24,000 cruise passengers as five luxury ships visit in one day (From Daily Echo)
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24,000 cruise ship passengers in Southampton as port plays host to five luxury ships in one day
10:25am Wednesday 20th March 2013 in News
By Keith Hamilton, Shipping & Heritage Reporter
Queen Mary 2
MORE than 24,000 people will flood into Southampton when a total of five cruise ships call on the city on the same day this summer.
Saturday, June 8, is shaping up to be one of the busiest days of the year with vessels including P&O Cruises’ Ventura, Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2, Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Eclipse, the Mediterranean Shipping Company’s MSC Opera and Princess Cruises’ new Royal Princess all berthed in port together. More than 438,000 tons of shipping will “turn-around”, at the end of one voyage and the beginning of another, in less than 12 hours.
All of the port’s passenger terminals will be in use as thousands of vehicles ferry passengers to and from the docks, Southampton Airport and rail services will be on stand-by to handle a huge number of people while hotel rooms in and around the city will be at a premium.
Southampton shopping centre will see a major influx of crew members from the five ships and a large crowd of sight-seers are expected to flock to the waterfront, especially in the late afternoon, when four of the vessels depart from the port.
Royal Princess, which is due to arrive in Southampton on Friday, June 7, from the Italian shipyard where she is being built, will remain in port overnight before leaving on the first of two short preview voyages on Sunday, June 9. She is due to return on Tuesday, June 11 in time for her official naming ceremony events spread over the following two days.
News of this hectic day in port comes as Southampton based P&O Cruises announces details of its programme of voyages in 2014.
The company’s fleet will undertake a total of 269 cruises, visiting 218 ports-of-call, including 17 new destinations, in 77 countries.
Next year will also see P&O Cruises’ first season of summer fly/cruises in the Mediterranean together with a record breaking number of 35 short mini-voyages.
Arcadia will be the first vessel in the company’s fleet to offer single cabins featuring private balconies.
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Comments(11)
soton-mike80
says...
11:47am Wed 20 Mar 13
Bally_Hoo wrote:Oh please - the roads are always grid-locked at weekends. I was sat in a traffic jam on West Quay Road about a month ago - there was nothing on at the stadium and the cruise berths were empty!
Why do they put us through this?
The roads will be grid-locked again.
Of course In the good old days of Southampton's shipping past, 1000's of passengers largely arrived by train straight into the docks, but nowadays it's almost entirely by road. The city needs to improve rail links into the docks.
At least with all these cruise ships in dock the local economy will get a boost!
Try looking for a positive for once instead of always gravitating towards the negative!
phil maccavity
says...
11:48am Wed 20 Mar 13
The rail links into the Docks still exist and if you ever go to Central station on a busy cruise day you will see the place packed out with cruise passengers getting scheduled services.
However in the 'Good Old days' very few people had cars and direct coach services didn't exist so train was really the only option.
In addition there are annually 2-3 times as many passengers joining cruise ships compared to the 'good old days'
Bally_Hoo
says...
12:52pm Wed 20 Mar 13
soton-mike80 wrote:I would like to look at the bright side, the cruise industry is important to the city economy, but my point (which you have missed) is that this kind of publicity stunt just causes chaos, does not benefit the local economy. Not many of theses passengers will be spending money in the city shops, or hotels. It would be far better if the cruises ships would be handled separately unless the transport infrastructure can support it. Grid-locked streets (for whatever cause), costs the city money. My point is not complaining about the cruise Industry, but the lack of Infrastructure.
Bally_Hoo wrote:Oh please - the roads are always grid-locked at weekends. I was sat in a traffic jam on West Quay Road about a month ago - there was nothing on at the stadium and the cruise berths were empty!
Why do they put us through this?
The roads will be grid-locked again.
Of course In the good old days of Southampton's shipping past, 1000's of passengers largely arrived by train straight into the docks, but nowadays it's almost entirely by road. The city needs to improve rail links into the docks.
At least with all these cruise ships in dock the local economy will get a boost!
Try looking for a positive for once instead of always gravitating towards the negative!
spyware
says...
1:19pm Wed 20 Mar 13
soton-mike80 wrote:Most cruise companys now offer 'free car-parking', within the docks, for the duration of your time away, hence more vehicles on our local roads at such times.
Bally_Hoo wrote: Why do they put us through this? The roads will be grid-locked again. Of course In the good old days of Southampton's shipping past, 1000's of passengers largely arrived by train straight into the docks, but nowadays it's almost entirely by road. The city needs to improve rail links into the docks.Oh please - the roads are always grid-locked at weekends. I was sat in a traffic jam on West Quay Road about a month ago - there was nothing on at the stadium and the cruise berths were empty! At least with all these cruise ships in dock the local economy will get a boost! Try looking for a positive for once instead of always gravitating towards the negative!
phil maccavity
says...
2:00pm Wed 20 Mar 13
Bally_Hoo wrote:I don't think this is a 'publicity stunt'
soton-mike80 wrote:I would like to look at the bright side, the cruise industry is important to the city economy, but my point (which you have missed) is that this kind of publicity stunt just causes chaos, does not benefit the local economy. Not many of theses passengers will be spending money in the city shops, or hotels. It would be far better if the cruises ships would be handled separately unless the transport infrastructure can support it. Grid-locked streets (for whatever cause), costs the city money. My point is not complaining about the cruise Industry, but the lack of Infrastructure.
Bally_Hoo wrote:Oh please - the roads are always grid-locked at weekends. I was sat in a traffic jam on West Quay Road about a month ago - there was nothing on at the stadium and the cruise berths were empty!
Why do they put us through this?
The roads will be grid-locked again.
Of course In the good old days of Southampton's shipping past, 1000's of passengers largely arrived by train straight into the docks, but nowadays it's almost entirely by road. The city needs to improve rail links into the docks.
At least with all these cruise ships in dock the local economy will get a boost!
Try looking for a positive for once instead of always gravitating towards the negative!
There are plenty of multi call days within the Soton cruise calendar and generally weekends are busy days for cruise ship departures. Presumably the thrust of this argument is that the ships involved are quite large on this particular day.
I reckon that most/all of the city hotels will be full on the day before as a lot of people travel down the night before (and get free parking for the duration of their cruise as part of the package)
Taxi drivers will do well and shops will benefit from crew spend.
As another poster has said is the 'lack of infrastructure' a problem when the Christmas sales are on, when there are big football or cricket games or during the Boat Show or indeed during the early morning/late afternoon 'rush hours' which generally have an element of gridlock most working days.
SaintM
says...
3:16pm Wed 20 Mar 13
kingnotail
says...
6:03pm Wed 20 Mar 13
watchdog
says...
10:03pm Wed 20 Mar 13
aldermoorboy
says...
11:21am Thu 21 Mar 13
kingnotail
says...
12:55pm Thu 21 Mar 13
aldermoorboy wrote:Never been to any others then?
Great news, more work for Southampton, great city I love it.
Bally_Hoo says...
11:26am Wed 20 Mar 13
The roads will be grid-locked again.
Of course In the good old days of Southampton's shipping past, 1000's of passengers largely arrived by train straight into the docks, but nowadays it's almost entirely by road. The city needs to improve rail links into the docks.