The ship is sailing south from Picton to make it to Dunedin before expected bad weather.
MetService forecast rain would increase in Dunedin tomorrow and high winds, including possibly severe gales, would strike on Thursday.
Port Otago lists the ship's arrival time as 3.30pm tomorrow.
Dunedin iSITE visitor centre manager Louise van de Vlierd said the ship, the largest to have visited New Zealand, with 4905 passengers, would stay overnight and sail at 5pm on Thursday.
Shuttle buses would run to and from the city tomorrow, meaning ''big numbers of passengers around town during the late afternoon/early evening and potentially well into the evening''.
i-SITE would open at the port from 4pm to 9pm to promote and book options for the evening and next day.
She asked tourism operators and others who catered for tourists to advise the organisation, to ''allow us to be prepared to welcome the passengers as though this is what we do every day here in Dunedin''.
''The weather has worked in Dunedin's favour this time.''
The ship docked in Dunedin at the beginning of January, after forecast bad weather prompted the cancellation of its first scheduled visit in December
