NORFOLK, Va. - More than 2,000 cruise passengers disembarked in Norfolk on Sunday, but the Mermaid City was not the original destination.
The Carnival Legend arrived at Nauticus' Half Moone Cruise Terminal early Sunday morning.
The ship was originally supposed to port in Baltimore, but Tuesday's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which killed six people, blocked the city's port.
Cruise liners and other ships have since been forced to reroute.
Both Carnival and Royal Caribbean announced ships scheduled to return to Baltimore would dock in Norfolk instead.
"This is a community effort. Customs and Border Protection, our stevedore services locally, the entire maritime industry has come together to pull this off. On Easter Sunday, no less," said Stephen Kirkland, Executive Director of Nauticus, on Wednesday. "So we're going to do what we can as a community to support our friends at Carnival and we're thinking about our friends in Baltimore."
Currently, the Half Moone Cruise Terminal in Norfolk is closed until 2025. However, Kirkland said the timing for this ship couldn't have been better.
"We just happened to have a pause in our service to do some construction inside. Fortunately, that hadn't started quite yet so when Carnival and Royal Caribbean called me on Tuesday we said we would help you if we could," explained Kirkland.
Once off the boat, more than 2,000 passengers boarded 70 buses back to Baltimore.
Passengers for the next cruise aboard the Legend were driven to Norfolk to depart here.
