NO PIER!

I've been on several cruises and a lot of ports where the ship anchored out. Cruise ships are quite capable of providing transportation between the ship and shore.

Big ships don't really need to tie up at a pier unless they need maintenance or major re-provisioning.

With modern propulsion systems, they don't even need to throw out a coral-smashing anchor. Steerable pods, laterally mounted screws, and GPS allow the ship to maintain a station-keeping mode.

Agreed, we don't need a cruise ship pier to have cruise ships.

And as an aside I wish there were more marine transportation options. I would love to be able to take a ship from say, from ZIH to LAX and be able to get on and off like a train, just catch the next one on the way back down.