Two issuers name Cruise Terminal 4 for Disney Cruise Line, then stop agreeing
Port Everglades Cruise Terminal 4 at 1800 SE 20th Street is the Disney Cruise Line building, and both issuers say so. From Broward County come 104,162 square feet, 28 check in stations and a Fall 2023 opening. From Disney come a 10:45 AM garage opening and fourteen dated sailings that begin or end somewhere else.
Cruise Terminal 4 is the Port Everglades terminal Broward County assigns to Disney Cruise Line, a 104,162 square foot hall with 28 check in stations that opened in Fall 2023 under a Finding Nemo theme.
Agreement of that kind is rare here. A directory of ten cruise lines carries a toll free number and a website for each and no terminal column, and Broward County attaches a company name on only two of its eight terminal pages: Cruise Terminal 4 to Disney Cruise Line and Cruise Terminal 25 to Celebrity Cruises. Seven of the eight do get a line from Broward County, but inside its interactive parking map instead of on the pages that measure the halls, and there Cruise Terminal 4 is the single entry written without the hedge primarily used by.
Where the two issuers separate is on clocks and on dates. No Port Everglades page prints an opening hour for a terminal or a garage anywhere in its cruise section, and the county’s only timing instruction is to follow the cruise line’s assigned check in time and not to arrive before it. On the other side, Disney Cruise Line prints three clock times for the same morning and a list of sail dates on which its ship uses a different building. Every figure below was read in September 2026 from the issuer that publishes it, and every Broward County figure was read again on October 7, 2026.
| Detail of Cruise Terminal 4 | What Broward County publishes | What Disney Cruise Line publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Street address | 1800 SE 20th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 | 1800 SE 20th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 |
| Operator named | Disney Cruise Line, on the terminal page | Cruise Terminal 4, on the Fort Lauderdale terminal page |
| Floor area | 104,162 sq ft total, 27,472 sq ft baggage laydown, 27,314 sq ft passenger embarkation area | Not published |
| Check in stations | 28 | Not published |
| Berth length and depth | Not published for this terminal | Not published |
| Garage | Terminal connected to the 1,818 space Heron Garage | Heron Parking Garage adjacent, serving Cruise Terminals 2 and 4 |
| Garage opening time | Not published for any garage or lot | 10:45 AM |
| Terminal clock | Follow the cruise line’s assigned check in time | Representatives check guests in from 11:15 AM |
| Ship and date assignment | Not published on any cruise page | Disney Destiny through September 3, 2027, plus 14 dated exceptions |
| Parking rate | $25.00 daily maximum since October 1, 2026, sales taxes included | Sends readers to the Port Everglades website |
| Time from the airport | 45 minutes to one hour for the whole transfer process | About 10 to 15 minutes |
The dossier Broward County prints for Cruise Terminal 4, down to the family restrooms
Broward County measures Cruise Terminal 4 the way it measures the other seven Port Everglades buildings, and then adds two lines that appear on no other terminal page. The county publishes 104,162 square feet of total floor, which puts the Disney building fifth of eight, between Cruise Terminal 26 at 115,581 square feet and Cruise Terminal 19 at 95,000. Its 28 check in stations are the second fewest at the port, ahead only of the 25 at Cruise Terminal 26, out of 371 across all eight halls.
The shape of that floor is where Cruise Terminal 4 stops resembling its neighbours. Against 27,314 square feet of passenger space the county gives it 27,472 square feet of baggage laydown, a gap of 158 square feet and the narrowest at Port Everglades. Set that passenger figure against the total and it is 26.2 percent of the building, second only to the 29.4 percent at Cruise Terminal 18 and more than three times the 8.0 percent at Cruise Terminal 25. The label is different too: seven of the county terminal pages say passenger waiting area, and Cruise Terminal 4 alone says Passenger Embarkation Area.
Two amenities on the Cruise Terminal 4 page appear nowhere else in the set of eight. The county counts the plumbing, listing 3 sets of restrooms and 4 family restrooms, and it lists a covered guest drop off. The other seven pages do neither. The rest is the standard county inventory: simultaneous embarkation and debarkation, 2 elevators and 2 escalators, free Wi-Fi, a VIP area, vending machines, and a public art installation, in this case the glass sculpture Coral Glow Persian Sconce Wall by Dale Chihuly.
