Terminal Parking vs Ferry and Cab at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
$45 a night to park at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal against $4.50 on the NYC Ferry. Which one is right depends on one question, and it is not the price.
The short answer
Park at the terminal if you are driving in from outside the city, if you have more than a bag each, or if anyone in your party would struggle with four long blocks — $45.00 a night buys you a door-to-door arrival at a terminal that is genuinely awkward to reach any other way. Take the ferry or a cab if you are already in New York and traveling light: at $4.50 the South Brooklyn route lands you a short walk from the pier with the harbor view thrown in, and on a seven-night cruise it saves you $315 against the lot. What almost nobody should do is plan a train-and-bus arrival with a full family's luggage, and that is the option Red Hook's geography quietly punishes.
- parking at the terminal — You are driving in from outside New York City — there is nowhere cheaper near the pier, and the lot is at the terminal itself
- parking at the terminal — You have checked bags for more than two people, or anyone with limited mobility: only Borough Hall among the nearby subway stations is ADA-accessible
- arriving by ferry or cab — You are already in Manhattan or Brooklyn and traveling light — $4.50 against $45.00 a night is not close
- arriving by ferry or cab — Your sailing is a week or longer and you have somewhere free to leave the car; the lot's cost scales with the cruise, the ferry's does not
- arriving by ferry or cab — You are flying in — you are paying for a car to the terminal either way, and the TLC publishes no flat fare to Brooklyn from any airport
Published by CruiseDayGuide · Updated August 17, 2026 · sources checked August 17, 2026
At most cruise ports this comparison would be parking against a cheaper parking lot. Red Hook does not have one, so the real question here is whether to bring a car at all — and Brooklyn makes that question unusually sharp in both directions. On one side, $45.00 a night adds up fast on a seven-night sailing, and the terminal sits a $4.50 ferry ride from Lower Manhattan. On the other, Red Hook is the only cruise terminal on this site with no subway station anywhere near it: every train journey ends with a bus and about four long blocks on foot, which is a different proposition with three suitcases than with a backpack. The numbers below are all read from the operators' own pages. The decision they point to depends almost entirely on how much luggage you are carrying and where you are starting from.
What each side actually costs
Every figure is read from the operator's own page on 2026-08-17. The parking column is per night of the cruise; the transit columns are per person, per trip.
| Option | Price | Seven-night sailing | Gets you to the door? | With luggage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn Cruise Terminal lot | Price$45.00 per night, up to 24 hours, taxes included | Seven-night sailing$315 for seven nights | Gets you to the door?Yes — the lot is at the terminal, on the south side of the entrance | With luggageNo limit — the car comes to the terminal |
| NYC Ferry, South Brooklyn route | Price$4.50 one way per person | Seven-night sailing$4.50 each way, whatever the cruise length | Gets you to the door?Almost — the Red Hook landing is a short walk from the terminal | With luggageManageable, but it is a boat and a short walk at each end |
| B61 bus | Price$3.00 per person, one free transfer within two hours | Seven-night sailing$3.00 each way, whatever the cruise length | Gets you to the door?No — about four long blocks on foot, per NYCEDC | With luggageHard — about four long blocks on foot after the stop |
| Taxi or rideshare | PriceMetered; the TLC publishes no flat fare to Brooklyn from any airport | Seven-night sailingTwo rides, whatever the cruise length | Gets you to the door?Yes — there is a taxi stand and a pre-arranged holding lot outside | With luggageNo limit, and it stops at the terminal |
marks a row carrying at least one figure read on the operator’s own page during the source check. The seven-night parking figure is the published nightly rate multiplied out; NYCEDC publishes no weekly rate for this lot. The taxi row states no total on purpose: the TLC publishes rate components for a Brooklyn trip rather than a flat fare, and an estimate of ours would not be a fare.
Why Red Hook makes this harder than it looks
Red Hook is a peninsula, and the Hamilton Avenue expressway trench cuts it off from the rest of Brooklyn with pedestrian crossings at only a handful of streets. MTA's own station list has no subway station on the peninsula at all — this is the only terminal on this site where that is true. That is why the transit option is genuinely worse here than the fare suggests, and why the ferry is genuinely better: the Red Hook landing is the one piece of public transport that puts you within a short walk of the pier.
- No subway station in Red Hook, per MTA's own station inventory.
- The B61 stops at Van Brunt and Pioneer Streets; NYCEDC describes the remaining walk as approximately four long blocks.
- Of the nearest subway stations, only Borough Hall is ADA-accessible; the F and G stations at Carroll Street and Smith–9 Streets are not.
- Ignore any direction onto the B77 bus, including NYCEDC's own: MTA's page for that route 404s and it is not in MTA's current Brooklyn network.
