preview

The Modern Port Of Miami Essay

Good Essays

Looking at the modern Port of Miami lined each week with the shining behemoths of cruising, it is hard to believe that Miami was a backwater in the early 1960s. Today nearly 5 million passengers pass through the Port, but back then Miami was averaging just over 200,000 passengers a year. “The port was old, dark and rat infested,” recalls Herb Hiller, who was handling public relations for Arison Shipping. A small number of Caribbean cruises departed from Miami but most of the trips were simply overnight runs to the Bahamas on ships such as the ss Bahamas Star, built in 1931, or the even older ss Florida, built in 1927. Most cruises departed from Port Everglades or New York.

Yet, with his trademark modesty, Knut Utstein Kloster simply says, “The timing was right.” He acknowledges that “The Caribbean cruise market at the time hardly existed,” but says, “No I was not surprised at how quickly the cruise market grew in those early years. We got a good sense of it up front and the timing was indeed right.” Andy Stuart, the current president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line, however, is a little less modest, proudly acknowledging the founders of Norwegian as, “real visionaries,” and pointing to the how they pioneered at a time when cruising was largely a disorganized and unexplored business.

It began with a now famous cold call solicitation from a desperate entrepreneur and businessman, Ted Arison, to the young head of a family shipping company, Knut Kloster. It was November

Get Access