Port Canaveral gives Carnival two berths on opposite sides of the channel
Carnival Cruise Line’s two Port Canaveral berths are Cruise Terminal 3, behind Exit 54B, and Cruise Terminal 6, behind Exit 54A. Favorable case: Carnival Mardi Gras sits at Cruise Terminal 3 on all 26 of its dates. Normal case: one ship, one side, all season. Unfavorable case: Carnival Venezia changes sides on November 1, 2026.
The master cruise schedule the Canaveral Port Authority published for September 2026 through February 2027 lists 136 Carnival calls, and 80 of them stand behind Exit 54B. The other 56 stand behind Exit 54A, on the far side of the harbor.
Those 136 rows are 24.2% of the 563 dated ship rows in the document, second only to Royal Caribbean on 145, and they cover five ships. The line appears on 98 of the 181 dates, and on 37 of them it has ships on both sides at once.
Same cruise line, same port, different ramp.
What Carnival Cruise Line prints for Port Canaveral, and what the port prints
Carnival Cruise Line publishes two Port Canaveral addresses under the question of how to reach a cruise port terminal: A-Side North Cruise Terminal #6 at 9241 Charles Rowland Drive, and B-Side South Cruise Terminal #3 at 220 Christopher Columbus Drive, both in Cape Canaveral, FL 32920.
Thirteen North American ports sit on that page, from Baltimore to Seattle. Miami gets three lettered terminals and San Francisco two piers, and neither entry says which half of the harbor they occupy. Port Canaveral is the one place where the side is printed.
The port approaches it from the other end. According to the Canaveral Port Authority, whose directions page carries the same sentence three times, once under each airport it serves, drivers take S.R. 528 east directly to Port Canaveral, Exit 54A for A Terminals (CT-5, -6, -8 and -10) or Exit 54B for B Terminals (CT-1 or CT-3). Orlando International Airport is approximately 45 minutes west. Orlando Melbourne International Airport is approximately 25 miles, or 40 minutes, south. Orlando Sanford International Airport is roughly 1 hour northwest, 23 miles down S.R. 417 before the Beachline.
Between them the two issuers give everything except the pairing: one names two berths and no ship, the other an exit per berth and no cruise line. Which digit belongs to which street is laid out in the reference on the seven numbered berths at Port Canaveral and the exit behind each one.
Two issuers, two halves of one answer.
Five Carnival ships, 136 dated calls, and the ramp each one takes
Counted from the master schedule for the September 2026 to February 2027 window, every Carnival row resolves to one of three berths. The four digit clock in the source is written out here as Eastern time.
| Ship in the master schedule | Berth assigned | Side and exit off S.R. 528 | Dated calls in the window | Published arrival and departure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carnival Mardi Gras | Cruise Terminal 3, 220 Christopher Columbus Drive | B side, Exit 54B | 26 calls, every one a Saturday | 6:00 AM in, 4:00 PM out, on all 26 |
| Carnival Glory | Cruise Terminal 3 on 38 of its 40 rows | B side, Exit 54B, twice not | 40 calls, mostly Friday or Monday | 7:00 AM in, 3:30 PM out, on 39 |
| Carnival Venezia | Cruise Terminal 6 twice, then Cruise Terminal 3 | Exit 54A on 2 dates, Exit 54B on 15 | 17 calls, 16 of them a Sunday | 6:00 AM in, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM out |
| Carnival Vista | Cruise Terminal 6, 9241 Charles Rowland Drive | A side, Exit 54A | 26 calls, weekends bar one Friday | 7:00 AM in on 22, 4:00 PM out on all 26 |
| Carnival Freedom | Cruise Terminal 6, first row October 30, 2026 | A side, Exit 54A | 27 calls, Monday through Saturday | 7:00 AM in, 3:30 PM out, on all 27 |
Three of the five never move: Carnival Mardi Gras holds Cruise Terminal 3 across 26 Saturdays, while Carnival Vista and Carnival Freedom hold Cruise Terminal 6 across 53 rows between them. None of the 136 rows carries the Port of Call marker that sits on 42 rows elsewhere in the document, so each one is a turnaround.
Two ships carry the exceptions. Both earn a paragraph.
Carnival Venezia moves from Cruise Terminal 6 to Cruise Terminal 3 on November 1, 2026
Carnival Venezia opens the window on the A side and finishes it on the B side. Its first two rows are Saturday October 10, 2026, in at 6:00 AM and out at 3:30 PM, and Sunday October 18, 2026, in at 6:00 AM and out at 5:00 PM, both at Cruise Terminal 6 behind Exit 54A. Every row after that is Cruise Terminal 3 behind Exit 54B.
Fifteen of them, all Sundays, run from November 1, 2026 to February 21, 2027, with a 6:00 AM arrival throughout and a 4:00 PM departure on fourteen. Between October 18 and November 1 the ship crosses roughly 1.9 miles of harbor, and the ramp a driver needs flips from 54A to 54B.
