Do the biggest cruise ships fit under Skyway Bridge? Here’s what we found
Developers planning to build a cruise port in Manatee County say one of the project’s main goals is to attract larger cruise ships.
The nearest cruise terminal to the planned Knott-Cowen Cruise Port is Port Tampa Bay. To dock there, cruise ships must fit under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. SSA Marine wants the proposed Manatee County port avoids the clearance issue, allowing taller ships to dock in the region.
While a ship the size of the Titanic can easily pass beneath the Skyway, the largest modern ships cannot, according to ship dimensions reviews by the Bradenton Herald.
“Our new port will complement existing cruise activities in the region by being able to service the newer, larger, low-emissions cruise vessels that would otherwise be unable to visit due to the height restrictions of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge,” Stefano Borzone, president of SSA Marine’s Cruise Division, said in an op-ed last week. “With cruise ships continuing to modernize, the region will be well positioned to align with and support the cruise industry’s future growth.”
SSA Marine recently announced plans to build a cruise port on the 328-acre Knott-Cowen Tract, a piece of undeveloped land near Rattlesnake Key. The company also purchased Rattlesnake Key, which it says it intends to preserve.
If granted approval, the company says it could construct the port in three to five years. With it may come the largest cruise ships the regions has ever seen.
Can modern ships fit under Sunshine Skyway Bridge?
Royal Caribbean operates some of the world’s largest cruise ships, including the Icon of the Seas, which took its maiden voyage from PortMiami in 2024.
According to its Wikipedia page, the Icon of the Seas is 248 feet tall. The draft of the ship — the vertical distance from the waterline to the bottom of the ship — is 30 feet. That means the ship stands about 218 feet above the water line.
That said, the Icon of the Seas can not clear the Skyway Bridge’s 190-foot clearance.
The Icon of the Seas is a resort on the water. It touts 20 decks that include eight “neighborhoods,” a jogging track, laser tag, water parks and dozens of dining options. It can accommodate about 7,600 passengers.
At 1,196 feet long, the Icon of the Seas is longer than the Titanic, which was about 883 feet long and sat about 140 feet above the water line. The Icon of the Seas also has twice as many decks as the Titanic.
Another one of Royal Caribbean’s popular ships, the Oasis of the Seas, is about 206 feet above the waterline which, like the Icon, can not fit under the Skyway Bridge.
One of Disney’s newest cruise ships, the Disney Wish, at 193 feet above water also cannot fit under the Skyway Bridge.
Cruise ships steadily growing larger
Cruise ships have steadily increased in size since the 1970s. At the time, vessels had about an 800-passenger capacity. Then, in the 1980s, the industry began to modernize and cruise lines like Royal Caribbean and Carnival grew in popularity. The companies began operating cruise ships that could accommodate up to 1,500 passengers.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that cruise ships began to carry more than 2,000 passengers, which rapidly grew in the 2000s as passenger counts rose to 5,000 for some ships.
That growth continued to 2024, when the Icon of the Seas became the first cruise ship to surpass a capacity of 7,000 passengers, according to Port Economics, Management and Policy.
