SPARE A THOUGHT for anyone serving coffee in the city centre this morning…
Four cruise-liners are JAMMED into Dublin Port today – and they’ve sent some 10,000 tourists into the city centre for a look around.
It’s the busiest day ever for cruise tourism in the port, in fact.
The ships – measuring between 200 and 330 metres – all arrived in a four-hour window early this morning, between 3.30am and 7.
End-to-end, they’d measure a kilometre in length (but obviously, they’re not parked end-to-end).
Significant planning and research had to be undertaken ahead of the inaugural visit of the 333 metre MSC Splendida earlier this year – up to that point, it was the largest vessel ever to berth in the port.
One of the ships arriving today is just three metres shy of that length: the 330 metre Royal Princess. Elsewhere, the Celebrity Silhouette is 319m long, the MV Horizon is 208m and the Magellan is 222m long.
Like the MSC Splendida, both the ‘Princess’ and the ‘Silhouette’ had to reverse into the port in a complex manoeuvre coordinated by Harbour Master David Dignam and the port’s pilots, assisted by tugs Shackleton and Beaufort.
According to Dublin Port:
Cruise ship arrivals typically deliver a €100 per passenger spend, meaning an economic boost of €1.3million for the city today. These ships’ passengers originate primarily from the United States of America, France and Great Britain.
(If you want to see more of the ships – it looks like Philip Bromwell of RTÉ News is all over this one: check out their bulletins later, I’d imagine).
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