Sorting all 563 dated ship rows by hull shows how rare that is. Four ships appear on both sides of the channel, and two of them, AIDAdiva and Norwegian Bliss, are marked Port of Call on every row, so nobody is driving to them. The remaining pair is Carnival Venezia and Carnival Glory. How the port lays out that grid, and how often it reissues the file, is worked through in the reading of the Port Canaveral master cruise schedule, column by column.
A repeat passenger remembers a ramp. The ship does not.
Two Carnival Glory rows that break the Cruise Terminal 3 pattern
Carnival Glory holds Cruise Terminal 3 on 38 of its 40 rows, in at 7:00 AM and out at 3:30 PM with almost no variation. The two rows that differ do so in opposite directions.
Sunday September 20, 2026 puts the ship at Cruise Terminal 6, on the A side, behind Exit 54A, with an empty arrival cell and an empty departure cell. Just 5 of the 563 dated ship rows lack both times, and it is the single Carnival row among them, which is a thin basis for timing a 45 minute drive from Orlando International Airport.
On Saturday January 30, 2027 the same hull appears at Cruise Terminal 1, 9050 Discovery Rd., the one row it ever takes there. Exit 54B still applies, since Cruise Terminal 1 and Cruise Terminal 3 share the B side, so a driver working from memory reaches the right ramp and the wrong street. That date is also the only one in 181 days carrying three Carnival ships: Carnival Freedom at Cruise Terminal 6, Carnival Glory at Cruise Terminal 1, Carnival Mardi Gras at Cruise Terminal 3. Three ships, three addresses, two exits.
The right ramp is not the same thing as the right building.
What a published departure time does to a Carnival checked bag
Checked baggage service at a Carnival pier is available only until 2 hours before the ship’s published departure time, according to Carnival Cruise Line, and anyone arriving later carries their own bags aboard. The Canaveral Port Authority publishes the departure time. Neither issuer does the subtraction.
Done here, it yields two clocks. Carnival Glory and Carnival Freedom leave at 3:30 PM, which closes their bag desk at 1:30 PM. The other three leave at 4:00 PM, putting the deadline at 2:00 PM for Carnival Mardi Gras, Carnival Vista and Carnival Venezia. The port sets the other end of the window: garages and surface lots do not open before 10 AM for embarking passengers, at $20.00 per day plus tax, card only.
The usable stretch is therefore 3 hours 30 minutes on a Glory or Freedom sailing and 4 hours on the other three. The winner by scenario is clear rather than balanced. For a 3:30 PM ship the earliest appointment on offer wins, because the missing 30 minutes lands on the same side as the drive and the garage queue. For a 4:00 PM ship a midday slot still clears the bag desk. Guests scheduled to reach the terminal before 1:30 PM usually hand bags to a porter, at a customary $1 tip per bag.
Where the calculation stops working: a late appointment on a 3:30 PM sailing, where garage, porter and bag desk compress into one hour. What each cruise line publishes about the garages those cars go into is audited separately in the cruise line by cruise line reading of Port Canaveral parking.
Subtract two hours from the schedule. That is the deadline.
The arrival guides for Cruise Terminal 3 and Cruise Terminal 6 are not the same page
Both Carnival berths have an arrival guide on portcanaveral.com, and read in August 2026 the two pages are built differently. At Cruise Terminal 3 the port offers one combined pickup and drop-off entry alongside parking, and both of its route links point at a single Apple Maps pin, 28.406472 by -80.599610.
Cruise Terminal 6 splits the same job three ways. It carries separate entries for luggage drop off, passenger drop off and parking, each with its own coordinate: 28.41681 by -80.62972, 28.41700 by -80.62883 and 28.41836 by -80.62833. Those three pins span about 720 feet end to end, and the closest two sit roughly 294 feet apart.
Measured from the coordinates the port publishes, those two sets of pins lie about 1.9 miles apart in a straight line, with Cruise Terminal 6 to the north. That matches the port’s own labels, A side north and B side south, and it is the figure neither issuer prints. Both pages repeat one instruction: plan to arrive at the cruise terminal at your assigned boarding time.
One berth gets one pin. The other gets three.
Six things a Carnival boarding pass and the port schedule settle between them
- The boarding pass is the only document naming the berth for a specific sailing. The port’s cruise lines page lists Carnival Cruise Line with reservations on 1-800-764-7419 and prints no terminal beside it.
- Exit 54B serves CT-1 or CT-3 and Exit 54A serves CT-5, -6, -8 and -10. Nothing signposted on S.R. 528 names a cruise line, so the decision rests on the digit alone.
- Online check-in closes at midnight Eastern time the day before sailing, and the arrival appointment is chosen inside it, with a request to arrive promptly within the window selected.
