St Petersburg FL (Florida)

St Petersburg is a port city in Florida USA (Pinellas County) with population around 260,000. The Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater Metro by population (around 3,2 million) is Florida's second-largest - after Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metro (around 6,14 million). The city is on the Mexican Gulf and is one of the Tampa Bay Area's main cities - together with Tampa and Clearwater.

Port St Petersburg Harbor (1925-opened) is in downtown, and adjacent to two boats/yachts serving facilities - Municipal Marina and Harborage Marina (Bayboro Harbor). The Port houses the USCG Sector St Petersburg and serves mainly passenger ships - ferries (Cross-Bay Ferry boats), superyachts, cruise ships.

Cross-Bay ferries serve the Tampa-St Petersburg route seasonally (October-November thru May) since 2016.

• In Tampa, the boats depart from Tampa Convention Center's dock, while in St Petersburg, they leave from North Straub Park's dock (near Vinoy Marina).
• Departures from St Petersburg are on Wednesdays and Thursdays (at 4:45 pm), on Fridays and Saturdays (at 10 am), and on Sundays (at 11 am).
• Departures from Tampa are on Wednesdays and Thursdays (at 10:45 pm), on Fridays and Saturdays (at 11 pm) and on Sundays (at 7:30 pm).
• As of 2023, Cross-Bay Ferry adult ticket prices were US$12 pp per one-way crossing. Youths, college students, seniors, people with disabilities and active/retired military personnel receive discounted tickets.
• In 2022, on the Tampa-Petersburg route was deployed the twin-hull catamaran Provincetown III (2004-built, IMO 9329394) which has max passenger capacity 149 and average speed 30 mph/50 kph.

The Cross-Bay ferry service is a public-private partnership between the counties Pinellas and Hillsborough and HMS Ferries Inc (part of HMS Global Maritime (1994-founded as Hornblower Marine Services, based in New Albany, Indiana).

As cruise port, St Petersburg Florida was introduced with the 2023 schedule of the ACL-American Cruise Lines catamaran ship American Glory.

Next table shows the 21-night/22-day "Complete Southeast" itinerary from Baltimore to St Petersburg. Prices started from US$ 17260 per person with double occupancy.

As cruise port, Saint Petersburg is also included in the ACL's itinerary "Florida Gulf Coast & Keys" (7-night/8-day roundtrip from St Petersburg).

Prices started from US6010 pp with double occupancy.

The settlement was town-incorporated in 1892 and city-incorporated in 1903. As a harbor port, St Petersburg started to grow in the early-20th-century when the downtown waterfront infrastructure was developed, and especially after 1908 when the shipping channel was dredged/deepened allowing access to larger vessels. The city's tourism industry developed in the 1920s-1930s, with seasonal tourists arriving (by cars, trains and yachts) from Canada and the North-Midwest USA.

St Petersburg was the principal Gulf Coast destination for trains serving the routes from Chicago, Cincinnati and New York. The 1924-opened Gandy Bridge (carrying highway 92) and the 1960-opened Howard Frankland Bridge (carrying highway I-275) both span Old Tampa Bay and directly connect St Petersburg to Tampa.

The city's current-day economy is largely based on industries like finances (Raymond James Financial, Fidelity National Information Services), healthcare (Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, St Anthony's Hospital, Bayfront Health), retail shopping (HSN, Publix Super Markets), electronics manufacturing (Jabil), communications, private and higher education, tourism (annual festivals, parades, museums, arts, sports).