Broward County prints opening hours on the three Port Everglades gates, and one of them never closes
Port Everglades has three gated entrances, and Broward County publishes different hours for each: the Eller Drive checkpoint runs 24/7, the other two close at 6PM. Checkpoint 1 sits at Eller Dr. and I-595, Checkpoint 2 at State Road 84, and Checkpoint 3 at Southeast 17th St., verified September 2026 and October 2026.
That schedule is the part of a drop-off no terminal address can carry. Eight street numbers sit across the Port Everglades cruise terminal pages and three entrance descriptions sit on its Getting Here page, and those two lists never appear together. The hours appear with neither of them: they sit on the cruise Security page, under a heading a driver hunting for directions has no reason to open.
What follows is that cross, assembled only from what Broward County publishes: the numbered checkpoints and their hours, the eight terminal records on the port’s own parking map, the drop-off sentence in the cruise FAQ, and the four highway exits on Getting Here. Every line below was read from a Port Everglades or Broward County page in September 2026 and read again on October 7, 2026.
| Entrance as Port Everglades writes it | Number and hours on the Port Everglades security page | Terminals the county names for it on its parking map | How Port Everglades tells a driver to reach it |
|---|---|---|---|
| I-595 East, located at Eller Dr. | Checkpoint 1, 24/7 | None named for this gate | All four highway routes Port Everglades publishes end here: I-95 south Exit #26, I-95 north Exit #24, I-75 Exit #19 and Florida’s Turnpike Exit #54, each of them to I-595 East |
| State Road 84, just east of U.S. 1, at Spangler Blvd. | Checkpoint 2, 6AM to 6PM | None named for this gate | Port Everglades offers it, with SE 17th St., to guests already in the Fort Lauderdale area |
| SE 17th St., located at Eisenhower Blvd. | Checkpoint 3, 6AM to 6PM | Cruise Terminal 2 and Cruise Terminal 4, the two buildings the Heron Garage serves | Port Everglades offers it to guests already in the Fort Lauderdale area, and Broward County Transit stops on SE 17th St. at the Northport section of the port |
The security page numbers the Port Everglades entrances that the directions page only lists
Two Port Everglades pages describe the same three gates and, read together in September 2026, agree on nothing except the streets. The directions page lists them in the order SE 17th Street, then State Road 84, then I-595 East, with no numbers attached and no hours. The Security page lists them in exactly the reverse order, numbers them 1 to 3 and attaches an opening schedule to each. A driver who reads only the directions page leaves the house believing the three entrances are interchangeable.
The same pair of pages describes the vehicle inspection with two different verbs. Getting Here states that vehicles are subject to search. The Security page states that cruise guests may be subject to periodic vehicle screening upon arrival at any security checkpoint. One reads as a certainty and the other as a sample, and Broward County never reconciles them.
The identity requirement is the one sentence both pages carry. Getting Here says each entrance has a security checkpoint where cruise guests and visitors ages 18 and older are required to provide a government-issued photo ID such as a driver’s license or passport, along with cruise documents. That sentence reappears on the Security page, applied to any of the port’s security checkpoints. Neither page writes a shorter rule for a car that is only dropping people off, a gap that also shapes the way Port Everglades numbers its eight terminals and six parking facilities.
Two of the eight Port Everglades terminals get a closest entrance named, and six get none
The cross does exist, on one page, for one quarter of the port. A record for each of the eight cruise terminals sits on the Port Everglades parking map, and two of those records end with a line naming the nearest gate. Cruise Terminal 2 reads “Closest entrance: SE 17th Street/Eisenhower entrance” and Cruise Terminal 4 reads “Closest Entrance: SE 17th Street and Eisenhower Blvd.”, the same gate written two different ways. The other six records stop at the parking assignment.