One field is empty, and it is the one an engineer would want. A berth length and a berth depth appear on six of the eight Broward County terminal pages, running from 800 feet and 40 feet at Cruise Terminal 29 to 1,648 feet and 38 feet at Cruise Terminal 18. Neither figure appears for Cruise Terminal 4, and neither appears for Cruise Terminal 25. The two buildings with a cruise line printed on them are the two whose technical file is incomplete, a pattern set out in the guide to all eight Port Everglades terminals and the garages that serve them.
Fourteen dated Disney Dream sailings that begin or end away from Cruise Terminal 4
Two Port Everglades ships get opposite treatment from Disney Cruise Line. One of the two gets a single sentence: all Disney Destiny sailings through September 3, 2027 embark and disembark from Cruise Terminal 4, with no exceptions listed at all. The other, Disney Dream, gets two windows and a list. The first window runs through April 27, 2026 and has closed. The second runs from September 14, 2026 through April 9, 2027, and it carries twelve of the fourteen dated exceptions the line publishes.
Those exceptions are directional, which is the detail that changes what a driver should do. Rather than move a whole sailing to another building, Disney Cruise Line splits the outbound leg from the return leg, so a passenger can leave from one terminal and come back to a different one on the same booking. None of this appears on any Broward County page.
| Pattern Disney Cruise Line publishes | Sail dates listed | Garage Broward County pairs with those buildings |
|---|---|---|
| Embark Cruise Terminal 4, disembark Cruise Terminal 2 | April 17, 2026; October 30, 2026; January 8, 2027; March 5, 2027; March 19, 2027; April 2, 2027 | Heron Parking Garage on both legs |
| Embark Cruise Terminal 2, disembark Cruise Terminal 4 | April 20, 2026; November 2, 2026; January 11, 2027; March 8, 2027; March 22, 2027; April 5, 2027 | Heron Parking Garage on both legs |
| Embark Cruise Terminal 4, disembark Cruise Terminal 26 | November 27, 2026 | Heron out, Palm on the return |
| Embark Cruise Terminal 26, disembark Cruise Terminal 4 | November 30, 2026 | Palm out, Heron on the return |
| Disembark outside Florida | May 2, 2026 at the Port of Barcelona; April 12, 2027 at the Port of San Juan | No return garage at Port Everglades |
Cruise Terminal 2 sits at 1801 SE 20th Street and Cruise Terminal 26 at 2026 Eller Drive, and Disney Cruise Line publishes both addresses on the same page as Cruise Terminal 4. That page is one of only two cruise line sites that name a Port Everglades building at all, the other belonging to Holland America Line, as set out in the reconstruction of which cruise line uses which Port Everglades terminal. The Broward County vessel traffic board, which is public and needs no login, agrees with the default: across a 37 day window read in September 2026, Disney Destiny appeared 20 times and Disney Dream 6 times, always at berth 04.
Two Disney Dream dates leave the car in a garage the ship does not come back to
In the Broward County pairing, the Heron Parking Garage serves Cruise Terminals 2 and 4 and the Palm Parking Garage serves Cruise Terminals 19, 21, 25, 26 and 29. Read the exception table against that pairing and twelve of the fourteen dated sailings cost a driver nothing extra: whichever way the Disney Dream splits between Cruise Terminal 4 and Cruise Terminal 2, the same 1,818 space garage takes the car in and hands it back.
Two dates break the pattern. A passenger sailing on November 27, 2026 embarks at Cruise Terminal 4, parks in the Heron Parking Garage and disembarks at Cruise Terminal 26, which Broward County serves from the Palm Parking Garage. A passenger sailing on November 30, 2026 does the reverse, parking in Palm and returning to a Heron building. Neither issuer publishes a way across.
