The Charleston Cruise Port is located in
Charleston, South Carolina and is a Mid-Atlantic homeport for Carnival.
We sailed out of the port in October 2022 on the Carnival Sunshine.
In this video, we’ll provide an overview of our experience with parking,
embarkation, and disembarkation at the port.
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Cruise ships leaving from Charleston dock at the Union Pier Terminal,
which is located steps away from Charleston’s historic downtown district.
As we approached the cruise terminal area, signage pointed us toward the entrance.
Passengers who were parking vehicles entered through a gate
at the intersection of Concord and Laurens Streets at the north side of the terminal.
Terminal staff and signage directed us to the line to prepay for parking.
As with any port, be sure to have your boarding passes and government-issued
photo IDs ready before you arrive at the cruise terminal in case you’re asked to show them.
For our cruise, parking fees were paid by credit card and cash was not accepted.
The fee for a standard-sized one-space vehicle was $21 dollars per night of the cruise.
After paying, the port employee placed a sticker on our windshield.
Complimentary parking was provided at no fee for vehicles displaying
a valid handicap placard or license plate with ID.
For current parking information, check the
South Carolina Ports Authority website we’ve linked in the description below.
After paying for parking, we were routed to a second stop to drop
off our luggage to be delivered to our stateroom.
We highly recommend having your cruise line-issued luggage tags attached to
your bags before arriving at the cruise terminal.
Having ours attached beforehand made the luggage
drop-off a seamless part of the arrival process for our family.
After dropping off our luggage, we drove to the area to park our vehicle.
Terminal staff were on hand to direct vehicles to specific parking spaces.
After parking our vehicle, we walked with our carry-on luggage to Building 324.
Multiple signs and painted walking paths pointed the way and the walk from our
parking space to the building was about two tenths of a mile.
We noticed a small shuttle that appeared to be offering
services for passengers with mobility challenges.
Once we were inside the building, we went through the standard check-in process and
were directed to a seating area where we waited for our boarding number to be called.
The Charleston Cruise Port was a bit different from other ports
we’ve embarked from with the waiting area located almost half a mile from the ship.
When our boarding number was called,
we were directed to a shuttle that transported us to our ship.
Although the process was a bit more convoluted than other ports, it only
took us about an hour and a half from the time we paid for our parking until we were on board.
When we returned from our cruise, we picked up our luggage and again waited
for a shuttle to take us – and our luggage – back to the parking area.