Co-chair of Otago Regional Council’s Public and Active Transport Committee Andrew Noone says as the cruise ships will bring thousands of tourists to Dunedin this summer, the Council is working closely with Port Otago and the West Harbour Community Board to plan for crowding on buses.

A total of 94 cruise ships are scheduled to call into Port Chalmers and Dunedin - 81 in Port Chalmers and 13 at Dunedin’s wharves. It will be less busy than last season when 118 ships visited.

“We’ll be doing the same things we did last season to make sure there’s room for local passengers on the Port Chalmers route 14 bus. This includes providing 358 additional bus trips on route 14 on busy days when more than 2,000 cruise ship passengers arrive. Extra trips will be provided on 44 days throughout the season.”

A retail booth will again sell bus tickets to cruise passengers from the Port Chalmers Library. 

While cruise passengers are encouraged to use the private buses offered by their ships, many choose to take the public bus service. Orbus buses leaving Port Chalmers will leave room for passengers at later stops.

This season, the central city drop off and pick up point for cruise ship passengers on the Port Chalmers bus will again be outside Centre City New World in Cumberland Street.

Extra bus trips will run on 44 days throughout the season.  On these days extra services will run during our morning and afternoon “peak times”, meaning buses will run every 15 minutes on weekdays; or every 30 minutes on weekends.  

Even with extra buses running there will 21 especially busy days with more than 4000 passengers arriving either on large ships or because more than one ship is due in port. Christmas Eve is expected to be very busy as the Ovation of the Seas and a second ship are due bringing over 8000 passengers into port, and out again. 

As well as responding to very busy days, on any given day the cruise ship schedules can change due to weather conditions or other operational matters.  

“We’ll keep the community updated through alerts to the Orbus Dunedin Facebook page and the ORC website, but we’re also asking people to plan ahead and consider taking the bus at a different time than usual on the busier cruise ship days,” says Cr Noone.