Originally Posted by
wesmills
I know for sure that neither terminal in Galveston has them as of four days ago. Having the GE kiosks (or even just MPC) would be great considering a single Carnival ship drops off anywhere from 2,800 to 3,100 passengers at a time and waiting in the Galveston terminal for an hour is the least-fun part of a cruise. Supposedly they were coming to Houston's Bayport terminal yet now aren't since Norwegian and Princess Cruise Lines pulled out of there in 2016.
The problem is that while 2,800 to 3,100 passengers disembarking in basically a 2 to 3 hour period is a load and a hassle it only happens maybe once or twice a week in Galveston. Hard to justify the investment. Even with the very busy Port Everglades cruise port, especially right now during the peak Caribbean cruise season, there are days and days where the terminals are closed. While I can’t find it right now I think I recall it actually was or is a cooperative effort and shared funding between Royal Caribbean, the port authority, and DHS to test and maybe permanently install kiosks in Terminal 18. Of course cruising is big business for Ft Lauderdale and Port Everglades to the point where the port authority recently committed to investing $100M to Terminal 25 improvements/renovations just to support Royal Caribbean and Celebrity.