Station inventory from MTA's own data; the four-long-blocks description and the B77 instruction are NYCEDC's, read 2026-08-17. We checked the B77 against MTA's route list and schedule feed and it does not exist.
The ferry, honestly
It is the best-value arrival at this port and it comes with a real constraint: it is a boat on a timetable, not a taxi.
- $4.50 one way, with a reduced fare for riders on the Ferry Discount Program.
- Children under 44 inches ride free with an adult.
- From Red Hook toward Manhattan the first weekday boat is 6:40 am and the last is 9:06 pm, roughly every 45 to 50 minutes.
- The weekday route runs East 34th Street to Governors Island via Wall Street/Pier 11 in about 40 minutes.
- The stop is called Red Hook, never Brooklyn Cruise Terminal — worth knowing before you scroll past it in the app.
- Multi-trip passes exist and are cheaper per ride; we list their prices on the Brooklyn guide's transfer card rather than here.
Fares from NYC Ferry's Ticketing Info page and timings from its South Brooklyn route page, both read 2026-08-17. Note NYC Ferry's site footer still shows an older $4.00 adult fare; the Ticketing Info page is the current one.
When the car is simply the right answer
We would rather say this plainly than pretend the cheap option always wins. If you are driving in from Long Island, New Jersey, upstate or further, there is no park-and-ride worth using and no cheaper lot near the terminal — you are choosing between the $45 lot and an expensive city garage plus two cab rides. And if the party includes anyone who would find four long blocks with luggage difficult, the transit saving is not a saving. It is a hard morning before a cruise.
Our own reading of the sourced facts on this page, not a claim by any authority.
Questions cruisers ask about this choice at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
Is it cheaper to take the ferry than to park at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal?
Much cheaper, in fare terms: $4.50 one way against $45.00 a night, so a seven-night cruise costs $315 to park and about $9 per person to ferry in and out. Whether it is the right call is a different question — the ferry runs every 45 to 50 minutes and ends at 9:06 pm from Red Hook, and you still have to get yourself and your luggage to a ferry landing at the start.
Can I get to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on the subway?
Not directly. There is no subway station in Red Hook — MTA's own station list has none on the peninsula — so every train route ends with the B61 bus and about four long blocks on foot, or with a cab. The B61 fare is $3.00 with one free transfer within two hours.
How much is a cab from the airport to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal?
There is no flat fare. The TLC's $70.00 JFK flat fare applies only between JFK and Manhattan; JFK to Brooklyn is the standard metered fare. LaGuardia is metered plus a $5.00 surcharge, Newark is metered plus a $20.00 Newark surcharge with the driver's return tolls charged to you, and a $2.00 airport access fee applies to pickups at JFK and LaGuardia. NYCEDC does publish its own undated estimates for each airport, and we reproduce them on the airport transfer cards in the Brooklyn guide rather than here — they are a budgeting aid, not a fare, and this page only prints figures an operator or an authority currently stands behind.
Is there anywhere free to park near the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal?
Nothing we would send you to. Red Hook has street parking, but leaving a car on a New York City street for a week means alternate-side rules, no security, and a risk we are not going to recommend anyone take before boarding a ship. The terminal lot is secured and staffed, which is a large part of what the $45 buys.
Plan the rest of your cruise day
Where these facts come from
- NYCEDC — Brooklyn Cruise Terminal Directions & Parking — checked 2026-08-17
- NYCEDC — Cruise NYC Frequently Asked Questions — checked 2026-08-17
- NYCEDC — Embarking & Disembarking — checked 2026-08-17
- Propark Mobility — Brooklyn Cruise Terminal Parking — checked 2026-08-17
- NYC Ferry — Ticketing Info — checked 2026-08-17
- NYC Ferry — South Brooklyn route — checked 2026-08-17
- MTA — Subway and bus fares — checked 2026-08-17
- NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission — Taxi Fare — checked 2026-08-17
Published parking rates, shuttle hours and hotel package terms change without notice, and on a comparison that matters twice over: a rate change does not just move a number, it can flip which side of this page wins. We date every fact we take from an operator, and we leave a figure out entirely rather than repeat one we could not read at the source. Price your own dates at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal before you treat any saving here as yours.
Want the complete Brooklyn Cruise Terminal cruise guide?
Restaurants, activities, hotels, terminal tips, parking, packing lists, and boarding advice — all in one page.
View Full GuideLet them watch you sail
Brooklyn Cruise Terminal has a live camera pointed at the water. Send this to whoever is staying home and they can watch your ship leave.
We sail from Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. You can watch our ship leave on the port's live camera: https://cruisedayguide.com/guide/brooklyn/webcam