The cruise ship industry in San Diego has been buffeted leeward and windward over the 15 years since the Cruise Ship Terminal was dedicated at the foot of B Street. Since then, the industry has been challenged by two laws and San Diego’s geographic place in the maritime pecking order, as kid sibling and economic dwarf to Los Angeles. And now, even the size of the Cruise Ship Terminal may be a problem.

The full potential of the cruise ship industry remains muzzled by the federal Passenger Services Act, a 19th-century era edict that forbids international cruise ships from calling on two American ports in succession. Its original intent was to protect U.S. ferryboat operators on the Great Lakes from Canadian competitors. Proposals to repeal or amend the law have come before Congress over the years, and one such version is now in the Senate Commerce Committee, but more than 100 years after it was written, the U.S. shipbuilding industry still opposes scrapping the law.

If it were legal to travel by cruise ship from San Diego to Los Angeles to San Francisco, the economic impact to the state would exceed $400 million, the Port of San Diego’s Rita Vandergaw has told the American Association of Port Authorities.

Another law, since repealed, also took a toll on the local cruise ship business. Despite this spring's quick end to the Viejas Commodore gaming cruise ship between San Diego and Rosarito Beach, it was a state law in effect from 1992 to 1995 restricting gaming on ships that nearly sank San Diego’s entire cruise ship industry. As a result, cruise ship calls to San Diego in 1996 fell to just 18, with 21,000 total passengers. Since then, port calls have grown steadily: 68 in 1997, 74 in 1998, 100 in 1999, and greater than 110 projected this year, with more than 175,000 passengers.

"We have gained and captured a significant amount of business that was going into Los Angeles," says Lorrin Boyer, assistant director or marketing for the Port of San Diego, who has worked in the cruise industry for more than 10 years.

Those numbers parallel the booming cruise ship business statewide and worldwide. Not only are more cruise ships being built, but the vessels are getting much larger. And the 75-year-old warehouse that became the $3 million Cruise Ship Terminal isn’t. The 1,000-foot-long pier is now shorter than some of the leviathans coming out of dock (but not U.S. docks — a cruise ship hasn't been built in the United States in almost 50 years).

"It’s bursting at the seams; 2,200 people get off with their luggage and another 2,200 get on," Boyer says. The terminal was built to accommodate two normal-sized cruise ships — sometimes three — with Broadway Pier also used on occasion.

Yet the worldwide boom in cruising also is about to hurt San Diego. Royal Caribbean's 1,500-passenger Viking Serenade, which docks every Tuesday in San Diego, soon won’t be. It will go to Europe as a result of Royal Caribbean's joint venture with U.K.-based First Choice Holidays to launch a cruise line targeting European travelers in summer 2001.

"It will decrease our port calls unless Royal Caribbean replaces the ship or someone jumps into the market," says Boyer. "We are looking at what opportunities there are to woo another cruise line. We know Royal Caribbean is not in a position to put another ship in here until at least 2002."

Other cruise companies that stop in San Diego include Carnival, Celebrity, Cunard, Norwegian and Princess, which was the first to visit San Diego, beginning in the early 1980s.

Despite its number of stops here, the Viking Serenade, among the oldest and smallest of Royal Caribbean's line (and yet one of the line's largest ships before today’s age of the mega-cruise ship), is homeported in Los Angeles, not here. But San Diego did become seasonal home port a year ago to Holland America Line's Statendam, which travels to Mexico and Hawaii and has 10 San Diego port calls set for 2001.

Every time the ship is in port, the 1,266-passenger Statendam represents an economic bump of about $350,000, says Patricia McQuater, chairman of the San Diego Port Commission.

"They float in, off-load all these people who are anxious to spend money and they float out," says Boyer. "Businesses may not recognize that the reason their revenues went up on a particular day is because a cruise ship came in."

Through visitor spending, estimated at $70 per person spent ashore during a half-day stop, ship repair, provisions, supplies, taxes and fees, the ship is projected to directly impact the region by more than $7 million annually.

"One of our primary concerns is that there are several major cruise destinations — San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver — that are either expanding or adding new terminals," says Joanne DiBona, director of communications for the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We’ve got to have a new cruise terminal or at least an expanded one. The cruise industry has grown 7 percent each year for the past five years. That's why cities are investing in their infrastructure. This is so critical to our future appeal."

Boyer agrees. "There are 55 new cruise ships being built or on order around the world. We certainly hope to capture some of that business, but there are no immediate plans for another ship to homeport here."

"A lot of people would like to stop here — you roll right into Downtown. There aren’t too many cruise destinations that offer that," DiBona says.

A $25 million terminal expansion has been planned by port staff and consultants, and approved by the port commission, Boyer explains. With the constant dredging of San Diego Bay, the harbor is deep enough. Now comes the challenge of funding it.