Two Cruise Ships in Auckland Today

Tuesday 9th February, 2010. Here's the Dawn Princess berthed at Princes Wharf, Auckland. She's almost the biggest cruise ship that can safely berth here. She weighs about 77,000 tonnes, is 266 metres long, and her beam is 32 metres....

You can see here how she towers above the Hilton Hotel, and how her cabin dwellers can look straight across into the balconies and bedrooms of the Princes Wharf apartment owners!

Also on Tuesday 9th of February, Auckland was a Port of Call for P&O's Pacific Jewel. She had to berth at Queens Wharf. Pacific Jewel a little bit smaller than Dawn Princess. Pacific Jewel weighs in at 70,000 tonnes, is 245 metres long but has the same beam of 32 metres.

You can see both ships here. Clearly Dawn Princess has a few more stories of cabins than Pacific Jewel too! I caught the Devonport ferry at 4:00 in the afternoon. Usually a quiet crossing. This time it was packed with cruise ship visitors returning from their half day trip to Devonport. That's the main destination - believe it or not - for cruise ship passengers. Nothing much else to to do on Auckland's waterfront. That's what Queens Wharf and Quay Street and Britomart need to become. A destination. Not just a cruise ship terminal....

And here's a computer graphic of how big Queen Mary II is compared to Queens Wharf, and Auckland's waterfront to Princes Wharf. In fact she's too big to safely berth at either Queens Wharf or Princes Wharf. That's why she has to berth amongst a pile of containers at POAL's Ferguson or Bledisloe wharf. Queen Mary II weighs in at 150,000 tonnes (that's twice as heavy as Dawn Princess). And she's 345 metres long (nearly 80 metres longer than Dawn Princess). Her beam is 40 metres. She's a big, beautiful ship. It would be crazy for Auckland to spend $100 million on Queens Wharf building a cruise ship terminal - knowing that the Queen Mary II which is scheduled to visit Auckland regularly - would be too big to berth there.