The port does price one move between its own terminals, and it files it under a different question. Answering how to transfer for back to back cruises, the Port Everglades cruise FAQ states that taxi transfers between terminals are possible within the port at a flat rate of $8, and adds that there is no negotiated price for ride share services. The only shuttle Broward County describes runs between Cruise Terminal 29 and the Palm Parking Garage, which the Cruise Terminal 29 page calls free, and it does not touch Cruise Terminal 4.
For those two November dates the $8 flat taxi wins on the only criterion available: it is the sole in port move either county department attaches a number to. Timing is the caveat rather than price. Under the Broward County cruise FAQ all vehicles must leave the parking area once debarkation activities are concluded on the return morning, and the facilities are not staffed 24 hours a day or on non cruise days, so a walk to the wrong garage is a same morning problem, even though item 1135 of the tariff now permits cruise parking through one week after the final debarkation date.
The only clock over a Port Everglades building belongs to a cruise line
Disney Cruise Line publishes three times for a Cruise Terminal 4 morning. The Heron Parking Garage opens at 10:45 AM. Representatives are at the terminal to meet, greet and check guests in starting at 11:15 AM. Guests without a Port Arrival Time, or who have not completed Online Check In, are told to arrive after 2:00 PM. For the Palm Parking Garage the same page gives 10:30 AM.
The same question gets no number at all from Broward County. Its arriving and departing page tells passengers to follow the cruise line’s assigned check in time and, to alleviate delays, not to arrive prior to that assigned time. The parking page lists 6,408 spaces across six facilities, two 7 foot clearances and ten rates, and no hour. On this building the clock belongs to Disney Cruise Line and the tape measure belongs to Broward County.
The gap between 10:45 AM and 11:15 AM is 30 minutes, and the published order of operations explains it. Drivers are told by Disney Cruise Line to follow the signs to the ship and Terminal 4, drop luggage there, and only then be directed to the parking garage to park the car. Bags leave first and the car parks second, which makes a garage gate opening half an hour ahead of the greeters a sequence rather than a contradiction.
Work backwards from 10:45 AM and the airport arithmetic changes. At 1.8 miles, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is the nearest of the three airports the port lists, and Port Everglades asks for 45 minutes to one hour to claim luggage, board transport, clear the security checkpoint and check bags curbside. The airport department puts it lower: Broward County Aviation calls it about a 10 minute ride, and Disney Cruise Line calls it about 10 to 15 minutes. A self parking passenger who lands much before 9:45 AM therefore buys a wait rather than an earlier space, because the binding constraint is the garage gate and not the distance. Anyone arriving without a car gets two priced options on the Cruise Terminal 4 transportation page: a metered taxi from that airport at $18 to $21, with flat rates not allowed, or Van on Demand at $11 per person for parties of 3 or more.
Seven nights in the Heron Garage, priced from the 10:45 AM ticket
Broward County caps a Port Everglades parking day at $25.00 since October 1, 2026 and puts the sales tax inside it, and item 1135 of its filed tariff states that all parking fees include sales taxes. An oversized vehicle pays $30.00 under item 1135 and $35 on the parking page. No reservations and no prepayment are accepted, and payment is by cash, credit or debit at contactless machines on the first floor of the garages.
The rule that decides the bill is that all daily rates begin when you pull the parking ticket from the machine. For a Disney passenger that starting instant is not a free choice, because the Heron Parking Garage does not open until 10:45 AM. A ticket pulled at 10:45 AM sets every daily boundary of the trip at 10:45 AM.
Run a seven night sailing on that boundary. The car enters at 10:45 AM on departure morning and clears the exit at 08:00 on the eighth morning, a stay of six days and 21 hours 15 minutes. Six of those days each fill a $25.00 maximum and the remaining 21 hours run past twelve to fill a seventh, for $175.00 with nothing added for tax. Cross 10:45 AM on the return morning and an eighth day opens at $200.00. Passengers typically debark between 7 and 9 AM, according to Broward County, which leaves a cushion of 1 hour 45 minutes between the late end of a normal debarkation and the $25.00 that tips the total. The hourly ladder underneath that maximum is set out in the eight step Port Everglades parking schedule and how a week lands on $175.00.
