The Night Before Cape Liberty: Newark, Jersey City and Bayonne Hotels With a Car

Cape Liberty is the New York-area terminal built for drivers, with its own garage and a 9-mile run from Newark.

That makes keeping the car tempting — and on our numbers, it’s the most expensive way to spend the night before.

The Newark-airport hotels price parking like a suburb, at $16 and $17 a day to self-park. Residence Inn Newark Elizabeth costs more at $27 — its Park & Fly package keeps a car up to 8 days with one night.

That package is written for flyers, not cruisers. We saw no mention of Cape Liberty in it, so ask whether it covers a sailing and how you’d reach Bayonne.

SpringHill Suites quotes its “Park Here, Fly There” rates by phone.

Midtown is a different bill. The Holiday Inn Express in Hell’s Kitchen parks at a garage on West 45th for $55 a 24 hours, with no in and out, and INK48’s valet is $80.

Our own hotel pages list four more airport hotels in the same band — Hampton Inn at $22 a day, Embassy Suites at $26, DoubleTree at $27 and the Hilton at $28 — figures we haven’t re-read since we wrote them.

Midtown also adds New York City’s $1.50-a-night hotel unit fee on top of sales tax, which the New Jersey rooms don’t carry.

Still choosing a room? Our New York cruise hotels page ranks them by terminal.

Royal Caribbean’s US page says $35 a day including taxes, cash or major cards, with no reservation needed. That’s the figure we use.

Two other pages disagree — the line’s Singapore-site copy of the same page still says $22, and a cruise-news guide updated in October 2025 says $30 for a car.

That guide also lists $60 a day for an RV or minibus and $90 for a full-size bus. Royal Caribbean’s own wording is narrower: a camper that takes more than one space pays double.

The garage clears 7 feet 4 inches (2.23 meters on the Singapore copy), and an open lot takes taller vehicles.

Ask the port for the day’s rate when you arrive, not when you book — three sources, three numbers.

We can’t confirm it does. Our own New York parking page says Park2Go in Elizabeth runs one, based on an August 2024 article that listed indoor valet at $20 a day, outdoor at $18 and a shuttle every 30 to 45 minutes until 2:45 PM.

A guide updated in 2025 describes the same lot, at 780 Dowd Avenue, as an airport lot without a cruise shuttle — outdoor from $19.99 a day, indoor $21.99, and $15 a day more for a bike rack or hitch.

A booking site lists only Newark terminal runs for it.

Two second-hand sources pointing opposite ways, and nothing from Park2Go itself in what we read.

The cheaper airport lots have the same catch. The 2025 guide lists Value Parking on McClellan Street from $13.95 a day and Newark Long Term Parking on Frelinghuysen Avenue from $18.99 — both shuttle to the airport, not the cruise port.

ParkSleepFly sells a Cape Liberty package at a hotel its listing places half a mile from the airport and 5 miles from the pier, with parking, a night and a shuttle bundled. It showed us no price.

Driving your own car instead of a rental? New York cruise parking covers all three terminals.

One night comes to about $84 on our numbers, and only $17 of it is parking.

Here the rental is the bill, not the garage.

Keeping the same car through a 7-night cruise adds seven rental days and $245 at the port — about $778 in all.

Set either figure against the two rideshare fares you type in, and the airport hotel’s own shuttle if it has one.

The Port Authority charges only cars entering New York — so a Midtown hotel night followed by a drive to Bayonne crosses the Hudson for free.

Newark to the pier stays on the New Jersey Turnpike. We couldn’t read a reliable toll for it, so the calculator carries none.

Coming back into the city after the cruise is the paid direction, and a rental’s toll program adds its own fee on top; the hub’s toll section has both.

No car at all? PATH and the light rail get within two miles of the pier.

Search Newark for the afternoon before you sail, with Newark as the return the next morning.

If you’ll drive on after the cruise, run a second search from disembark day instead — a car parked in Bayonne all week costs you every day it sits.