Those same records also name cruise lines for seven of the eight buildings, which the terminal pages themselves mostly do not. The map is where Broward County states that Cruise Terminal 18 is primarily used by Royal Caribbean International and Cruise Terminal 29 by Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean International, two attributions that appear nowhere in the prose of the terminal pages and that sharpen which Port Everglades terminal each cruise line publishes for itself. The map heads that data with its own warning: parking assignments may change, so check back the day of your cruise.
| Cruise terminal and the address Port Everglades prints on its map | Cruise line the map names | Parking the map assigns | Closest entrance the map names | Drop-off instruction inside the map record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cruise Terminal 2, 1801 SE 20th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 | Primarily used by Princess Cruises | Heron Garage, 1,818 spaces, 7-foot clearance | SE 17th Street/Eisenhower, Checkpoint 3, 6AM to 6PM | Drop off passengers and luggage prior to entering garage |
| Cruise Terminal 4, 1800 SE 20th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 | Disney Cruise Line | Heron Garage, 1,818 spaces, 7-foot clearance | SE 17th Street and Eisenhower Blvd., Checkpoint 3, 6AM to 6PM | None printed, though the terminal page lists a covered guest drop-off |
| Cruise Terminal 18, 1901 SE 32nd St., Hollywood, Florida 33316 | Primarily used by Royal Caribbean International | Parking Lots B and C, 404 and 600 spaces, unless directed to alternate parking | None published | None printed |
| Cruise Terminal 19, 2019 Eller Drive, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 | Used by various cruise lines | Primarily the Palm Garage, 1,966 spaces, 7-foot clearance | None published | Drop off passengers and luggage before entering garage |
| Cruise Terminal 21, 2021 Eller Dr., Hollywood, Florida 33316 | Primarily used by Balearia Caribbean, Princess Cruises and Holland America Line | Palm Garage, 1,966 spaces, unless directed to alternate parking | None published | None printed |
| Cruise Terminal 25, 2025 Eller Dr., Hollywood, Florida 33316 | Primarily used by Celebrity Cruises | Palm Garage, 1,966 spaces, 7-foot clearance | None published | Drop off passengers and luggage before entering garage |
| Cruise Terminal 26, 2026 Eller Drive, Hollywood on the map and Fort Lauderdale on the terminal page, FL 33316 | Primarily used by Holland America Line | Palm Garage, 1,966 spaces, unless directed to alternate parking | None published | Drop off passengers and luggage before entering garage |
| Cruise Terminal 29, 2200 SE 35th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 | Primarily used by Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean International | Palm Garage, 1,966 spaces, plus the shuttle Port Everglades runs to Cruise Terminal 29 | None published | Drop off passengers and luggage before parking |
Read down the last two columns and the pattern is uncomfortable. The two terminals with a named entrance are pointed at a checkpoint that closes at 6PM, and neither of those two records repeats the drop-off instruction that five of the other six carry.
The one sentence Port Everglades writes about its own drop-off curb
The county advertises this curb and regulates it in a single line, on a page about weapons. Under its cruise rules, the Security page instructs drivers not to leave vehicles unattended in “No Parking” zones, fire lanes or passenger drop-off areas. That is the entire published rule for the drop-off area: no time limit, no length of stay, no fine, no address.
The order of operations is published elsewhere and is unambiguous. The cruise FAQ asks whether to park first or go straight to the cruise terminal, and answers that the port recommends dropping off all luggage and passengers at the terminal before parking. Its baggage answer says the same thing again for drivers, adding that porters will be available at the front of all cruise terminals to collect baggage and that porters carry spare tags for anyone who arrives without them.
Everything else about the curb is a bullet. The Arriving and Departing page sells efficient drop-off areas, covered walkways and curbside porter service for baggage as amenities of the port, without saying where any of them is. Only one of the eight terminal pages puts a drop-off in its own amenity list: Cruise Terminal 4, whose Disney Cruise Line facilities list a covered guest drop-off beside 27,314 square feet of Passenger Embarkation Area and 28 check-in stations. The other seven list check-in stations, escalators and floor area instead.
One more object waits at the gate that no directions page mentions. Cruise guests arriving by personal car will receive a placard to be placed on the rear-view mirror or on the driver’s side dashboard, unobstructed and visible for inspection, in the wording Broward County uses. It appears once, on the Security page, in the same list as the drop-off sentence.