- Printed Carnival luggage tags have to be attached before reaching the terminal, replacements come from the curbside porter, and a bag still marked TBA gets re-tagged there.
- Garages open at 10 AM for embarkation, take no cash and cost $20.00 per day plus tax, so a berth confirmed at 7:00 AM buys a wait rather than a space. The port’s ground transportation office answers on (321) 394-3203 from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday to Friday, and holds commercial vehicles to 15 minutes in a loading zone.
- Two addresses cover it: Cruise Terminal 6 at 9241 Charles Rowland Drive and Cruise Terminal 3 at 220 Christopher Columbus Drive, with 58.8% of the line’s calls going to the second. The wider picture of berths, garages and rates behind both is set out in the Port Canaveral reference on terminals, cruise lines and parking.
Where a Carnival arrival at Port Canaveral goes wrong
Driving to last year’s ramp. The Carnival Venezia rows make the case alone: two October 2026 dates at Cruise Terminal 6 behind Exit 54A, then fifteen Sundays at Cruise Terminal 3 behind Exit 54B. Sail in October, rebook for January, and the remembered exit is wrong.
Reading the two published terminals as a choice. A-Side North Cruise Terminal #6 and B-Side South Cruise Terminal #3 describe the whole operation, not the sailing in hand.
Following the Parking and Directions link on the cruise line’s port list to find a price. It lands on the terminal selector instead of the page carrying $20.00 per day plus tax, a gap traced in the audit of what each cruise line publishes about the port’s garages.
Treating an empty time cell as a cancelled call. The Carnival Glory row for September 20, 2026 names a ship and a berth and prints no hours, which is a gap in the grid rather than a missing sailing.
Navigating to the Cruise Terminal 3 pin for a Cruise Terminal 6 departure. The two lie about 1.9 miles apart across water, and the recovery is a return to S.R. 528 rather than a turn inside the port.
How these Carnival terminal assignments were checked
The figures in this guide were verified in August 2026 against the sources named in each section. Parking rates usually change in January, shuttle fares and cruise line transfer prices change by season, and ship schedules change weekly; check the issuer’s page before you travel. No provider paid for placement here, and none can pay to appear. Where a booking link earns Lot and Gate a commission it is marked as sponsored and flagged in this line, and as of September 2026 no affiliate link is live anywhere on this site.
Questions about Carnival sailings and the two Port Canaveral berths
The counts below come from the Canaveral Port Authority master cruise schedule for September 2026 through February 2027, from the port’s directions and arrival guide pages, and from Carnival Cruise Line’s own port list, all read in August 2026.
Two, according to Carnival Cruise Line: A-Side North Cruise Terminal #6 at 9241 Charles Rowland Drive and B-Side South Cruise Terminal #3 at 220 Christopher Columbus Drive. In the master schedule for September 2026 to February 2027, 80 of the 136 dated Carnival calls are B side and 56 are A side.
Exit 54B for Cruise Terminal 3, where Carnival Mardi Gras, Carnival Glory and Carnival Venezia berth from November 2026. Exit 54A for Cruise Terminal 6, worked by Carnival Vista and Carnival Freedom. The Canaveral Port Authority assigns 54A to CT-5, -6, -8 and -10 and 54B to CT-1 or CT-3.
No. The master schedule puts Carnival Venezia at Cruise Terminal 6 on October 10 and October 18, 2026, then at Cruise Terminal 3 for fifteen Sundays from November 1, 2026 to February 21, 2027. Arrival stays at 6:00 AM, and the exit changes from 54A to 54B with the berth.
Checked baggage closes 2 hours before the published departure time, according to Carnival Cruise Line. Applied to the port’s schedule, that is 1:30 PM for Carnival Glory and Carnival Freedom, which leave at 3:30 PM, and 2:00 PM for Carnival Mardi Gras, Carnival Vista and Carnival Venezia, which leave at 4:00 PM.
Once in the published window. The master schedule puts Carnival Glory at Cruise Terminal 1, 9050 Discovery Rd., on January 30, 2027, the single date with three Carnival ships in port. Cruise Terminal 1 shares Exit 54B with Cruise Terminal 3, so the ramp holds and the street address changes.
Garages and surface lots open at 10 AM for embarking passengers, at $20.00 per day plus tax, cards only. Guests are asked to arrive inside the appointment chosen during online check-in, which closes at midnight Eastern time the day before, so a 7:00 AM arrival buys a wait.
The ramp belongs to the sailing, not to the cruise line
Carnival at Port Canaveral looks like one operation with two front doors, and the schedule shows something closer to two operations sharing a phone number. Cruise Terminal 3 runs Saturdays, Sundays, Fridays and Mondays behind Exit 54B; Cruise Terminal 6 runs a separate rota behind Exit 54A, 1.9 miles off by air and further by road. A grid the port reissues without notice picks between them, one date at a time, and Carnival Venezia already changed its answer once inside a single season.