[2] The Cape Liberty Cruise Port is located on a 430-acre (170 ha) site that had been originally developed for industrial uses in the 1930s and then taken over by the U.S. government during World War II as the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne.

After conversion of a portion of the site for use as a passenger terminal with full customs and immigration facilities, in May 2004, the Voyager of the Seas became the first ship to depart from the site, the first time in almost four decades that a passenger ship had departed from a port in the state.

In May 2006 Freedom of the Seas – then the world's largest cruise ship – was christened in a broadcast carried live on the NBC's The Today Show.

Before the cruise terminal opened in 2004, no cruise ships had been based out of the New Jersey Hudson Waterfront since the Hamburg-America Line left its Hoboken, New Jersey dock several decades previously.

[7][8] The city of Bayonne has rented land from PANYNJ and is negotiating with SeaStreak to establish ferry service to Manhattan, with a terminal adjacent to the cruise port.