Thread: Rhapsody of the Seas can't dock in Sydney

When the cruise liner Rhapsody of the Seas arrives in Sydney on Tuesday it will not dock at any of the usual shipping terminals.

They are full and the ship will instead anchor at a harbour buoy and its passengers taken to land by a smaller boat.

ABC Sydney - Cruise passengers to disembark in middle of harbour

How about that! Thanks for the interesting tidbit, Stephen.

It seems this is a first and some folks aren't sure it's safe. There is an "Opposition ports spokesman".

Thousands of cruise ship passengers will be forced to disembark at a buoy in the middle of Sydney Harbour later this week because all other shipping berths are being used.

When the cruise liner Rhapsody of the Seas arrives in Sydney on Tuesday it will not dock at any of the usual shipping terminals.

They are full and the ship will instead anchor at a harbour buoy and its passengers taken to land by a smaller boat.

Phil Rosser from the Sydney Ports Corporation says it is a first for Sydney Harbour.

"We've planned it meticulously with all of the authorities and with the cruise line involved, and if we thought there was one element of risk we wouldn't be doing this," he said.

Opposition ports spokesman Andrew Stoner says it is a worry.
"This can only be bad for the tourism industry and ultimately for the New South Wales economy," he said.

The Ports Corporation says it common practice overseas for passengers to disembark at offshore buoys.
Tags: sea-transport, nsw, sydney-2000

Isn't that called "tendering"? Just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. However, with that many ships in port at one time, it is really going to be crowded in those stores.

Having to disembark when the ship is at anchor is a bit inconvenient but a few ships does that. Mainly exploration ships.
As long as you dont have to drag your luggage with you it would be like any tender operation.

When QE2 and QM2 and QE2 and QV were there one of them docked at a navel base. The base is now closed so that is no longer an option. It seems there is only one dock on the sea side of the harbour bridge. It looks like they need a new terminal.

So did this happen today? I wonder how things went? I would think smoothly. Do you think they used ship tenders or boats used by the Port or a combination of both? There must have been some extra paperwork for someone to make this all happen smoothly.

So . . . this was NOT just a port of call, but disembarkation by tender?

Yes, it happened February 10 and it was a disembarkation port. The Rhapsody just finished a 14 night New Zealand and Australia cruise.

For the ships February 24 arrival to Sydney she is booked at a dock.

I wonder how they handled the luggage! That would make for a long disembarkation process...getting all the bags as well as the passengers off.

This is the first time I have heard of tendering for disembarkation.

I haven't heard of that heppening before, either.

No wonder there was some concern... wow!