Height decides the rest. The Heron Parking Garage carries a 7 foot clearance, the only overhead figure Broward County publishes for it, and a roof box or a raised van is kept off the upper floors and rebilled at the oversized rate, $30.00 in item 1135 and $35 on the parking page. For a standard car the garage wins outright: $175.00 for the week, 1,818 covered spaces, nothing to book. For a tall vehicle the winner is a phone call first, to the parking management team on 954-468-3680, because the county describes its oversized parking as special and limited, with no promise of a space.
The moving sidewalk out of the Heron Garage lands at Cruise Terminal 2
Both issuers describe exactly one covered route between the Heron Parking Garage and a terminal, and it does not end at Cruise Terminal 4. One of them is Broward County, which writes it under the Heron heading on its parking page: an air conditioned elevated passenger bridge with moving sidewalks connects the garage with Cruise Terminal 2, accessed from the 5th floor of the garage. Directly underneath that sentence, the same bullet list names Cruise Terminal 4 and says nothing further.
The same bridge appears in almost the same words on the Disney Cruise Line page that carries the Cruise Terminal 4 information, attached there to Cruise Terminal 2 as well. At 85,504 square feet against 104,162, Cruise Terminal 2 is the smaller building of the pair, and it is the one with the described walk. For the Disney building the two issuers reach for two different words and neither expands: the Broward County terminal page says the terminal is connected to the 1,818 space Heron Garage, and Disney Cruise Line says the garage is adjacent to Cruise Terminal 4. Whether that connection is covered, and how long it takes to walk, is published by neither.
The consequence lands on the exception dates rather than on the default. On the twelve dated sailings that touch Cruise Terminal 2, a Disney Dream passenger gets the described bridge on one of the two legs, either walking out to the ship or walking back to the car. On a standard Cruise Terminal 4 sailing the passenger gets a connection that both issuers assert and neither describes. That is the reverse of what the word exception suggests.
What to settle before driving into Port Everglades for a Disney sailing
- Check the sail date against the Disney Cruise Line terminal page before setting a garage in the satnav. Twelve of the fourteen dated exceptions fall inside the window from September 14, 2026 to April 9, 2027.
- Put 1800 SE 20th Street into the satnav rather than 1850 Eller Drive. The second address is the Port Administration Building, where Broward County keeps a free cell phone waiting lot just past the security checkpoint.
- Measure the vehicle against the 7 foot clearance Broward County publishes at Heron. Above it the charge becomes $30.00 a day under item 1135, or $35 at the parking page figure, and the space becomes special and limited; the parking team takes that question on 954-468-3680.
- Take the parking ticket onto the ship. Paying at a first floor machine before returning to the car is what Broward County recommends, and it matters most on the two November dates when the car sits in a different garage from the arrival hall.
- Carry a government issued photo ID for everyone aged 18 and over. All three port entrances, on SE 17th Street, on State Road 84 and on I-595 East at Eller Drive, ask for it, vehicles are subject to search, and weapons are prohibited inside the port under Florida Statute 311.12(3b).
- Arriving from the airport without a car, choose between the two priced options on the Cruise Terminal 4 page: a metered taxi at $18 to $21 for the whole vehicle, or Van on Demand at $11 per person for parties of 3 or more, from the gray and blue booth near the elevators.
The Cruise Terminal 4 assumptions that cost a Disney passenger time or money
The most expensive mistake happens before anyone reaches Broward County. No PortMiami terminal belongs to Disney Cruise Line, and the Miami-Dade County cruise line list does not carry the company, so a Miami hotel booked for a Disney sailing turns into the 25.7 mile correction priced out in the guide to why Disney Cruise Line does not sail from PortMiami.
Assuming Cruise Terminal 4 is automatic is the second. It is automatic for Disney Destiny, which Disney Cruise Line puts there for every sailing through September 3, 2027. It is not automatic for Disney Dream, whose published list moves the outbound leg, the return leg or both on fourteen dates.
