Princess Passing Makes History in Sydney
Date: 09 Jan 2008
The passing of Princess Cruises’ two premium ships, Sapphire Princess and Sun Princess made history today as the largest ever cruise ship turnaround in Sydney.
The turnaround of these two giants of the sea has seen turnover of almost 10,000 passengers in Sydney, resulting in an estimated $5 million injection into the New South Wales’ economy.
The 116,000-tonne megaliner, Sapphire Princess, is the largest ship to call into Sydney this cruising season. She docked at Circular Quay at 8am with mainly US and British passengers, before embarking for Melbourne at 9pm this evening on the first of eight 12-night cruises between Australia and New Zealand.
On each cruise arriving or departing from Sydney, Sapphire Princess will carry 2700 passengers and 1100 crew – the equivalent of 11 jumbo jet loads of travellers.
One of the largest cruise ships in the world, Sapphire Princess reaches 63 metres tall and is almost 49 metres wide, including her bridge wing. With a length of 290 metres, if Sapphire Princess was tipped on her stern (rear), the bow (front) would be 40 metres taller than the Observation Deck of Sydney Tower.
Sapphire Princess is a “big sister” to Sun Princess, the first premium cruise ship to be based in Australia full-time, offering cruises from Sydney through until April this year.
Sun Princess also called into Sydney today, where she was docked at Wharf 8 before departing at 4pm to pass her bigger sister at Circular Quay before sailing on a 10-night cruise of the South Pacific.
Sun Princess was the largest cruise ship to squeeze under the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it commenced its Australian operations in October last year.
The growing presence of Princess Cruises this season is evidence of the growing popularity of cruising amongst Australians, with more than 220,000 taking a holiday cruise in 2006.
Sapphire and Sun Princess will call at Sydney a total of twelve times between January and April, with each visit expected to inject more than $1 million into the local economy through passenger and crew spending, stores and port fees.
