International Marine Passenger Terminal
The Port of Toronto's International Marine Passenger Terminal is a cruise ship passenger terminal located at 8 Unwin Avenue in Toronto's old Portlands.
The terminal is a two-storey building which has of floor space and can deploy an adjustable passenger ramp from the second storey. The terminal facility is reported to have cost either or to construct.
The terminal building is also regularly used as a film location. For its three years in production the CBC drama The Border used the customs facilities of the terminal as the headquarters of an elite customs and border squad.
Renting the terminal for filming costs $3,500 per day.
Toronto-Rochester Ferry
The terminal was originally built to accommodate The Spirit of Ontario I a water-jet powered big catamaran fast ferry that was to make several round trips per day between Toronto, Ontario and Rochester, New York but the ferry service only ran for six months. The Rochester firm that owned and operated the ferry had a 14-year lease on the use of the terminal that would have paid the City of Toronto $250,000 per year.The lease was terminated in December 2009 after payment of a $90,000 settlement.
Emergence as Cruise Ship Passenger Terminal
Since the demise of the fast ferry service PortsToronto has been promoting Toronto as a cruise ship destination.Cruise ships that serve American and European tourists travelling on the Great Lakes between May and October are making increasing use of the terminal as a port of call over the summer months. Indeed cruise passenger volumes at a variety of Great Lakes ports, which cumulatively had 100,000 passengers in 2018, increased between 2015 and 2019 reflecting increased touring on the Great Lakes.
Cruise ships that have made multiple ports of call over the last few years include the 420 passenger MS Hamburg, the 180 passenger MV Le Champlain and the 210 passenger MV Victory I. On October 14, 2019 the terminal processed a record 988 people when the Hamburg, the Le Champlain and their passengers and crew docked on the same day.
| Year | Vessel Calls | Total Passengers | Year Over Year Growth Rate |
| 2012 | 4 | 690 | - |
| 2013 | 9 | 2,900 | 320% |
| 2014 | 6 | 3,000 | 3.3% |
| 2015 | 13 | 5,000 | 66% |
| 2016 | 7 | 2,400 | -52% |
| 2017 | 16 | 5,600 | 133% |
| 2018 | 17 | 6,000 | 7.1% |
| 2019 | 36 | 12,000 | 100% |
Port of Toronto in Great Lakes and Canadian Cruise Ship Industry
Toronto is the largest Canadian Great Lakes passenger port but Great Lakes cruise travel is quite small in comparison to both the Atlantic and Pacific cruise industry.| Port | Vessel Calls | Total Passengers | Average PAX Per Ship | Cruise Region |
| Vancouver | 288 | 1,091,900 | 3,791 | Pacific |
| Victoria | 257 | 709,042 | 2,759 | Pacific |
| Halifax | 179 | 324,828 | 1,815 | Atlantic |
| Quebec City | 150 | 236,715 | 1,578 | Atlantic |
| Saint John, NB | 79 | 193,715 | 2,452 | Atlantic |
| Sydney, NS | 100 | 153,797 | 1,538 | Atlantic |
| Charlottetown | 87 | 128,000 | 1,471 | Atlantic |
| Montreal | 76 | 113,000 | 1,487 | Atlantic - Great Lakes |
| Saugenay | 54 | 50,000 | 926 | Atlantic |
| St. John's, NL | 30 | 32,766 | 1,092 | Atlantic |
| Sept-Iles | - | 19,000 | - | Atlantic |
| Toronto | 36 | 12,000 | 333 | Great Lakes |
Toronto is the busiest Great Lakes port that published its cruise passenger numbers in 2019. Many Great Lakes cruises begin in Chicago or Milwaukee and end in Toronto with a few heading further east to Montreal and Ponant cruise lines sailing all the way between Chicago and Quebec City.
| Port | Vessel Calls | Total Passengers | Average PAX Per Ship |
| Toronto | 36 | 12,000 | 333 |
| Cleveland | 30 | 7,250 | 240 |
| Detroit | - | - | - |
| Sault Ste. Marie | 20 | 5,000 | 250 |
| Chicago | - | - | - |
| Milwaukee | 10 | 3,200 | 320 |
| Midland | 10 | 2,000 | 200 |