Third is arriving early with a car and expecting to do something useful with it. The garage gate is the binding constraint at 10:45 AM, and Port Everglades explicitly asks drivers not to arrive prior to their assigned check in time. Fourth is height, because the 7 feet at Heron sits below the 9 feet 6 inches Miami-Dade County publishes on one PortMiami garage floor, and Broward County publishes no clearance at all for its four surface lots, none of which serves Cruise Terminal 4 anyway.
The last one is quieter, and it belongs to the cruise line. Rather than print a rate of its own, Disney Cruise Line sends readers to the Port Everglades website, which is why its parking information cannot go stale. A cruise line page that does print a rate is worth checking against item 1135 before it is trusted, because Broward County changes the tariff, as it did on October 1, 2026, and the lines do not always follow.
Which Broward County and Disney Cruise Line pages carry these figures
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. Confirm a rate on the Port Everglades parking page or in item 1135 before driving in. 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.
On the county side that means the Cruise Terminal 4 page, the Cruise Terminal 2 and Cruise Terminal 26 pages, the parking page, the cruise FAQ, the arriving and departing page, the cruise line directory, the Cruise Terminal 4 alternative transportation page and item 1135 of Tariff No. 12. All eight terminal pages were read to confirm which lines appear only on the Disney building. The cruise line side means the Disney Cruise Line terminal information page for Fort Lauderdale and its port details page for the same port.
Six questions about the Disney terminal at Port Everglades
The six answers below were read in September 2026, with the Broward County figures read again on October 7, 2026, from the Broward County cruise pages and from the Disney Cruise Line terminal information page for Fort Lauderdale, and each one names the issuer behind the figure.
The Disney Cruise Line building at Port Everglades is Cruise Terminal 4, at 1800 SE 20th Street, and both Broward County and the cruise line publish that address. Disney Destiny uses it for all sailings through September 3, 2027. Disney Dream uses it too, apart from fourteen dated sailings at Cruise Terminal 2 or Cruise Terminal 26.
The 10:45 AM figure for the Heron Parking Garage, which serves Cruise Terminals 2 and 4, comes from Disney Cruise Line, along with 10:30 AM for the Palm Parking Garage. No Port Everglades page prints an opening hour for any garage or terminal. Its only instruction is to follow the cruise line’s assigned check in time.
Since October 1, 2026, Broward County caps a parking day at $25.00 with the sales tax already inside it, and the day starts when the ticket comes out of the machine. Because the Heron Parking Garage opens at 10:45 AM, a seven night sailing that clears the exit before 10:45 AM on the eighth morning bills seven days, or $175.00. Oversized vehicles pay $30.00 under the tariff and $35 on the parking page.
No. Disney Cruise Line lists fourteen dated exceptions. Six sailings embark at Cruise Terminal 4 and return to Cruise Terminal 2, six embark at Cruise Terminal 2 and return to Cruise Terminal 4, one embarks at Cruise Terminal 4 and returns to Cruise Terminal 26 on November 27, 2026, and one reverses that on November 30, 2026.
According to Disney Cruise Line, representatives begin checking guests in at 11:15 AM, and anyone without a Port Arrival Time should arrive after 2:00 PM. The Heron Parking Garage opens 30 minutes before the first of those times, at 10:45 AM. The Port Everglades instruction is not to arrive prior to the assigned check in time.
The distance Port Everglades publishes from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is 1.8 miles, and the county asks for 45 minutes to one hour for the whole transfer process. The Cruise Terminal 4 transportation page prices a metered taxi at $18 to $21 for the vehicle regardless of passenger count, and Van on Demand at $11 per person for parties of 3 or more.
Two issuers on one building, and only one of them keeps a clock
Cruise Terminal 4 has two authors, and its file reads as though they never spoke. Everything physical comes from Broward County, down to 104,162 square feet, 28 check in stations, 3 sets of restrooms and a named Chihuly sculpture, and the berth line is left blank. Disney Cruise Line publishes every time and every date, from the 10:45 AM garage to the fourteen sailings that use a different address, and prints no dimension and no rate at all.
A passenger needs one figure from each side to plan the morning, and the two sides never appear on the same page. The county built the hall, measured it, hung the artwork and named the tenant. The tenant is the only one who will say when the door opens.