Three photo IDs for two passengers at a Port Everglades checkpoint
Count the documents a drop-off actually presents. Broward County requires a government-issued photo ID from cruise guests and visitors ages 18 and older, still the wording on October 7, 2026, so a driver taking two adults to a ship hands over three IDs, one of which belongs to somebody who will not board. Add a third adult passenger and the number is four. A 17-year-old in the same car adds nothing to the pile, because the county sets the threshold at 18.
The weapons rule is cited twice by the same port with two different subsections. Getting Here says no weapons are allowed on port property in accordance with Florida State Statute 311.12(3b). The Security page quotes Florida State Statute 311.12(7) instead, the subsection that makes it a first degree misdemeanor to have a concealed weapon in or upon a vehicle in a designated restricted area, and lists the exemptions: active-duty certified federal or state law enforcement personnel, and persons designated in writing by the seaport director. Anyone else has to write to the Port Director at [email protected] with a copy of a State of Florida concealed weapons permit and an employer’s letter.
Two further limits belong to the driver rather than the passenger. Drones appear on the prohibited list alongside firearms, flares and liquid bleach, on a list Broward County ties to 33 CFR 105.515(a). And cruise guests have access to the cruise area only, because roaming through the port is prohibited, which rules out sightseeing on the way back out. Suspicious activity goes to the Broward Sheriff’s Office at Port Everglades on 954-765-4511.
Orange herons, green palm fronds, and four highway exits that all feed one gate
Once past the barrier, Broward County stops naming streets and starts naming colors. The parking page tells drivers bound for the Heron Garage to follow the orange directional signs featuring a flying Heron, and drivers bound for the Palm Garage to follow the green directional signs featuring a palm frond, in both cases from any of the port’s entrances. The Arriving and Departing page adds that colorful digital wayfinding featuring Florida native plants and animals will appear with ship names and terminal assignments, which is where the ship to building match finally becomes public inside the fence.
Outside the fence, the routing is one-directional. Port Everglades publishes four highway approaches and all four end at the same place: I-95 southbound takes Exit #26, I-95 northbound Exit #24, I-75 Exit #19 and Florida’s Turnpike Exit #54, each of them to I-595 East and then the exit to Port Everglades. Every one of those drivers arrives at Checkpoint 1, the only entrance Broward County lists as 24/7. The SE 17th St. and State Road 84 gates are offered only to those already inside Fort Lauderdale.
One road crosses Port Everglades without a checkpoint, and it does not help a cruise passenger. Broward County opened the Convention Center Connector on 20 October 2025 as an elevated bypass to the expanded convention center, describing it as eliminating the need to pass through Port security checkpoints. It serves convention traffic, and a car bound for a cruise terminal still clears one of the three gates.
What a Port Everglades drop-off is worth against $5.00 for an hour and $175.00 for the week
The barrier only charges a car that takes a ticket. All daily rates begin when you pull the parking ticket from the machine at the garage or parking lot, in the county’s own words, which means a driver who stops at the terminal curb, unloads and leaves the port never starts a clock. That is the entire financial case for a drop-off, and it produces three different prices for the same errand.
| What the car does at Port Everglades | What Broward County charges | Where Broward County publishes the figure | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stops at the terminal, unloads passengers and bags with a porter, leaves the port | $0.00, because no ticket is pulled | Port Everglades parking page, read September 2026 and October 7, 2026 | A driver who is not sailing and can leave before the checkpoint closes |
| Pulls a ticket, parks under one hour, walks the bags in, leaves | $5.00 for 0 to 1 hour, sales taxes included | Port Everglades parking page and item 1135 of Tariff No. 12 | A driver escorting a passenger who needs help to the terminal door |
| Pulls a ticket and leaves the car for a seven night sailing | $175.00, seven daily maximums of $25.00, sales taxes included | Item 1135 of Port Everglades Tariff No. 12, issue number 8, effective October 1, 2026 | A passenger who is both driving and sailing |
The gap between the first and third rows is $175.00 of avoidable cost, and it is the same arithmetic behind the seven night parking total the $25.00 daily maximum produces at Port Everglades. The gap between the first two rows is smaller than most drivers assume: $5.00 buys a full hour inside the garage, which is more time than a curbside handover needs.
