Cruise ships

Dunedin tourism operators need to prepare for higher numbers of "budget Australian" visitors as the cruise-ship market changes, a group was told yesterday.

New Zealand is in the middle of a cruising boom and is one of the most exciting markets in the world, the head of Australia's largest cruise liner company says.

The only cruise ship passengers who might be sorry they are visiting Dunedin this weekend are shopaholics, Dunedin Visitor Centre manager Louise van de Vlierd says.

You are a passenger on board the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship and you have already done New York, San Francisco, Honolulu and Auckland. Now what would it take to persuade you to disembark at the log wharf at Port Chalmers, in the rain?

Dunedin piper Bill Swift welcomes Celebrity Century passengers James and Patricia Russell (at left) to Dunedin yesterday at Beach St wharf.

More than 7000 people, the equivalent of about 20 Boeing 747-400 passenger manifests, arrived in Dunedin on three cruise ships yesterday morning.

Passengers take in the views as the C. Columbus eases up Otago Harbour yesterday morning. The ship, which carries 420 passengers and 190 crew, is on its second visit to Dunedin.

You know when you're on a cruise ship for over 50-year-olds, Ann Waters says.

You can almost hear city retailers singing Gaudeamus igitur ("Let us rejoice").

A New Zealander now living in Australia was escorted from a cruise ship by Dunedin police and Customs officers after the ship berthed in Port Chalmers yesterday.