cruise ship Queen Mary II paid a visit to Port Liberty in Bayonne on Sept. 30, being the second ship of the Cunard Line to visit.
“The Queen Elizabeth was here around 1980 for work at the Dry Dock,” said Port Director Anthony Caputo, whose vision helped put together the deal four years ago that allowed Bayonne to host its own cruise port.
Nearly three years since its maiden voyage, The Queen Mary II emerged as part of the new generation of larger cruise ships and until Royal Caribbean unveiled its Freedom of the Seas earlier this year, the Queen Mary II reigned as the largest cruise ship in the world.
“We’ve had the distinction of having the two largest ships in the world dock here,” Caputo said. “The Freedom on the Seas and now the Queen Mary II.”
The Queen Mary II weighs in at 150,000 tons. When constructed, it was also considered the most expensive, costing $1.1 billion dollars.
Queen Mary II comes to Bayonne because its more traditional haunts in Brooklyn and Manhattan are filled up this weekend, Caputo said.
“They contacted us to see if we could accommodate the ship,” said Caputo, who spent most of the week prior to its arrival working through the various legal complications required such as consultations with the U.S. Coast Guard.
To complicate matters, of course, was the fact that Celebrity Cruises also had its ship the Zenith due to dock on the same day, and though significantly smaller at 47,000 tons, the Zenith would also require services for disembarking and embarking passengers.
This means Port Liberty had to handle more than 4,000 passengers coming and going, baggage and other. “And that doesn’t include the crews,” Caputo said. “I think the Queen Mary II has a crew of 1,200.”
Caputo will oversee the terminal operations at the Port Liberty, and before this, he oversaw terminal operations, passenger movement and security issues for Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises ships calling in U.S. ports. Prior to that, he worked for P&O Ports, managing their New York City Passenger Ship Terminal and Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne.
“I was the one put the deal together between Royal Caribbean and the city,” he said.
In December 2003, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. signed a letter agreement with the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority (BLRA) to construct and operate a new cruise port facility on the former Bayonne Military Ocean Terminal peninsula.
Passengers not only disembarked from the Queen Mary II in Bayonne, but passengers boarded the ship for its Canadian route that left Saturday evening.
This is the first sailing of a ship from the Canard cruise ship line and Caputo called it an extremely good sign for the port and the City of Bayonne.
“We have accommodated the two largest cruise ships in the world,” he said. “That means this port is taken as a serious operation.”
The arrival of the Queen Mary II also provides more than a hundred local jobs and adds to the regional even the national and international prestige of the city.
One of the reasons, he thought the former Military Ocean Terminal would make a good port is the access in and out, since he had dealt with the significant problems piers in New York City presented docking, loading and unloading.
“There are hundreds of advantages,” he said. “And let’s face it, ships aren’t getting smaller.”
Port Liberty, of course, will see even more business as additional, pier space is created, which is already underway.
“We’re starting to expand N1 (one of the docking berths),” he said. “We will see how far we can go after that. It depends on funding. This work is not cheap.”
Caputo also said eventually, Port Liberty – which currently uses a converted military building – will construct a new terminal.
“This port – having the Queen Mary II come here – is good for everybody,” he said, comparing the future development of the Military Ocean Terminal to the development that went on in Hoboken. “Twenty years ago,