On the return leg the port pays for the wait outright. Two free cell phone waiting lots are published, one at the Port Administration Building at 1850 Eller Drive, just past the security checkpoint, and one north of Cruise Terminal 18, and Broward County says passengers typically debark the ship between 7 and 9AM. The Eller Drive lot sits behind Checkpoint 1, the gate that never closes, which makes it the only free waiting spot reachable at any hour.
Which Port Everglades gate wins, by arrival hour and by terminal
Four scenarios cover almost every drop-off, and the Broward County pages decide three of them outright.
Arriving before 6AM or leaving after 6PM, from anywhere. Winner: I-595 East at Eller Dr. It is the only one of the three Port Everglades checkpoints listed as 24/7, so at 5:30AM the other two are not a slower choice, they are a closed one. The nuance: the port publishes no terminal opening hour, so an early arrival buys a parking space and a wait, not an early check-in.
Coming from I-95, I-75 or Florida’s Turnpike at any hour. Winner: I-595 East at Eller Dr. again, on the port’s own routing, since all four published exits feed it. The nuance: a driver who leaves the highway early to reach SE 17th St. is choosing a gate the county never routed them to.
Already inside Fort Lauderdale, bound for Cruise Terminal 2 or Cruise Terminal 4, between 6AM and 6PM. Winner: SE 17th St. at Eisenhower Blvd. This is the only case where Broward County names a gate for a specific building, and it names it twice, once per terminal record. The nuance: those two records are the ones that leave the drop-off instruction out.
Bound for any of the other six terminals. Winner: I-595 East at Eller Dr., by elimination rather than by assignment. Four of those six sit on Eller Drive itself at numbers 2019, 2021, 2025 and 2026, the county names no closer gate for any of them, and it publishes no alternative that stays open past 6PM. Treat this one as what it is: the gate the county’s own directions produce, not a gate the county assigned.
Details of a Port Everglades drop-off that no terminal address carries
- The check-in time comes from the cruise line, not the port. Departing passengers are told to follow the cruise line’s assigned check-in time and, to alleviate delays, not to arrive prior to that time. A terminal opening hour appears nowhere on the port’s site, which is the reverse of the 10 AM rule Port Canaveral publishes for its own terminals.
- Luggage tags belong on the bags before the car reaches the gate. The cruise FAQ asks passengers to attach the tag prior to arriving at the port, and confirms that porters at the front of all cruise terminals carry additional tags for anyone who did not receive them.
- Nothing can be left behind. Luggage cannot be left or stored at the port, in the county’s phrasing, so a bag that misses the ship goes back in the car rather than into a locker.
- The airport run is short and priced twice. Port Everglades puts Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport 1.8 miles away with an average taxi fare of $18 to $21, while Broward County Aviation calls it about a 10-minute ride, the two readings behind the airport to Port Everglades transfer and what each issuer charges for it.
- Cruise documents travel in the carry-on. The port asks passengers to keep identification and cruise documents out of checked luggage because they are produced at the checkpoint and several times more before boarding.
- A hotel van faces the same three gates and the same ID count as a private car, which is why the shuttle question in what Broward County publishes about hotels near the Port Everglades terminals turns on the slowest passenger rather than on distance.
Where a Port Everglades drop-off breaks before the car reaches the curb
The failures are not dramatic and they repeat. One driver programs SE 17th Street because a search result mentioned it, arrives at 5:40AM for a passenger with an early check-in, and finds Checkpoint 3 shut until 6AM with no published detour except a drive back to I-595. A second driver reaches the gate with two passengers who packed their passports in checked bags, because the port asks for photo ID from everyone 18 and older, including the person staying behind the wheel.
A third arrives at Cruise Terminal 18 or Cruise Terminal 29 expecting the county to name a gate the way it does for Cruise Terminals 2 and 4, and finds an address and a parking assignment with no entrance line at all. A fourth trusts a terminal number printed weeks ago, when the county’s own map warns that parking assignments may change and asks drivers to check back the day of the cruise; the pairing that settles it on the day is in the Port Everglades vessel traffic board and the berths it lists by day.
