Busy cruise ship season ready to launch

AS the first cruise ship of the season sails towards Dunedin, the city is readying itself for a tourist tsunami of double the city’s population.

Tourism operators are busy behind the scenes preparing to accommodate a maximum of 246,000 passengers visiting on 121 liners between now and April.

It will be an increase on last season’s 89 ships and 180,000 passengers.

It all begins on Monday with newcomer Majestic Princess.

The 3560passenger ship will be the most frequent visitor this season with 13 stops.

It will join Viking Orion, Amadea and Le Laperouse as firsttime guests in the city.

The schedule includes 25 doubleship days and a tripleship day on December 8 with up to 6978 passengers.

Dunedin iSite visitor centre manager Louise van de Vlierd said the influx would be ‘‘fantastic’’ for the city.

‘‘It’s all got to be positive. We don’t have to worry about the accommodation and that’s great.’’

No double days were bigger than those from previous seasons and the schedule was spread over an extra 21 days.

There was nothing to indicate a lack of buses.

An incident last year where a lack of drivers caused long queues for buses was a ‘‘freak’’ occurrence caused by eight people being either sick or on leave at once.

However, retiring Go Bus Dunedin depot manager Colin Abbis said the growing numbers of ship passengers were edging transport close to ‘‘saturation point’’.

He did not know how the number of drivers would handle increasing demand, he said.

Larnach Castle marketing and public relations manager Deborah Price said it had strategies in place for the upcoming rush.

It would hire a minimum of eight tour guides and offer smaller tours more often to maintain a constant flow of visitors.

‘‘It’s really exciting. For a place like us, we spend a lot of money over the winter on conservation projects; the garden’s looking beautiful; we’re more than ready.’’

Dunedin Railways chief executive Craig Osborne said there were a few new hires for the cruise ship season, but mostly it came down to ‘‘developing good systems’’.

One example was installing a new chiller room to efficiently load trains each day.

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said it ‘‘just gets better’’ in terms of the increased arrivals.

‘‘More people obviously bring more spending and also exposure to the city. They tell friends if they had a good experience here.’’

The longer calendar this season would make it easier for the city to cope.

A cruise ship ‘‘action group’’ involving the council had been working since the last cruise ship left to make sure the city was ready.

‘‘Each year we learn more. The city collectively is getting better and better at it.’’