L.A. floats plan for massive cruise liners of future; proposed terminals would enable port to handle huge tour ships.

When the massive Queen Mary 2 visited the Port of Los Angeles last year, the captain of what was then the world's biggest cruise liner had to take an unusual tack.

Reaching 235 feet in height, the luxurious Cunard liner was unable to fit under the harbor's Vincent Thomas Bridge to reach a basin to turn around, so the 154,400-ton ship had to sail down the port's main channel backward to reach the cruise ship terminal.

It's the kind of maneuver that makes the Los Angeles harbor unappealing to the growing numbers of mega-ships coming on line, of which the Queen Mary 2 was one of the first.

Now, in a bid to maintain its place as the country's fourth largest cruise line port and grab a bigger piece of the growing international cruise ship business, the port is proposing to build new terminals in its outer harbor that could cost as much as $100 million.

"There is a lot of competition among cities for cruise industry business, but if they can't accommodate the ships, the ships aren't coming in," said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of cruisecritic.com, an industry Web site. "This trend is not even a trend; it's here to stay."

The port's World Cruise Center is located in the inner harbor just west of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, and has well served the growing number of ships that leave from L.A. to destinations along Mexico's Pacific Coast, such as Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco.

But the cruise center is aging, and as cruise lines continue to build bigger, taller and longer ships, the port is finding itself increasingly unable to accommodate the new vessels.

Port officials already have approved a $65 million upgrade of the existing terminal, but that won't solve what has become a critical problem: the ports turning basin is located on the far side of the bridge and the massive new mega-ships can't fit underneath the roadway, 185 feet above the water.

There are already several ships too tall to clear the bridge, including the Queen Mary 2 and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's 210-foot-tall Freedom of the Seas. But the bigger problem is on the horizon: 24 of the 41 cruise ships commissioned to hit the waters worldwide by 2012 will be over 200 feet tall.

Wido Schaeffer, president and chief executive of Travel Store Inc., L.A.'s largest travel and cruise agency, said it's time for the port to spend money to upgrade its cruise terminal operations.

"The Port of L.A. so far has done very little for its cruise facilities. The facilities are substandard," Schaeffer said. "The terminal cannot accommodate the larger ships that are coming on line. We don't have a choice. If we want to stay competitive in the marketplace we have to get it done."

Burgeoning Industry

The new cruise center would be located on Berths 46 to 51 at the extreme west end of the harbor, and while port officials say it's too early to comment on details, one person knowledgeable of the plan said the new terminal could cost at least $50 million and as much as $100 million, with the port footing the bill.

The port's existing cruise ship facilities include more than 100,000 square feet of building space for passenger check-in and luggage storage. The proposed facility would include at least one new terminal building, with passenger check-in capabilities, luggage handling infrastructure and parking.

The stakes are high for the port, which released an independent study earlier this month concluding that cruise ships docking at the port provided about 2,400 jobs and generated more than $250 million for the Los Angeles region last year.

The port serves as the beginning and ending point for cruises to the Mexican Riviera. Few ships make stops in Los Angeles because it is the northernmost point for most of the cruises in the region. Three cruise lines--Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line--call the port home and made 226 calls at the port last year, carrying about 1.2 million passengers.

Port officials say without the new terminals, the number of cruise ships that call at San Pedro Bay could become stagnant. But if it is able to accommodate the new ships, experts predict the port could see 400 ship calls a year by 2020.

The port is not only in competition with cities around the country and the world, but also with the adjacent Port of Long Beach, the seventh largest cruise ship port in the country. Four years ago Carnival Cruise Lines opened the $40 million Long Beach Cruise Terminal in 2003 at the site of the geodesic dome that once housed Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose wooden airplane.

The Long Beach facility features a 1,100 foot-long, 28-foot-deep berth that can accommodate the mega-ships and a 30,000-square-foot passenger facility that takes up nearly half of the dome.

Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Los Angeles port, said the competition is keen for business. "Cruise lines have expressed interest for several years in a new cruise ship terminal."

The new Los Angeles facility could be about twice the size of the Long Beach complex with two 1,250-foot-long terminals. Moreover, the port would continue operating the smaller existing terminal in the inner harbor, Knatz said.

Waterfront developers first floated the outer harbor terminal plan several years ago, but skeptics questioned whether the cruise industry funnels enough money into the local economy to warrant such a project.

To gauge interest in new terminals, Knatz and port Marketing Manager Chris Chase recently met with the three L.A. home-ported lines. The cruise lines declined to comment for this article, but Chase said all three were supportive of the plan.

Still, upgrading terminal facilities will not solve all of L.A.'s problems as a cruise ship destination. While Los Angeles is a leading departure point for West Coast cruises, it is more spread out than many other cities, making land excursions for cruise passengers more difficult.

In addition, criticism of the project has already reverberated around San Pedro Bay. At a public meeting in January, a number of locals said the proposal will benefit the cruise lines but just be a headache for the local community.

"I'm disturbed about the idea of an outer harbor cruise ship terminal--the visual impacts, the traffic impacts, the increased parking lots and concrete, and increased noise levels," said resident Deb Powers.

And a number of boaters wrote letters to the harbor commissioners to protest the potential harm the project could do to recreational boating in the bay.