The last failure is the cheapest to avoid and the easiest to make. A driver stops at the curb to walk a passenger inside, leaves the car unattended in the drop-off area, and breaks the single sentence Broward County wrote about that curb. An hour in the Heron or Palm garage costs $5.00 and carries no such instruction. The equivalent decision one county south, where the geometry is a tunnel and a bridge rather than three gates, runs through the two sentences Miami-Dade County writes for a car dropping someone at PortMiami.
How these Port Everglades entrance and drop-off figures were checked
The figures in this guide were verified in September 2026 against the sources named in each section, and every figure credited to Broward County or Port Everglades was read again on October 7, 2026, twice and minutes apart, after Tariff No. 12 was reissued on October 1, 2026. The port’s own pages and its tariff page are the places to confirm any of them before the trip. Every October 1, the first day of its fiscal year, the county reissues its port tariff, while 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.
Six questions drivers ask about dropping off at Port Everglades
The answers below come from the same readings as the tables above, taken in September 2026 and repeated on October 7, 2026: the Port Everglades security, parking, Getting Here, Arriving and Departing, cruise FAQ and parking map pages.
Only two of the eight terminals get a closest entrance named: Cruise Terminals 2 and 4 are pointed at SE 17th Street and Eisenhower Blvd. on the Port Everglades parking map. For the other six the county publishes no closest gate, and every highway exit it lists feeds I-595 East at Eller Drive.
The Port Everglades security page gives Checkpoint 1 at Eller Dr. and I-595 as 24/7, and both Checkpoint 2 at East State Road 84 and Spangler Blvd. and Checkpoint 3 at Southeast 17th St. and Eisenhower Blvd. as 6AM to 6PM, verified September 2026 and October 2026.
Broward County writes one sentence for both categories: cruise guests and visitors ages 18 and older must provide a government-issued photo ID such as a driver’s license or passport at any port security checkpoint, along with cruise documents. The county publishes no separate rule for a driver who stays ashore.
The Port Everglades cruise FAQ answers this directly: the port recommends dropping off all luggage and passengers at the terminal before parking. Its baggage answer repeats the order for drivers, and five of the eight terminal records on the port parking map carry the same instruction in brackets.
No. Drivers are instructed not to leave vehicles unattended in No Parking zones, fire lanes or passenger drop-off areas, on the Port Everglades security page. For waiting, Broward County publishes two free cell phone lots, one at the Port Administration Building at 1850 Eller Drive and one north of Cruise Terminal 18.
No terminal opening hour is published at Port Everglades. Its embarkation instruction is to follow the cruise line’s assigned check-in time and not to arrive prior to it. The only clock the county puts on arrival is the gate: two of the three checkpoints open at 6AM, and Eller Drive runs 24/7.
A port that put clocks on its gates and named a gate for two doors out of eight
The county did the harder half of this job. It numbered its three checkpoints, published an opening schedule for each, and put a closest entrance into the records for Cruise Terminal 2 and Cruise Terminal 4. Those three lines of opening hours are the most useful thing on any Port Everglades page for a driver deciding when to leave the house.
What it did not do is put those two facts on the same page as each other, or extend the second one past the Heron Garage. The hours live on a security page, the entrance names live inside a parking map, the eight addresses live on eight terminal pages, and the page called Getting Here carries none of the three. A driver bound for Cruise Terminal 21 at 5:30AM has to open three separate Port Everglades pages to learn that only one gate is open.
The gate that answers is almost always Eller Drive. Not because Broward County recommended it, but because it is the only entrance whose hours never rule it out.
Related guides
- The eight Port Everglades terminals, their garages and their gates
- What a week in a Port Everglades garage costs at the $25.00 cap
- Which terminal each Port Everglades cruise line publishes
- Dropping off at PortMiami through a tunnel and a bridge
- Port Everglades and PortMiami compared on price and clearance